Executive Director [Sheldon Swope Art Museum]

Background:  The Sheldon Swope Art Museum

In 2010 USA Today named the Sheldon Swope Art Museum, one of “10 great places to see art in smaller cities.” The Swope received this honor because it houses one of the Midwest’s finest collections of American art including paintings from the “American Regionalist” group, such as Thomas Hart Benton’s Threshing Wheat (1938-39), Edward Hopper’s Route 6, Eastham (1941), John Steuart Curry’s My Father’s Farm (1928) and Grant Wood’s Spring in Town (1941).  The Swope collection also features art from the latter half of the 20^th century with paintings and sculptures by Alexander Calder, Fairfield Porter, Moses and Raphael Soyer, Robert Motherwell, Eva Hess, Robert Rauschenberg, and Leonard Baskin, as well as screen prints by Robert Indiana (Decade Portfolio) and Andy Warhol (Marilyn Monroe).

Paintings from the collection have been loaned to some of the premier museums in the United States including the Boston Museum of Fine Arts, Corcoran Gallery (Washington, D.C.) and the Chicago Art Institute.  Recently, Hopper’s Route 6, Eastham was loaned to the Whitney Museum (New York) and singled out as a gem “from the Sheldon Swope Art Museum” in a review in the New York Times(June 7, 2013).

The museum is now in its 73^rd year. Initial funding was provided by Sheldon Swope, a local jeweler who believed that a great community needed a great art museum. The official opening in 1942 was viewed with such significance that the editor of Art Digest,traveled from New York City to Terre Haute to witness the event.  In his review he wrote, “[A] Mid-Western town [now] takes its place as one of the new art centers of America.”  Sheldon Swope’s will mandated that admission was to be free, a fact that particularly impressed the Art Digest author who wrote, “At the Swope Art Gallery, the man in overalls and the man in tails enter on an equal basis.”  This populist attitude continues to animate the mission and vision of the museum.

The museum is housed in downtown Terre Haute in a Landmark Italian Renaissance building.  An active schedule of exhibitions, lectures, special events, school tours, summer classes for children, and fundraisers generates an annual attendance of about 12,000.

Currently, the Board of Managers and the Board of Overseers are considering a capital campaign.  To that end, a feasibility study has been completed and a campaign committee chosen.

Job Description

The new executive director will join a distinguished cohort of outstanding leaders beginning with John Rogers Cox in 1942 and continuing with numerous others, including Howard E. Wooden who was responsible for the museum’s first accreditation in 1972.  Since then, the museum has been re-accredited four consecutive times, most recently in 2011.  This achievement reflects a commitment to maintaining the highest possible standards in caring for the collection as well as presenting special exhibitions and programs.

Responsibilities include maintaining and augmenting the museum’s collection as well as creating programs and special exhibitions.  Inherent in these responsibilities are the following: financial management; fundraising; engaging the community; writing grant proposals; building relationships with donors; and supervising the full-time staff of four as well as seven gallery guards and approximately 100 volunteers.

Exceptional support is provided by the devoted staff; two engaged boards (Board of Managers and Board of Overseers); and the Terre Haute community.  In addition, two groups that provide their time, talent and treasure are the Alliance, founded in 1952, and the Art Hoppers, a group of young professionals organized in 2007.

The executive director reports directly to the Board of Managers.

Job Requirements

The new director will lead the effort to increase the museum’s local, regional and national visibility, an ambitious goal that is supported – as indicated above – by the collection.  Essential to fulfilling the demands of this important position are vision, energy and creativity as well as a passionate determination to share the brilliance of the Swope Art Museum in both written and oral communication with the local community, the region and the nation. In addition, she or he must enjoy participating in the community and contributing to the continuing revitalization of the city.

Specifically, preference will be given to candidates with the following qualifications:

• an ability to communicate – both in person and on paper – with various constituencies from a variety of backgrounds;
• a commitment to the museum and the community;
• fundraising experience;
• a master’s degree in an appropriate area (preferably arts administration or art history) or the equivalent in experience;
• previous experience in a museum setting (preferably as a curator or education director);
• management and administrative experience.

The salary is $55,000 – $65,000 with benefits including health care and a retirement plan.

Interested candidates may apply by mail (Executive Director Search, Sheldon Swope Art Museum, 25 South 7^th Street, Terre Haute, IN 47807) or email (executivesearch@swope.org).  All candidates must include a letter of application, a current résumé, and contact information for at least four references.  Finalists will be expected to provide an official transcript showing their final degree.  If you have specific questions, email the Chair of the Search Committee: sheron.dailey@instate.edu.  Applications will be accepted until the position is filled.

The Community

Terre Haute is the cultural and retail center of west-central Indiana and east-central Illinois, an area known as “The Wabash Valley.”  The community, which serves an urban/rural population of nearly 400,000, is centrally located between St. Louis, Louisville, and Chicago, and is approximately 70 miles from Indianapolis.  The website www.terrehaute.com provides additional information as well as links to some of the area’s numerous opportunities and cultural activities.

Four institutions of higher learning are located in Terre Haute including Indiana State University, Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology, St. Mary-of-the-Woods College, and IVY Tech Community College.  Since Terre Haute’s founding in 1816, the city has enjoyed a distinguished and sometimes illustrious history.  As a result of the museum’s renovations in the late 1990s, it is often referred to as “The Crown Jewel of the Queen City of the Wabash Valley.” The museum also serves as the focal point of the Arts Corridor, eight blocks in the heart of downtown that lead from an award-winning public library to one of the city’s four institutions of higher learning, Indiana State University.