Tampa Museum of Art has a new leader

The Tampa Museum of Art announced today the selection of Todd D. Smith as its new executive director.  "’Todd brings a wealth of experience to the position,’" says TMA board chair Raymond E. Ifert in a press release. Smith, who succeeds interim director Ken Rollins, begins at TMA on October 6. He was executive director of the Gibbes Museum of Art in Charleston, SC, until April of this year, and before that was exec director of the Knoxville Museum of Art.

The Charleston City Paper said it was a quite a shock when Smith resigned from the Gibbes earlier this year due to “a change of heart” (the City Paper’s words).

The good news for Tampa is that Smith's strengths include a strong interest in contemporary Southern art; he also reportedly left the museum in better shape financially than it was when he began his tenure.

The City Paper reports that a major reason he took the job in Charleston was that he was interested in helping them build a new facility.  Now he gets to help Tampa build theirs.

This article appears in Sep 17-23, 2008.