Museum staff bios

Bruce Ambler Boucher
Director, March 1, 2009 to present

		Photo: Dan Addison/U.Va. Public Affairs

Bruce Ambler Boucher, an architectural historian and museum curator, who has divided his career between education, scholarship and museum administration, will become the director of the University of Virginia Art Museum on March 1. He currently is the curator of European sculpture at the Art Institute of Chicago, a position he has held since 2002.

Boucher's career as an architectural historian, educator and museum curator spans more than 35 years. During his years at the Art Institute, he oversaw a staff of 10 and raised funds for acquisitions and exhibits. In addition, Boucher is an expert on the 16th-century Italian architect Andrea Palladio, whose work has had profound influence on the architecture of the Western world. Thomas Jefferson studied Palladio's work in preparation for his design of U.Va.'s Academical Village.

Boucher is the author of numerous books, among them "Andrea Palladio: The Architect in His Time," and he lectures widely on Palladio as well as Italian artists such as Donatello, Tintoretto and others, with a focus on the artists working in the Renaissance and Baroque periods. He was chief curator of the exhibition, "Earth and Fire: Italian Terracotta Sculpture from Donatello to Canova," which was shown at the Museum of Fine Arts in Houston and Victoria and Albert Museum in London in 2001-2002. He also co-authored the exhibition catalog.

Prior to joining the Art Institute, Boucher taught art history at University College London for 24 years. He also spent two years as visiting member of the Research Department of the Victoria and Albert Museum in London, between 2000-2002. During his tenure at the Art Institute, Boucher taught at the University of Chicago, and he lectures regularly at institutions around the country and abroad.

This year he lectured in Vicenza, Italy, at a symposium marking the 500th anniversary of Palladio's birth. He has also spoken on Palladio's villas at New York's Institute of Classical Architecture and most recently at a symposium on Palladio at Notre Dame University.

Boucher earned his B.A., magna cum laude in Classics and English from Harvard University and a B.A., M.A., in English Language and Literature at Magdalen College, Oxford University as a Rhodes Scholar. Before entering Oxford, he traveled to Italy and fell in love with the art and architecture. This event led him to change his course of research. After Oxford he went on to earn a M.A. with distinction at the Courtauld Institute of Art, University of London, and then a Ph.D. there with a thesis on the Venetian sculpture of the architect Jacopo Sansovino.

Boucher serves on numerous professional organizations and advisory committees. He has received various honors, including a fellowship at the prestigious Harvard Center for Renaissance Studies at the Villa I Tatti, the Alexander von Humbolt Fellowship, and the Salimbeni Prize for his monograph, "The Sculpture of Jacopo Sansovino." He also was a guest scholar at the J. Paul Getty Museum and served as guest curator on the research department of the Victoria and Albert Museum from 2000 to 2002.

Elizabeth Hutton Turner
Vice Provost for the Arts; Interim Director, January 2008 to February 2009

Elizabeth Hutton Turner is the University's first vice provost of the arts and also serves as interim director of the University of Virginia Art Museum. Turner is the former senior curator of The Phillips Collection in Washington, D.C. During her 18-year tenure at The Phillips Collection and as a member of their senior staff, Turner was involved in developing the strategic plan for the expansion of the Phillips and for the creation of its Center for the Study of Modern Art. She directed exhibits and wrote extensively on Wassily Kandinsky, Paul Klee, Jacob Lawrence, Joan Miró, Piet Mondrian, Man Ray and Alfred Stieglitz. Turner serves on the advisory board for the Alexander Calder Foundation and is currently working on a biography of Calder. She is a native of Charlottesville and a member of the U.Va. family, having completed all of her degrees (B.A., M.A. and Ph.D.) at the University.

Matthew Affron
Curator of Modern Art
Associate Professor of Art History, McIntire Department of Art, University of Virginia

Matthew Affron is curator of modern art at the University of Virginia Art Museum and associate professor in the McIntire Department of Art. He most recently organized the exhibition Fernand Léger: Contrasts of Forms (2007). Affron's publications deal with diverse aspects of the work of Léger, French art and politics in the 1920s and 1930s, and the emigration of artists from Europe to the United States during the Second World War. His current project is an exhibition about the American artist Joseph Cornell and Surrealism. Affron is a co-curator of Matisse, Picasso, and Modern Art in Paris and general editor of the exhibition's catalogue.

Anna E. von Gehr
Director of Development for the U.Va Art Museums

Anna von Gehr joined the University in August as the Director of Development for the U.Va Art Museums. She will serve as the chief development officer for the University Art Museum and the Kluge-Ruhe Aboriginal Art Museum.

Anna previously served as the Director of Development for the College at Washington and Lee University. In that role, she managed the campaign priorities for the more than 50 departments and programs housed in the College. Although she has experience in major gift fundraising at the University level, her passion and expertise clearly lies with museums.

Anna has worked as the Major Gifts and Planned Giving Manager at the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts in Richmond and as the Major Gifts and Planned Giving Coordinator at the Oakland Museum of California. She earned her masters in Museum Studies from San Francisco State University with an emphasis in Non-profit Management and Development.

Development work is a natural fit for Anna’s personality and interests. She is passionate about the arts and the role museums play in our world. She will be a strong advocate for the University’s museums.