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Rollins College President Brooke Barnett announced today the appointment of Leslie Anderson as the new Bruce A. Beal Executive Director of the Rollins Museum of Art (RMA). Anderson will begin her tenure on September 15.

“We are pleased to welcome Leslie Anderson as the new executive director of Rollins Museum of Art,” said Barnett. “Her impressive experience and commitment to innovation will enrich RMA for our students and visitors, and her leadership will be invaluable as we continue our plans to relocate our art collections, exhibits, and programs to downtown Winter Park.”

Anderson has served in critical roles at Seattle’s National Nordic Museum (NNM), including as chief curator and director of collections, exhibitions, and programs. Before her positions at NNM, she served as curator of European, American, and regional art for the Utah Museum of Fine Arts (UMFA) at the University of Utah.

Anderson recently received her executive MBA from Emory University. She also holds a MPhil in art history from The Graduate Center, City University, of New York as well as a MA in art history and a BA in history from the University of Florida. She conducted research at the University of Copenhagen with the support of a Fulbright Scholarship and American-Scandinavian Foundation Fellowship and traveled with an international delegation of art experts to Oslo at the invitation of the Norwegian government.

Under Anderson’s leadership, the NNM evolved into an innovative cultural institution that has collaborated with the Finnish National Gallery, Norway’s Nasjonalmuseet, and Sweden’s Nationalmuseum. The museum also garnered international acclaim for its original exhibitions and programs in publications such as American Art Review, The Art Newspaper, The Brooklyn Rail, Forbes, Hyperallergic, The Wall Street Journal, and The New York Times.

Anderson’s curatorial vision combines rigor with experimentation and is exemplified by creative exhibitions such as FLÓÐ by Jónsi, the lead vocalist of Sigur Rós. Anderson commissioned and organized FLÓÐ, which was the artist’s first museum exhibition in the U.S. and led to a 12 percent increase in NMM membership.

Building on this success, she developed Faux Flora, a multisensory exhibition featuring visual, sound, and olfactory art in collaboration with Jónsi and his sisters Inga, Lilja, and Sigurrós, who form the Fischersund Art Collective. The exhibition opened with scented concerts, featuring the legendary musician and collaborators Sin Fang and Kjartan Holm. Additional recent exhibitions include solo shows with award-winning artists Nathalie Djurberg and Hans Berg, Anne-Karin Furunes, Ginny Ruffner, and Nina Katchadourian.

Anderson’s approach to museum leadership emphasizes both accessibility and academic excellence. She has successfully developed inclusive programming that engages diverse audiences while maintaining appeal to traditional constituents, cultivated strategic partnerships, focused on serving her local communities, and recruited distinguished scholars.

She has led cross-departmental initiatives, including the reinstallation of European and American art collections at UMFA, which received the Association of Art Museum Curators Award for Excellence in 2018. More recently, she organized and co-curated Nordic Utopia? African American Artists in the 20th Century with Ethelene Whitmire, professor of African American studies at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

Supported by the Terra Foundation for American Art, Nordic Utopia? was a groundbreaking touring exhibition that assembled loans from 16 public and private collections across the Nordic region and the U.S. and traveled to the Chazen Museum of Art in Madison and Scandinavia House in New York, while meaningfully engaging Seattle’s Black community through collaborative programming.

“Leslie’s exceptional track record of transforming cultural institutions while maintaining scholarly excellence makes her the ideal leader to articulate and advance the vision of the Rollins Museum of Art, especially given her strength in contemporary art, which complements our world-class Alfond Collection,” said Rollins Provost Don Davison, who chaired the search committee. “Her ability to build meaningful partnerships across academic disciplines and her commitment to community engagement align perfectly with our institutional values and strategic goals.”

RMA features rotating exhibitions, ongoing programs, and an extensive permanent collection that spans centuries. Admission is free and the museum is open to the public year-round. Its holdings include an extensive American art collection, the only European Old Master paintings in the Orlando area, and a global contemporary collection on view both at RMA and The Alfond Inn, Rollins’ boutique hotel. In 1981, RMA became one of Florida’s first college museums to be accredited by the American Alliance of Museums.

“With its unparalleled collection of contemporary and historic art, the Rollins Museum of Art is a true treasure for both the campus and the Central Florida region,” said Anderson. “I’m thrilled to lead the forward-thinking team who will bring to life the new purpose-built facility—one point of an ‘innovation triangle’ designed to convene communities around art and ideas.”

• Rollins Museum of Art