The News Tribune - Art museum gets a new boss

The News Tribune - Art museum gets a new boss (print): "Art museum gets a new boss

Director with national gallery credentials will head Tacoma institution

JEN GRAVES; The News Tribune
Last updated: March 1st, 2005 03:25 PM (PST)
Stephanie Stebich, the 39-year-old protégé of charismatic, influential museum directors in Cleveland and Minneapolis, is coming to Tacoma to strike out on her own.

On Monday, the board of trustees voted unanimously to name Stebich the 10th executive director in Tacoma Art Museum’s history. She replaces Janeanne Upp, who left TAM to join her husband in Idaho in July, after a five-year tenure during which the new, $22 million Antoine Predock-designed facility opened in 2003.

Stebich won the post from a hefty pool of 200 applicants, culled by the Connecticut-based search firm Management Consultants for the Arts. The job pays $125,000, said TAM vice president Judith Nilan.

Stebich starts in early April – doing work she has prepared to do her entire career.

“I just feel incredibly lucky, and it just seems like a wonderful fit,” Stebich said. “The building is a knockout. It’s got a wonderful reputation. It’s a very community-centered institution, and it wants to be even more so.”

Stebich (pronounced “stee-bish”) has an impressive resume.

She has spent more a decade in museums working up to assistant directorships at institutions more than five times the size of TAM: the Cleveland Museum of Art and, most recently, the Minneapolis Institute of Arts, where she was third in charge.

No less than Minneapolis Mayor R.T. Rybak sang her praises Monday.

“She’s smart, she’s accessible, she’s creative,” Rybak said in a phone interview. “There are folks in the arts who have great intellect, and others who are great with the community. She’s the rare person who has both.”

In describing Stebich, colleagues repeat the words “bright,” “effervescent” and “energetic.”