Art Gallery of New South Wales director Michael Brand resigns

Art Gallery of New South Wales director Michael Brand has announced he will step down from his role in July 2025, sparking a national and international search for his successor.

Much of Brand’s tenure was spent implementing the Sydney Modern gallery refurbishment project, which doubled the institution’s exhibition capacity by combining the original neoclassical building with a new modern building located just meters to the north.

The Sydney Modern project was completed in December 2023.

“Record visits to the expanded art museum exceeded two million in its first year of operation, placing the Art Gallery among the 30 most visited art museums in the world,” the gallery said in a statement today. “The total number of visits since the completion of the project now exceeds four million.”

Brand joined AGNSW in June 2012 as the ninth director after Edmund Capon.

Prior to joining AGNSW, Brand directed the Aga Khan Museum during its construction in Toronto. Previously, he was director of the J. Paul Getty Museum in Los Angeles from 2005 to 2010 and the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts in Richmond from 2000 to 2005.

He began his career as curator of Asian art at the National Gallery of Australia in Canberra in 1988. “A researcher of Indian and Islamic art, architecture and landscape design, Dr. Brand was a member of the Bizo Group of the International Art Museum. Directors since 2005,” the gallery said in a statement.

Gallery board president David Gonski praised Brand’s “ambition and vision to create a world-class art museum in Sydney”.

Gonski’s term ends in December 2024, widening the power vacuum at the gallery until it can transition to new leadership.