Portland Art Museum hires new executive director

By Joseph Gallivan

The Portland Tribune, Aug 22, 2006, Updated Oct 30, 2009

Brian Ferriso

Courtesy of / Philbrook Museum of Arts

The Portland Art Museum announced Tuesday that its new executive director will be Brian Ferriso, currently executive director and chief executive officer of the Philbrook Museum of Art in Tulsa, Okla.

Ferriso (pronounced fe-REE-so) received the unanimous vote of the museum board and is expected to assume the position around the end of October. He replaces John Buchanan, who became director of the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco on Feb. 1 after 11 years in Portland.

The trim, well-dressed 40-year-old casts himself as a popularizer of fine art.

“My goal is to make art accessible to people,” he says. “But that’s not dumbing it down. I never underestimate my audience.”

His appointment looks to be good news for fans of contemporary art, of architecture and design, and also of a traditional approach to art history.

Ferriso cites his involvement in an educational show at the Philbrook about award-winning architect Cesar Pelli, which introduced Pelli to the Tulsa art community.

“I’ve become really fascinated with artists who engage in the contemporary and the architectural side of things,” he says.

Examples of this include an outdoor show at the Philbrook in which architects redefined the garden structure for the 21st century and recent shows by such contemporary artists as Cameron Martin, Josiah McElheny and video artist George Legrady.

Short-term stints

Prior to his three-year spell at the Philbrook, Ferriso spent three years at the Milwaukee Art Museum, where he rose to deputy director. Before that he spent four years at the University of Chicago’s Smart Museum of Art. Calling such spells “less than ideal” amounts of time, he says Portland will be more than a three-year commitment.

He also was strongly influenced by working at the Newark Museum, where the early-20th-century director John Cotton Dana made accessibility a priority. “Making accessible this beautiful beaux arts institution in downtown Newark, N.J., which basically has gates on it, was a challenge,” Ferriso says. “That has never been lost on me.”

Ferriso says he spoke with Portland board Chairman Marty Brantley about the cost overrun of the Mark Building expansion ($45 million, up from the original $33 million), but that he needs to understand the problem before it can be fixed. Working on that “challenge” will be a “partnership” with the board.

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