Glen Lowry has announced that he will be leaving the New York institution in September 2025.
A former director of the Art Gallery of Ontario in Toronto and a scholar of Islamic art, he quadrupled the endowment of MoMA to almost $1 billion, while also presiding over an increase in visitor numbers – as well as admission fees, which climbed to $30 last September. Over three decades Lowry oversaw two major renovations of the museum, alongside the merger with P.S.1 Center for Contemporary Art in Queens, which reopened in 2000 as MoMA PS1.
Lowry, who took on the role of director at the Museum of Modern Art in 1995, is the longest-serving director since the museum first opened in 1929.
The museum’s chairman stated that Lowry had been invited to continue in his role and his decision to step down was ‘by mutual agreement’. At 70, Lowry is already five years beyond the age that senior staff at the museum have previously been asked to retire at. In an interview with the New York Times ten years ago, he stated that he had no intention to break that policy, although it was later relaxed in order to extend his contract.
Following today’s announcement of his upcoming departure next year, he updated that position: ‘I didn’t want to be the person who stayed too long.’
