Graham Beal
Detroit Institute of Arts Director Graham W. J. Beal, who retires at the end of the month after nearly 16 years, says he has some regrets about leaving with some unfinished business, but he's grateful about the state of the museum.
"Overall, I leave with an unfamiliarly deep sense of satisfaction that the DIA makes a difference again: locally, nationally and internationally, to scholars and nonspecialists alike," Beal writes in a newsletter column distributed Tuesday, likely his last as director.
"As is seen so vividly in the current Diego/Frida show, art and life are not separate but tightly connected and motivated by a passion that does not stop."
The director, now 67, came to the DIA in 1999 after serving briefly as director of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art.
Beal thanks many folks:
First, DIA staff: my many colleagues whose loyalty, determination, and expertise helped me in so many ways in the transformation of the DIA into a new and forward-looking place.
Second, the volunteers: from board members to gallery assistants and from auxiliary leaders to office aides, they represent a force that gives the museum reach and power multiple times its annual operating budget.
Third, the many patrons: private individuals, foundations, and businesses who have generously supported the DIA through the truly challenging first fifteen years of this century. Then there are all the individuals in the political realm--many elected officials, many not--who helped steer the DIA through its successful millage campaign. Wherever I travel in the world, there is amazement verging on disbelief that such a thing was possible in these days of, it seems, unrelenting belt-tightening. Finally, there are those who helped stave off the sale of DIA art during the city bankruptcy--some lawyers, some not; some politicians, some not--and made the DIA the embodiment of "that which does not kill you, makes you stronger."
He goes on to say that "for most of my career I had the priceless privilege of doing work that was exactly what I wanted to do, pay check or not. And while that was not really the case during the millage campaign and the bankruptcy crisis, I like to think that remaking the DIA lies at the core of our new lease on life."