President of Art Institute Is Selected

John W. Lottes is the new president of the Art Institute of Southern California, replacing Russell E. Lewis, who resigned in January. Lottes, 57, has been president of the Oregon School of Arts and Crafts in Portland since 1987. He assumes his new post June 1.

From 1964 to 1983, Lottes was at the Kansas City Art Institute, where he was hired as a professor and subsequently served as dean and president. In 1983, he became president of the Minneapolis Society of Fine Arts, parent organization of the Institute of Arts, College of Art and Design, and Children’s Theater.

Lottes also has been vice president for planning and development at the Corcoran Gallery of Art in Washington and has worked as a graphics designer.

He will be the school’s fifth president in seven years.

Lewis had replaced William Otton, former director of the Laguna Art Museum, who headed the Art Institute from January, 1988, to May, 1990. J. Thomas Reeve lasted only a few months in the post after the departure of Patricia Caldwell in 1986.

The 30-year-old institute is the only art school in Orange County that awards the bachelor of fine arts degree.