SEATTLE, WA.- The Board of Trustees of the Frye Art Museum announced today that Joseph Rosa has been appointed the Frye's Director and Chief Executive Officer, effective October 1, 2016. Rosa joins the Frye from the University of Michigan Museum of Art (UMMA) in Ann Arbor, where he has been director since 2010.

“We are delighted that Joe will lead the Frye into its next chapter, delivering wonderful exhibitions and community programs,” said Douglas D. Adkins, President of the Frye's Board of Trustees. “Joe has a long and laudable track record of strong administration and scholarship at preeminent museums. “

“The Frye has benefitted from a history of exceptional directors. The Trustees conducted a national search for a new director to continue this tradition and to build on the scholarship and creativity of JoAnne Birnie Danzker's seven years of leadership and her record of organizing groundbreaking contemporary and international exhibitions.”

“I am truly honored to be the new Director and CEO of the Frye Art Museum,” said Joe Rosa. “Thanks to the work of Jo-Anne Birnie Danzker and her team, the Frye is a beloved museum in the community. My family and I are very much looking forward to becoming part of the Seattle community. We have relatives in the area and have been visiting for the past fifteen years. I look forward to building on Jo-Anne's accomplishments and leading the Frye into its very bright future.”

While serving as Director at UMMA, Rosa oversaw the expansion of the Museum's curatorial vision, outreach into the campus and local community, and the creation of a $40 million capital campaign. His sound financial management, forward-looking digital initiatives, and culturally relevant exhibitions featuring emerging contemporary artists helped UMMA become a model of excellence for university museums. UMMA was recently ranked number one among public university art museums in the U.S. by Best College Reviews,

Prior to UMMA, Rosa led curatorial departments at the Art Institute of Chicago, the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, the Carnegie Museum of Art in Pittsburgh, and at the National Building Museum in Washington, D.C.

He is a recipient of grants from the National Endowment for the Arts and the Graham Foundation for Advanced Studies in the Fine Arts and has been a juror for the National Endowment for the Arts, Pew Fellowship in the Arts, and James Beard Foundation awards.

Rosa has curated more than 50 exhibitions and is the author of 17 books. His articles and essays have been published in numerous periodicals and scholarly journals. He is a noted expert on the architect Albert Frey, the first disciple of Le Corbusier to build in America, and Julius Shulman, the pioneering 20th-century architectural photographer. “

Joe's work and perspective exemplify ‘provocative discovery,’ which is really the essence of who we are as a Museum,” said Mike Doherty, Frye Art Museum Trustee and Chair of the Search Committee. “We were impressed by his appreciation for Seattle's place in the global community and the similarities between current political and social disruptions and the disruptive cultural currents in the time of the Munich Secession artists. This makes our Founding Collection a natural catalyst for important community conversations.

“The Trustees were looking for a leader who could orchestrate exceptional exhibitions, education experiences, and public programs, while attracting funding and other community support. We found Joe to be a curatorially experienced, managerially gifted art historian and museum director. He has a strong reputation for building and sustaining relationships. We are confident that Joe will build on what has already been accomplished and, drawing on our new Strategic Plan, take the Frye to even greater heights.”

Rosa will be the Frye Art Museum's sixth director. He succeeds Jo-Anne Birnie Danzker, who has served as Director of the Frye since 2009. Under Birnie Danzker's directorship, the Frye received the Mayor's Arts Award and achieved national and international recognition for its curatorial program of historical exhibitions illuminating the Frye Founding Collection and cross-disciplinary exhibitions of exceptional contemporary artists, many of whom are based in Seattle.

“Joe is widely respected across the country for his scholarship and the curatorial excellence of his programs,” said Birnie Danzker. “We were pleased to partner with UMMA on our 2014 exhibition, Isamu Noguchi and Qi Baishi: Beijing 1930, which provided important art historical insights while remaining very popular with our visitors. Joe is a thoughtful and enthusiastic collaborator who will bring invaluable qualities of mind and character to our community and continue the project to make the Frye a model museum for the 21st century. He is a superb choice to partner with the Frye's Trustees and to inspire the Museum's extraordinarily talented staff in the years ahead.”

Rosa is relocating to Seattle with his wife, Louise Rosa, and their two sons.