Alex Nyerges

Director, Virginia Museum of Fine Arts

Now entering his fourth year as director of the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, Alex Nyerges is responsible for the management and realization of Rick Mather’s ambitious master plan for the museum’s expansion and renovation; the enhancement of services and programs to Virginians outside of Richmond in order to fulfill the institution’s mandate to be Virginia’s museum; the completion of a revenue-based business plan for the museum’s post-expansion future; and the approval and advancement of a series of exciting special exhibitions slated to open in 2010 and thereafter.

As well as writing and lecturing widely on photography, Nyerges has organized such exhibitions as “Edward Weston: A Photographer's Love of Life” (2004), a major retrospective that traveled internationally, and “In Praise of Nature: Ansel Adams and Photographers of the American West” (1999), which traveled nationwide. Among the many other exhibitions he has organized are “Glory of the Silk Road: Art from Ancient China” and “Eternal China: Treasures from Ancient Xi'an,” two major traveling exhibitions of art and artifacts from regional museums throughout China

Currently the chair of the Program Committee of the Association of Art Museum Directors, Nyerges came to VMFA from the Dayton Art Institute, where he was director and CEO from 1992 to 2006. Before his assignment in Ohio, Nyerges was the executive director of the Mississippi Museum of Art in Jackson, a position he also held at the De Land Museum of Art in Florida.