Kevin Consey, director of the former Newport...

Kevin Consey, director of the former Newport Harbor Art Museum from 1983-’89, has announced he will step down in September as director and CEO of the Museum of Contemporary Art in Chicago to teach and consult.

In his eight years at MCA, Consey led a $72.5-million campaign to construct, operate and endow a new 220,000-square-foot facility designed by German architect Josef Paul Kleihues. The building opened in June, 1996.

At Newport Harbor (now the Orange County Museum of Art), he had led a similar $50-million building and endowment campaign for a facility designed by Italian architect Renzo Piano. But the project bogged down after Consey’s November, 1989, departure for Chicago. Newport Harbor’s board dismissed Piano the following summer and in early 1992 suspended building plans indefinitely. Consey’s successor, Michael Botwinick, supervised a $1.8-million building renovation, the first phase of which was completed early this year.

Consey said in a statement that his plans include earning an MBA from Kellogg Graduate School of Management at Northwestern University and working as a consultant and teacher.

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Compiled by Ken Williams