The Flint Institute of Arts (FIA), located in the Flint Cultural Center, has appointed Tracee J. Glab as its new executive director.
Glab, who has served as the FIA’s curator of collections and exhibitions since 2009, began the role in July. She succeeds John B. Henry, who announced his retirement this year.
“My tenure as curator at the FIA has been the most rewarding part of my museum career, and I look forward to leading the museum into the next chapter,” says Glab. “With its stellar art collection and esteemed art school in the heart of the Flint Cultural Center, I am excited to build on the strong foundation at the FIA and to engage the public in the arts in new and innovative ways.”
She has overseen more than 100 exhibitions and curated 40 exhibitions, working with the community on such exhibitions as Jerry Taliaferro’s “Women of a New Tribe” and “Sons: Seeing the Modern African American Male.”
She has worked extensively with contemporary artists, both locally and internationally. Glab also has overseen 15 publications, contributing to the 50th-anniversary book “Magnificence and Awe: Renaissance and Baroque Art in the Viola E. Bray Gallery,” among others.
Previously, she worked with current DIA Director Salvador Salort-Pons, who recommended her for the curator position at the FIA.
Glab was selected after the museum’s board of directors conducted a national search led by m/Oppenheim Executive Search, a search firm specializing in finding candidates for nonprofit leadership roles. She becomes the FIA’s fourteenth director and the first female executive director. Glab is the third woman in the highest-level leadership role since Margaret Davis and Mary Brozik led the FIA in the early 1930s.
“After meeting with several talented candidates, we believe Tracee’s knowledge of the FIA and the community, as well as her role in the expansion of the museum and collection as curator made her a perfect fit for the executive director role,” says Thomas Lillie, president of the FIA board of trustees. “The FIA is a treasured community asset, and we believe that Tracee’s vision and leadership will help expand membership, attract new visitors, and continue the growth in items in the collection and the artists represented by those works.”