Brian Kennedy (gallery director)

Brian Patrick Kennedy (born 5 November 1961) is an Irish-born art museum director who works internationally. He is currently the Director of the Toledo Museum of Art in Ohio. He was the Director of the Hood Museum of Art from 2005 to 2010, and the National Gallery of Australia (Canberra) from 1997-2004.

Brian Kennedy currently lives and works in the United States after leaving Australia in 2005 to direct the Hood Museum of Art at Dartmouth College. In October 2010 he became the ninth Director of the Toledo Museum of Art.

The Toledo Museum of Art is known for its exceptional collections of European and American paintings and sculpture, glass, antiquities, artist books, Japanese prints and netsuke. The Museum offers free admission and is recognized for its historical leadership in the field of art education. During his tenure, Kennedy has focused the Museum’s art education efforts on visual literacy, which he defines as "learning to read, understand and write visual language." Initiatives have included baby and toddler tours, specialized training for all staff, docents, volunteers and the launch of a website, www.vislit.org. In November 2014, the Museum hosted the International Visual Literacy Association (IVLA) conference, the first Museum to do so. Kennedy has been a frequent speaker on the topic, including 2010 and 2013 TEDx talks on visual and sensory literacy.

Kennedy has expressed an interest in expanding the Museum’s collection of contemporary art and art by indigenous peoples. Works by Frank Stella, Sean Scully, Jaume Plensa, Ravinder Reddy and Mary Sibande have been acquired. In addition, the Museum has made major acquisitions of Old Master paintings by Frans Hals and Luca Giordano.

During his tenure the Toledo Museum of Art has announced the return of several objects from its collection due to claims the objects were stolen and/or illegally exported prior being sold to the Museum. In 2011 a Meissen sweetmeat stand was returned to Germany followed by an Etruscan Kalpis or water jug to Italy (2013), an Indian sculpture of Ganesha (2014) and an astrological compendium to Germany in 2015.

Kennedy became Director of the Hood Museum of Art in July 2005. During his tenure, he implemented a series of large and small-scale exhibitions and over saw the production of more that 20 publications to bring greater public attention to the museum's remarkable collections of the arts of America, Europe, African, Papua New Guinea and the Polar regions. At 70,000 objects, the Hood has one of the largest collections on any American college of university campus. The exhibition, Black Womanhood: Images, Icons, and Ideologies of the African Body, toured several US venues. Kennedy increased campus curricular use of works of art, with thousands of objects pulled from storage for classes annually. Numerous acquisitions were made with the museum's generous endowments, and he curated several exhibitions: including Wenda Gu: Forest of Stone Steles: Retranslation and Rewriting Tang Dynasty Poetry, Sean Scully: The Art of the Stripe, and Frank Stella: Irregular Polygons.

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