Maxwell L. Anderson has been The Melvin & Bren Simon Director and CEO of the Indianapolis Museum of Art since May 2006.

 

Born and raised in Manhattan, he received an A.B. from Dartmouth College in 1977 with highest distinction in Art History, and A.M. (1978) and Ph.D. (1981) degrees in art history from Harvard University. His career began at The Metropolitan Museum of Art in 1981, serving for five years as its assistant curator of Greek and Roman Art.

 

Since 1987 he has directed a total of four art museums, including the Whitney Museum of American Art (1998-2003). During his tenure in Indianapolis the IMA has added over $30 million to its endowment through gifts and pledges; added significantly to the permanent collection, introduced multiple new practices to the museum field, and more than doubled attendance to reach some 450,000 visitors annually.

He has long advocated progressive museum practices with regard to the ethical collecting of antiquities, institutional transparency, free expression, artists’ rights, and uses of new technologies. Anderson is a former president of the Association of Art Museum Directors.

He was decorated with the rank of Commendatore (Knight Commander) in the Order of Merit of the Italian Republic in 1990, and awarded the French Republic's rank of Chevalier dans l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres (Knight in the Order of Arts and Letters) in 2010.