Delaware Art Museum Bids Farewell to Executive Director Danielle Rice

PLUS: Celebrate Delaware’s local riches at Middletown’s Olde-Tyme Peach Festival and Rehoboth Art League’s Outdoor Fine Art and Craft Show

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Farewell, Danielle

A great opportunity for one is certainly a loss for others. It’s with gratitude and no small amount of sadness that we say goodbye to Danielle Rice, who has been executive director of the Delaware Art Museum for the past eight years. In that time, she turned around the institution, which was struggling financially, and sent it on a straight road to the future. Rice managed the opening of the newly renovated and expanded building in June 2005. She initiated a large number of community partnerships, led a strategic planning effort that resulted in a revised mission and community-minded goals and, in 2007 and 2008, guided the museum through the American Alliance of Museums re-accreditation process. 
During her time, the museum hosted several successful major exhibitions and welcomed back the Bancroft Collection of Pre-Raphaelite Art from a world tour into newly designed galleries. Rice built the museum’s collections through major acquisitions, including 50 works from the Vogel collection and other gifts. Rice led the museum through its Centennial Celebration last year and initiated the Centennial Campaign for the Next Century Fund, which has raised more than $6.5 million. “Danielle has been a great asset to the museum and to the community,” says board chair Gerret Copeland. “She has made the museum a place where everyone can feel welcome. We are deeply grateful for her leadership over the past eight years, and we wish her all the best in her next adventure.” Beginning next month, Rice will become director of the master of science program in museum leadership at Drexel University’s Antoinette Westphal College of Media Arts & Design. We wish her all the very best.

Unrelated: Funland in Rehoboth Beach will be close Aug. 20, due to the death of founder Jean Fasnacht. Our thoughts are with the family who has brought so much joy to so many people over the years.

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