Guggenheim N.Y. appoints new director

Lisa Dennison, a 27-year veteran of the Guggenheim organization who was recently courted for a prominent post at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, will succeed the outspoken Thomas Krens as director of New York’s Guggenheim Museum.

Dennison, 52, currently deputy director and chief curator for the museum, will take over as director Oct. 1 while continuing to serve as chief curator for the Guggenheim museums worldwide.

Krens, who for 17 years led both the New York museum and the Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation -- which also operates museums in Bilbao, Spain; Berlin; Venice; and Las Vegas -- will continue to oversee the other museums as director of the foundation. Dennison will continue to report to Krens.

“Tom is still the chief artistic officer, so to speak, of the organization,” Dennison told The Times. “We have very different strengths; he is certainly out there on the international scene, and I’ll step back from that a bit.”

Dennison’s assignment to focus on the management of the New York museum raised questions as to whether the move was aimed at mitigating recent criticism leveled at Krens for overspending for worldwide expansion.

In January, philanthropist Peter B. Lewis, chairman of the Progressive Corp. auto insurance company in Cleveland, resigned as chairman of the New York museum, saying he disagreed with Krens’ focus on international expansion. A trustee since 1993, Lewis had become the museum’s top benefactor, contributing $77 million over the years.

Krens did not return a call for comment on Dennison’s appointment.

Dennison confirmed having talks with Eli Broad, LACMA’s most powerful trustee and biggest donor, about “various positions” at the county museum. LACMA’s longtime director, Andrea Rich, announced in early April that she would step down effective in November. Rich cited power struggles with some board members among her reasons.

Before Rich’s announcement, Dennison was among those Broad had approached about a newly created position of deputy director to oversee LACMA’s planned facility for contemporary art. The building is to be named for Broad, who has pledged the money to fund it as well as other contemporary art programs.

LACMA officials were unavailable for comment Wednesday, but Broad confirmed conversations with Dennison about the deputy director’s job. He added that Dennison would have made “a great director for LACMA. She did a magnificent job at the Guggenheim. She was publicly overshadowed by Tom Krens, but she is really the one who has been running all the curatorial activities around the world.”

Dennison, a Wellesley College graduate, holds a master’s degree in art history from Brown University. She said she began at the Guggenheim as an intern and in 1978 took an “$8,000-a-year entry-level position as a curatorial assistant.”