[analyse_image type=”featured” src=”https:\/\/www.artnews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/Jillian-and-Cathleen-2_photo-by-Nina-Grenga.jpg?w=1024″]<\/p>\n
\n\tFollowing the departure of Buffalo AKG Art Museum director Janne Sir\u00e9n in October, after 13 years on the job, the Upstate New York modern and contemporary art museum is turning inward for its future leaders. Today, it announced the appointment of the museum\u2019s current chief curator, Cathleen Chaffee, as the new artistic director, alongside the promotion of its deputy director, Jillian Jones, to become the next executive director. Both will start in their new roles on November 1.<\/p>\n
\n\t\u201cOver the past twelve years, Jillian Jones and Cathleen Chaffee have each had a transformative impact on this institution \u2014 the talent we needed was already here,\u201d said museum board president Alice F. Jacobs in a statement. With the double appointment, the board \u201csaw an opportunity to embrace a leadership model as ambitious as the museum itself, and as forward-looking as the moment demands,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
\n\tBoth women will be tasked with guiding the museum through the next critical phase, following its most ambitious period of growth in its 164-year history. To that end, the \u201cco-leadership\u201d dynamic was created to reflect how the museum is evolving into a \u201cmore complex institution,\u201d as it begins implementing a \u201cnew strategic plan that positions the Buffalo AKG as an agile, innovative, and globally engaged cultural institution grounded in artistic excellence and financial sustainability,\u201d stated a press release.<\/p>\n
\n\tCombined, Jones and Chaffee have over three decades of museum experience, including nearly 25 years at the Buffalo AKG. They helped navigate the museum through its well-received 2023 expansion, which cost $230 million and was overseen by Sir\u00e9n, who also led efforts to bolster the museum collection and endowment. Visitor numbers reached a record 340,000 following the museum\u2019s post-expansion reopening.<\/p>\n
\n\tSir\u00e9n\u2019s leadership, however, came under scrutiny when local media reported he used a low-interest museum loan to help finance his $710,000 home. The Erie County Comptroller\u2019s Office alleged at the time that Sir\u00e9n failed to pay off that loan, which itself raised questions for appearing \u201cto violate state laws governing nonprofit organizations,\u201d according to the Buffalo News<\/em>. His departure was announced a few months after those news reports, but a museum spokesperson told The Art Newspaper<\/em> the loan had been paid back by then, and Sir\u00e9n\u2019s decision to step down was unrelated.<\/p>\n \n\tJones, who received her Master of Arts in museum studies from George Washington University, joined the museum in 2015, following work with the philanthropy team at the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts. She has been the Buffalo AKG\u2019s deputy director since 2023, and previously served as its chief fundraising officer in her role as director of advancement. Importantly, she helped lead the museum\u2019s campaign to raise the $230 million needed for its expansion, and worked closely with the OMA architectural firm partner Shohei Shigematsu on its planning and design of the campus transformation.<\/p>\n \n\t\u201cIt is an extraordinary privilege to serve as executive director at this pivotal moment in the museum\u2019s history,\u201d said Jones in a statement. \u201cAt a time when it is increasingly easy to retreat into familiar perspectives, museums invite us to remain curious, embrace complexity, and encounter one another with openness. Artists make those moments possible.\u201d<\/p>\n \n\tChaffee received her Ph.D. from the Institute of Fine Arts, New York University, and her M.A. from the Courtauld Institute of Art, University of London. Following curatorial positions at the Yale University Art Gallery, New York\u2019s Museum of Modern Art, and the Cleveland Museum of Art, she debuted at Buffalo AKG in 2014. She has been the Buffalo museum\u2019s Charles Balbach chief curator since 2017, and has mounted their acclaimed traveling retrospective of Pop artist Marisol, who bequeathed her estate to the museum upon her death in 2016. Among others, she is credited with the alluring installation of the museum\u2019s permanent collection in its newly renovated spaces, along with an \u201cawe-inducing\u201d Clyfford Still\u00a0show in its brand new building, as described by ARTnews<\/em> Senior Editor Alex Greenberger. <\/p>\n \n\t\u201cGreat museums inherit extraordinary histories. Their responsibility, however, is always to the future,\u201d stated Chaffee. \u201cMy hope is that we continue to surprise people through the artists we champion and the conversations their work makes possible. I look forward to what the next generation of artists and audiences will ask of us.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n [analyse_source url=”https:\/\/www.artnews.com\/art-news\/news\/buffalo-akg-promotes-two-staff-to-co-lead-art-museum-1234793395\/”]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" [analyse_image type=”featured” src=”https:\/\/www.artnews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/Jillian-and-Cathleen-2_photo-by-Nina-Grenga.jpg?w=1024″] Following the departure of Buffalo AKG Art Museum director Janne Sir\u00e9n in October, after 13 years on the job, the Upstate New York modern and contemporary art museum is turning inward for its future leaders. Today, it announced the appointment of the museum\u2019s current chief curator, Cathleen Chaffee, as the new artistic […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[61,226],"class_list":["post-2061393","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics","tag-artnews-com","tag-crawlmanager"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2061393","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2061393"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2061393\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2061393"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2061393"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2061393"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}