Women who revolutionised the museum world

The Guardian
·1-min read
<span>‘She survived political change and bureaucratic obstruction.’ The late Irina Antonova, director of the Pushkin Museum, in April 2012.</span><span>Photograph: Alexander Zemlianichenko/AP</span>
‘She survived political change and bureaucratic obstruction.’ The late Irina Antonova, director of the Pushkin Museum, in April 2012.Photograph: Alexander Zemlianichenko/AP

In the obituary of Dame Rosalind Savill, former director of the Wallace Collection, you quote Sir Timothy Clifford, ex-head of the National Galleries of Scotland, calling her “the most distinguished woman museum director not just of this country, but the western world” (Obituary, 2 January). Without wishing to denigrate her achievements, there are other candidates. For example, Anne d’Harnoncourt, director of the Philadelphia Museum of Art from 1982 to her death in 2008, oversaw a massive building project, renovating more than 100 galleries, conserving thousands of works of art, and relighting and redisplaying the collections so that the experience of visiting was completely transformed.

Beyond the western world, how about Irina Antonova, legendary director of the Pushkin Museum in Moscow? She joined the museum in 1945 during the Stalin era, and was appointed director in 1961 by Khrushchev, remaining in the post for an unprecedented 52 years. She survived political change and bureaucratic obstruction, defied cold war politics by showing work by previously forbidden artists such as Picasso and Chagall, and brought in major exhibitions from the west, including the Treasures of Tutankhamun, not to speak of borrowing the Mona Lisa from Paris.
Julian Treuherz
Prenton, Wirral

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