University faculty, museum staff, administrators and students gathered yesterday at the University Art Museum to witness the introduction of its new director, Bruce Ambler Boucher.
“It’s a great honor to have been chosen by the search committee to become the next director of the University Art Museum,” Boucher said, thanking the crowd for being indoors with him on the unseasonably warm winter afternoon.
“In Chicago we call this a spring day,” he joked.
Boucher has been the curator of European sculpture at the Art Institute of Chicago for the last seven years while also teaching at the University of Chicago. Previously, he served as an art history professor at the University College London for 24 years.
James Godfrey, a member of the Museum’s Art Advisory Board, said he is impressed with Boucher’s international experience and expertise.
“He brings a diverse knowledge of art and antiquities having worked with many other art directors and curators,” Godfrey said. “His international experience will prove to be a great benefit to the University Art Museum.”
While members of the community commended the new director on his work, Boucher, in his acceptance speech, applauded the University for sustaining and expanding its art department during a time when other university art museums in the United States are “selling the family silver,” or selling off art pieces because of economic hardships.
He also noted the important role art plays at universities.
“Art is really essential to the experience of the university,” he said noting art gives academics “a way to look at our surroundings; to make the familiar strange and the strange familiar.”
Art Department Chair Lawrence Goedde, who helped to select Boucher as director, explained that Boucher met and exceeded the search committee’s standards.
“We developed criteria that we were looking for in a museum director: the kind of person with the right kind of academic expertise, the right kind of museum expertise, [and who] demonstrated leadership ability,” Goedde said.
After narrowing down the search for a new director from 12 to five candidates, the search committee unanimously chose Boucher.
“He has exactly the combination of qualities that we look for in an art director,” Goedde said.
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