New director of Hagerstown museum is eager to begin

Lane to start at Washington County Museum of Fine Arts on Aug. 1

April 17, 2008|By JOSHUA BOWMAN

WASHINGTON COUNTY -- Rebecca Massie Lane has been hired as the new director of the Washington County Museum of Fine Arts effective Aug. 1.

"I am eager to begin," Lane said in a press release accepting the position. "I look forward to learning more about Washington County, to meeting people in the community and to developing arts programming that will uplift and inspire. I'm very honored to have been selected as the next director of the Washington County Museum of Fine Arts."

Lane currently is the director of the Sweet Briar (Va.) College Museums and Galleries, and also is an associate professor and program director of arts management at the college.

"We are very excited about her coming to the museum," said William G. Plavcan, president of the museum's Board of Trustees. "She seems to mesh very well with the board."

The museum has not had a director since April 2007, when the board decided not to extend the contract of then-director Joseph T. Ruzicka.

Lane received a B.A. and M.A. in art history from the University of Virginia. She previously was director of the Knoxville (Tenn.) Museum of Art, and held curatorial positions at the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts in Richmond, Va.

As director of the Sweet Briar College Museums and Art Galleries, Lane oversees the development of the permanent collection of art, organizes some 12 to 14 exhibitions each year and provides educational outreach programs to area third- and fifth-graders, as well as youngsters during the summer "Kids in College" program.

She also coordinates the work of the Sweet Briar Friends of Art, an association of alumnae who support the acquisition of new works of art for the collection.

Lane recently organized a major arts lecture series to commemorate the first 20 years of the Sweet Briar College Anne Gary Pannell Center Art Gallery.

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