Edmund P. "Ted" Pillsbury

1943 - 2010

Edmund "Ted" P. Pillsbury, former director of the Kimbell Art Museum between 1980 and 1998 and a significant contributor to the American art scene, died Thursday, March 25, 2010. He was 66.
Memorial service: 3 p.m. Thursday at Highland Park Presbyterian Church in Dallas.
Memorials: In lieu of flowers, the family requests that donations be made to St. Paul's School, with a note that it is in memory of Ted Pillsbury, and sent to St. Paul's School, Attention: Don Paul Martin, gifts manager, 325 Pleasant St., Concord, N.H. 03301.
Characterized by the New York Times art critic John Russell as "one of the most gifted men in the American museum profession,"
Dr. Pillsbury oversaw one of the nation's most ambitious acquisition and exhibition programs during his tenure at the Kimbell, turning it from an institution with a great building to one whose collection is no less important. He was also fiercely independent and adventurous in his professional life having injected vigor into the Meadows Museum at Southern Methodist University in Dallas, added luster to the Dallas branch of the Gerald Peters Gallery and established the fine art department at Heritage Auction Galleries in Dallas.
At the age of 32, Dr. Pillsbury was appointed director of the Yale Center for British Art and chief executive officer of the Paul Mellon Centre for Studies in British Art, London. During his five-year tenure (1976-1980), he oversaw the completion of the museum's award-winning building by Louis Kahn as well as installed a comprehensive collection of British art assembled by Paul Mellon, recommended a series of notable acquisitions and initiated a range of loan exhibitions, publications and educational services.
In December 1980, Dr. Pillsbury joined the Kimbell Art Museum in Fort Worth. The consistently high quality and importance of Dr. Pillsbury's acquisitions attracted international attention to the museum, whose collections now rival in scope and quality many of the finest museums in the world. Under Dr. Pillsbury's direction, works by Fra Angelico, Mantegna, Titian, Tintoretto, Caravaggio, Rubens, Velazquez, La Tour, Houdon, Delacroix, Cezanne, Mondrian, Picasso, Rubens, Matisse and other artists were acquired as were important pieces of Asian, Egyptian, African and other schools of art, which expanded the range and importance of the museum's non-Western holdings. Broader recognition of the Kimbell's collection came in 1989, when the Frick Collection in New York mounted a special exhibition entitled "In Pursuit of Quality: Twenty-Five Years of Collecting Old Masters," an unprecedented loan exhibition that highlighted seventeen works from the Kimbell.
Through Dr. Pillsbury's initiatives, the Kimbell earned a reputation for innovative programming and a strong commitment to public education. Notable exhibitions organized under his aegis included "The Blood of Kings: A New Interpretation of Maya Art"; "Spanish Still Life in the Golden Age, 1600-1650"; and "Loves of the Gods: Mythological Painting from Watteau to David." Retrospectives of major artists included Nicolas Poussin (early works), Henry Matisse (sculpture) and Elizabeth Louise Vigee LeBrun among others. In 1994 the Kimbell was selected among only six museums worldwide to host a loan exhibition of the Barnes Collection from Philadelphia, which broke attendance records during its run. Under Dr. Pillsbury's leadership, the Kimbell also greatly expanded public participation through its educational programs and workshops with more than 30,000 household members by the time of his retirement in 1998.
After leaving the Kimbell in 1998, Dr. Pillsbury entered the private sector and served as the consultative director of the Bellagio Gallery of Fine Art in Las Vegas and later the chief executive officer of Pillsbury & Peters Fine Art, Ltd., a premier gallery showcasing American contemporary art in Dallas. Between 2003 and 2005, Dr. Pillsbury was named the director of the Meadows Art Museum and professor of art history at Southern Methodist University in Dallas, where he helped to invigorate the museum and set its direction in its new home. In 2005, Dr. Pillsbury joined as the chairman of fine arts for Dallas' Heritage Auction Galleries where he worked until the time of his death.
Dr. Pillsbury was a graduate of St. Paul's School (1961), Yale University (bachelor of arts 1965) and received his doctorate in Italian Renaissance art from the University of London's Courtauld Institute of Art, which culminated in his thesis, "Jacopo Zucchi: His Life and Works." He produced scholarly articles and reviews and frequently lectured at universities and museums in the U.S. and abroad.
Dr. Pillsbury also served on numerous boards and committees including chairman of the executive committee on the Villa I Tatti Council in Florence (1979-1984), the board of governors and advisory committee and academic subcommittee to the Yale Center for British Art in London (1976-1980), board of trustees to St. Paul's School in Concord, N.H., (1985-1994) and chairman of the international board of advisors of the State Hermitage Museum, St. Petersburg, Russia, (1995-2000), in addition to founding the American Friends of the Hermitage (1998- ). In 1985 the French government awarded Dr. Pillsbury a knighthood in the Order of Arts and Letters (Chevalier dans l'Order des Arts et des Lettres). He was a member of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences.
A native of Minneapolis, Dr. Pillsbury (born April 28, 1943) was a great-grandson of the founder of the Pillsbury Milling Co.
Survivors: His wife, Mireille; children, Christine Pillsbury Raniolo and her husband, Alessandro, of Singapore and Dr. Edmund Pillsbury III and his wife, Kinsey, of Dallas; grandchildren, Marc and Eleanor Raniolo; mother, Priscilla Giesen of Santa Barbara; and sisters, Priscilla Gaines of Santa Barbara and Joan DePree of Chicago.