Clark Art Institute names Esther Bell as director

Esther Bell, the Clark Art Institute's current deputy director and chief curator, will become the museum’s director on July 1 at the Clark Art Institute in Williamstown, Mass. She will be the museum’s first female director. Bell joined the Berkshires museum in 2017. Before working at the Clark, she was a curator at the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco and the Cincinnati Art Museum.

"It’s my dream job," she said in an interview. Denise Littlefield Sobel, chair of the museum’s board of trustees, said the appointment was a vote of confidence in the Clark’s current condition: "We did not want a change agent. Things are going well." Bell will succeed Olivier Meslay, who announced his departure last year and will have been in the job for 10 years.

Meslay called Bell "a real scholar," saying, "She takes her analysis a little further. She’s always a step beyond." Bell has been involved in major projects at the museum, including helping to select and bring aboard a gift of 331 artworks and $45 million from the collector Aso O.

Tavitian. A significant portion of that money is going toward building a new wing to house the art, scheduled to be completed in 2028.

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