NEWPORT, RI.- Edwin G. Fischer, M.D., President of the Board of Directors of the Redwood Library & Athenæum, announced the appointment of Benedict Leca, Ph.D., as its new Executive Director, effective January 15, 2015, following a competitive national search. “This is tremendous news for the Redwood,” stated Dr. Fischer, “An expert in 18th-century art, history, and material culture, Benedict is uniquely qualified to move the Library into the national spotlight as a center of thought and culture. He has a wealth of experience and is extremely well-suited to lead this 268-year old cultural institution.”

As Executive Director, Leca will articulate and advance the Redwood’s historic mission as a hybrid cultural institution with “nothing in view but the good of mankind.” Building on the Redwood’s unique position as a catalyst for dialogues about education across periods and disciplines, Leca’s work will focus on fully realizing the opportunities inherent to the athenæum model through an expanded array of public programs, forums, and exhibitions—both on-site and on-line—that will foster networks of intellectual exchange locally, regionally, and around the world.

Prior to his current tenure at the Art Gallery of Hamilton, Ontario, as Chief Curator and Director of Curatorial Affairs (2012-14), Leca was Curator of European Painting, Sculpture and Drawings at the Cincinnati Art Museum. He was the first Andrew Mellon Post-Doctoral Fellow in the French Paintings department at the National Gallery of Art in Washington (2003-2007), and served on the staff of the Fogg Art Museum, Harvard University (1999-2000). Mr. Leca also currently holds the position of Adjunct Assistant Professor of Art History in the School of the Arts, McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario.

Mr. Leca has curated many important exhibitions: Charles-Nicolas Cochin: Draftsman of the Enlightenment (2003); Rembrandt: Three Faces of the Master (2008); Thomas Gainsborough and the Modern Woman (2010—2011); Monet in Giverny: Landscapes of Reflection (2012); The Painter Pictured: French Nineteenth-Century Paintings and Portrait Photographs (2013); the current The World is an Apple: The Still Lifes of Paul Cézanne, executed in partnership with the Barnes Foundation, Philadelphia (2014-15), and the forthcoming Illuminations: Italian Baroque Masterworks in Canadian Collections to be held at the Art Gallery of Hamilton and the Art Gallery of Alberta, Edmonton, in 2015.

In addition to organizing landmark exhibitions, Mr. Leca has lectured and published widely on 18th- and 19th-century portraiture, print culture, and the history of the book, and has completed a number of significant translations. He has been the recipient of numerous grants and awards, primarily for research, exhibitions, and catalogues. His exhibition Thomas Gainsborough and the Modern Woman was selected as an Art Critic’s Pick: top ten exhibitions for the year 2011 by the Los Angeles Times, and in that same year he was awarded the Association of Art Museum Curator’s award for the best essay of the year.

About his appointment, Leca stated, “As a dix-huitièmiste, it is hard for me to explain the charge felt when walking into an institution that is a direct, unbroken link to the 18th-century public sphere and ‘republic of letters,’ notions that have been so important to my research. The Redwood exemplifies the prescience and progressive thinking of our 18th-century forebears, who understood the need for a communal place devoted to learning and aesthetic contemplation of all kinds: in that sense the Redwood figures at the center of current debates addressing the mission(s) proper to museums in today’s shifting cultural landscape. Meanwhile, the board and staff have been so welcoming, and are so evidently dedicated—it’s just a thrill for me to be returning to Rhode Island. I can’t wait to get started.”

Mr. Leca received his Ph.D. in the History of Art at Brown University in 2004 with a specialization in 18th-century French painting and printmaking, and his M.A. in the History of Art specializing in ancient art at the University of Texas in 1994, from where he received his B.A. in English Literature.