THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, February 12, 1995 TAG: 9502100077
SECTION: DAILY BREAK PAGE: E10 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY CAROL VOGEL, NEW YORK TIMES
LENGTH: Medium: 76 lines
THOMAS N. ARMSTRONG III, the founding director of the Andy Warhol Museum in Pittsburgh, announced his resignation last week, effective March 1. The news surprised many in the art world, because the museum has been open for only nine months.
Armstrong's actions also might startle those who attended his lecture last month in Williamsburg. On Jan. 24, the Portsmouth native gave an enthusiastic slide talk in connection with a Warhol show at the College of William and Mary's Muscarelle Museum of Art.
After his talk, he told a reporter he found his job ``very fulfilling in terms of being in charge of bringing to the public this artist, and being responsible for the interpretation of the artist in the museum, with my staff.''
The announcement was issued jointly by Armstrong and the Carnegie Institute, which manages the museum as an independent entity affiliated with the Carnegie Museum of Art. Armstrong's office said he did not want to comment on his resignation.
Ellsworth Brown, president of the Carnegie Institute, said Monday: ``It was a mutual decision. Tom did the first phase, and he did it beautifully. Now it's time to move on. It's a natural evolution for a new place.''
Besides the Carnegie Institute, which paid for the building and oversees its operations, collaborators in the museum project include the New York-based Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, which donated about 3,000 works of art and its archival material, and the Dia Center for the Arts in New York City, which donated a core collection of 60 early Warhol paintings and 80 drawings.
Housed in a renovated warehouse on the North Side of Pittsburgh, the city where Warhol grew up, it is the largest museum in the country dedicated to a single artist.
Since its inception, the museum has had tense relations with the Andy Warhol Foundation of the Visual Arts, whose vast art holdings the museum would like to have in their entirety, and the Carnegie Institute, which holds the purse strings, though nobody involved would say whether these frictions figured in Armstrong's resignation.
``Relationships have been up and down over time,'' said Brown. ``This was just simply one of those things that happens.''
At its opening weekend last May, some 25,000 people from all over the world visited the museum. It has reported attendance of more than 100,000 visitors in the months since then.
The museum has always had ambitious fund-raising goals. It began with a target of $20 million for its endowment and $15.4 million for the cost of the building, including the renovation. So far, $13.8 million has been pledged to the Carnegie Institute to cover the cost of the building and $1.7 million has been pledged toward the museum's endowment.
Raising money isn't easy for any museum these days, but for a new institution like the Andy Warhol Museum it is tougher still. ``Fund-raising is generally tough work for every museum,'' said Archibald L. Gillies, president of the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts. ``They've done well, but like all new ventures the museum is going to have to prove its success over time.''
Armstrong, who was dismissed from the Whitney Museum of American Art nearly five years ago after 15 years as its director, will continue to be affiliated with the Andy Warhol Museum in an advisory capacity, officials said.
A replacement for Armstrong has not yet been found, Brown said, adding, ``Until we talk to our joint venture partners it's too early to say.'' Meanwhile, he said, the Carnegie Institute will make sure the museum continues its plans, which include an exhibition of Warhol's work that is scheduled to be held at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Tokyo in April 1996. MEMO: Staff writer Teresa Annas contributed to this report. ILLUSTRATION: Photo
Thomas N. Armstrong III is a native of Portsmouth.
by CNB