Blaffer Gallery director Terrie Sultan announced today that she will leave the museum in April 2008 to assume the directorship of the Parrish Art Museum in Southampton, NY. "She got an offer she couldn’t refuse," explained Blaffer curator Claudia Schmuckli (the offer, we hear from another source, includes a lovely 4-bedroom house in the Hamptons with a studio for her husband, artist and Glasstire contributing editor Christopher French). The Parrish, on Long Island, is a collecting institution, and is planning a $70 million expansion, which Sultan will oversee. “Personally, my time in Houston has been extremely rewarding,” Sultan said.
A committee led by Dean Antel and Russell Sherrill, the Blaffer Gallery advisory board chairman, will conduct a national search for Sultan’s replacement. In the meantime, Blaffer has hired a new deputy director. David Vollmer, most recently of the Sheldon Swope Museum in Terra Haute, Indiana, is expected to keep things running after he starts on February 6.