New York University President John Sexton and Provost David McLaughlin today announced the appointment of Patricia Lee Rubin as the new Judy and Michael Steinhardt Director of NYUs renowned Institute of Fine Arts (IFA), its distinguished center for research and graduate study for the history or art, archaeology, conservation, and museum curatorship. Rubins appointment becomes effective September 1, 2009.
Rubin is currently professor, deputy director of the Courtauld Institute of Art in London and the head of its Research Forum.
John Sexton said, The Institutes peerless reputation derives from its unmatched ability to attract top scholars, and the appointment of Patricia Rubin as the new Judy and Michael Steinhardt Director of the IFA exemplifies this tradition. In addition to her impressive leadership abilities and extraordinary reputation as a scholar, teacher, and mentor, Dr. Rubin has created one of the worlds most highly regarded advanced research programs in art history, the Courtauld Institutes Research Forum. Her work there has been distinguished by an extensive, admired record of programming and publication and by the involvement of graduate students in key aspects of the Forums operations. We welcome her to the NYU community with great pleasure and pride.
I want to thank Mariët Westermann, who has led the IFA with such skill, elegance, and vision since her appointment in 2002, and Michele Marincola who took on the assignment of interim director when Mariët was appointed NYUs Vice Chancellor for Regional Campus Development
Finally, I thank the search committee, and in particular its chair, Dr. Thomas Crow; their hard work was indispensable in identifying and recruiting a director of Pat Rubins caliber.
Judy Steinhardt, chairman of the IFAs Board of Trustees, said Pat Rubin is an exciting choice for this moment in the IFAs history. Her experience as a leader at the Courtauld Institute, whose mission parallels the Institute of Fine Arts in so many ways, makes her the ideal next director of our renowned graduate program in art history, archaeology, and conservation.
David McLaughlin, NYUs Provost, said, Academic excellence is inextricably intertwined with outstanding academic leadership; that is why we are so fortunate to be able to make this appointment. Dr. Rubins lifelong commitment to studying and teaching from original works of art corresponds with the IFAs longtime leadership in its object-based methodologies. Moreover, her previous management expertise together with her experience as a successful fund raiser will help the IFA to continue its leadership role in defining the future of art history, archaeology, and conservation in todays challenging climate.
Rubin, an internationally acclaimed scholar of Italian Renaissance art and literature, began teaching at the Courtauld Institute in 1979, and was appointed deputy director and Head of the Research Forum in 2004. In 1997 she served as acting director of the Harvard University Center for Renaissance Studies in Florence (Villa I Tatti). She has also been visiting professor there and at the Kunsthistorisches Institut in Florence.
Rubin is the author of numerous books and articles, including: Giorgio Vasari. Art and History (Yale University Press, 1995), an influential reconsideration of the painters art and writing which won the prestigious Eric Mitchell Prize, and Images and Identity in Fifteenth-century Florence (Yale University Press 2007), an interdisciplinary exploration of the social dynamics of images, among others. She has collaborated on a number of museum exhibitions in the United Kingdom and the United States, including Renaissance Florence: The Art of the 1470s at the National Gallery, London.
She received her B.A., summa cum laude from Yale University in 1975, where she was elected to Phi Beta Kappa. She was awarded an M.A. with distinction from London University, Courtauld Institute of Art in 1978, and her Ph.D. from Harvard University in 1986.
Founded in 1932, The Institute of Fine Arts is a center of graduate training and research in art history, archaeology, and conservation. The Institute has a permanent faculty unrivalled in the breadth and depth of its expertise and unparalleled in the range of its adjunct lecturers from top museums, research institutes, and conservation studios. The Institute has conferred more than 1600 degrees, and its alumni hold leadership roles as professors, curators, museum directors, archaeologists, conservators, critics, and institutional administrators throughout the U.S. and internationally.