A real loss for the museum community.
Robert Bergman, 53, Head of Cleveland Museum of Art
By William Honan, NY Times
Robert P. Bergman, director of the Cleveland Museum of Art since 1993 and a
nationally recognized spokesman for arts institutions, died Thursday at
University Hospitals in Cleveland. He would have been 54 on May 17.
Bergman died after a two-week illness with a rare blood disorder, said
William Prenevost, a spokesman for the museum. He was admitted to University
Hospitals on April 26.
Though not as well known as Sherman E. Lee, who directed the museum from 1958
to 1983 and built it into one of the world's leading showplaces of Asian art,
Bergman participated widely in national cultural affairs and published and
lectured widely on subjects ranging from medieval art and architecture to the
role of museums in contemporary society.
And he was an enthusiast. "This is a good time for museums," he told Judith
H. Dobrzynski of The New York Times in 1997. When he had left a promising
academic career at Harvard 16 years previously, he recalled, "I got a lot of
pats on my shoulder from my colleagues -- a lot of 'Poor Bob, there he goes
to dust off the sarcophagi.' Museums were on a trajectory to be
marginalized."
But the '90s were shaping up to be a golden age of art museums.
Asked whether that popularity could be a corrupting influence, Bergman
acknowledged the problem. "We'll be under pressure to increase revenues," he
said.
But he added that he was more concerned about the shrinking and graying of
the art-literate audience. "Kids are not getting exposed to music and art,"
he said.
Bergman was immediate past chairman of the board of the American Association
of Museums, the largest national association of museums and museum
professionals, which held its annual meeting in Cleveland last week. He
served as president of the Association of Art Museum Directors and was
immediate past-chairman of the board of the American Arts Alliance, the
lobbying group for a wide variety of art organizations.
While director of the Cleveland Museum, Bergman saw annual attendance rise
from more than 400,000 to more than 600,000.
The major shows at the museum that he oversaw included "Pharaohs: Treasures
of Egyptian Art from the Louvre," "Faberge in America," and "Vatican
Treasures: Early Christian, Renaissance and Baroque Art from the Papal
Collections." Bergman served as co-curator of the last of these.
In addition, he guided the renovation or reinstallation of 30 of the museum's
70 galleries, changed the annual financial deficits into surpluses, and
completed a new mission statement.
He also helped to arrange for acquisitions in all areas, including
masterpieces like Annibale Carracci's painting "Boy Drinking," a 13th-century
Pisan altar cross, Constantinian gold jewelry, a pair of fourth-century Maya
ceramic figures, Renaissance armor by Pompeo della Cesa and Andy Warhol's
"Marilyn x 100."
Bergman served as chairman of the Cleveland Cultural Coalition and on the
board of trustees of the Greater Cleveland Growth Association. He was adjunct
professor of art at Case Western Reserve University.
Born in Bayonne, N.J., in 1945, Bergman received a bachelor's degree from
Rutgers University and a master's degree and Ph.D. from Princeton University.
A specialist in medieval art and architecture, he received Fulbright and
Guggenheim fellowships.
From 1971 to 1981, he pursued an academic career, most notably as associate
professor of fine arts at Harvard University.
He served as director of the Walters Art Gallery in Baltimore from 1981 to
1993 when he was recruited by the Cleveland Museum.
Bergman is survived by his wife, Marcelle, and a daughter, Margaret, both of
Cleveland Heights; a brother, Edward, and his mother, Ethel, both of
Princeton, N.J.
A memorial service will be held at the museum at 2 p.m. on May 15.
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