Earl A. Powell III

Earl Alexander Powell III (born October 24, 1943), nicknamed Rusty Powell, is an American art historian and museum director. From 1980 to 1992, he was Director of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. He was appointed Director of the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C., in September 1992. The Gallery announced in November 2017 that Powell would step down in 2019. He was appointed to the U.S. Commission of Fine Arts in 2003 and elected Chair in 2004. He was appointed to a second four-year term on August 30, 2012, and continues to serve as Chair.

Early life Earl Powell was born in October 1943 in Spartanburg, South Carolina, to Earl Alexander Powell II and Elizabeth Duckworth Powell. His grandfather operated a photoengraving business, which Powell credits as influential in sparking his later love of art. The Powells moved to Rhode Island. "Rusty", as Powell was known, graduated from Providence Country Day School in 1962. He was a standout football player in high school.

Powell graduated from Williams College in Williamstown, Massachusetts with a bachelor's degree in art history and European history (with honors) in 1966. Powell switched to art history, and studied under the legendary art history professors S. Lane Faison, Jr., and William Pierson, Jr.

Powell enlisted in the United States Navy in 1966, winning a spot in the Navy Officer Candidate School.

The same year he received his Ph.D., Powell took a position as assistant professor of art history at the University of Texas at Austin.

In 1976, Powell left the University of Texas to take a position as a curator at the National Gallery of Art (NGA). Powell stayed at the NGA for four years, rising to the position of executive curator in 1979. Brown later said, "Rusty was my right hand for years". During his time as curator, Powell organized some of the NGA's biggest exhibitions, including "The Splendor of Dresden: Five Centuries of Art Collecting" in 1978 and "American Light: The Luminist Movement" in 1980.

Powell's tenure at LACMA was an outstanding one. In his first six years, he doubled the exhibition space by opening the Robert O. Anderson Building and the Pavilion for Japanese Art to house a rare collection of Japanese art. He also oversaw the opening of the museum's new outdoor sculpture garden in 1988.

Powell was also a successful fund-raiser for the museum. In his first eight years, he reached his fund-raising goal of $80 million. In 1991, publisher Walter Annenberg donated $10 million to the museum, the largest cash donation in its history. During Powell's tenure, the LACMA endowment also rose to $21 million from $3 million.

J. Carter Brown later described Powell's tenure as director of LACMA as one "bound for glory". After a nationwide search, Earl A. Powell III was named director of the National Gallery of Art. He was only the fourth director in the museum's history. When he was appointed, Powell said that he believed the era of "blockbuster" exhibitions was ending, and that his focus would be to utilize the NGA's permanent collection. "I don't see the future for these massive international loan exhibitions," he said. "I would prefer to use the gallery's permanent collections in new and innovative ways." In December 1994, D.C. television station WJLA ran a three-part exposé titled "Gallery of Shame", in which the station revealed the content of a confidential report that criticized the NGA for severe lapses in maintenance, environmental control, and art storage. The report said that these conditions "threaten[ed] the security of the collection" and placed works of art "at risk" of "serious damage." The report documented a leaky roof, dripping skylights, flooded storerooms, and burst radiators that poured clouds of steam into galleries. In one case, a poorly maintained humidifier turned the varnish on John Singleton Copley's Watson and the Shark an opaque white. Powell ordered that $30,000 from the NGA's Fund for International Exchange be used to reopen the Vermeer exhibit (but no other parts of the National Gallery of Art) for one week. In 1997, Powell presided over the ground-breaking for the National Gallery of Art Sculpture Garden.

Other posts, writing, and honors In June 2002, President George W. Bush nominated and the United States Senate approved Powell for a position as a member of the National Council on the Arts, an advisory panel for the National Endowment for the Arts. Powell filled an unexpired six-year term which would end on September 3, 2006. But Powell resigned the position in late 2003.

In May 2005, architect David Childs resigned as chairman of the U.S. Commission of Fine Arts (CFA). President Bush immediately appointed Powell to the commission. His fellow commissioners elected Powell chairman of the CFA. During his tenure as chairman of the CFA, Powell and the CFA provided input and advice for the Monumental Core Framework Plan, a 2006 study by the National Capital Planning Commission which made recommendations regarding land use, transportation, and urban design in areas around the National Mall. President Bush reappointed Powell to the CFA in May 2008. Again he was elected chairman. During his second term, Powell led the CFA in participating in the study and review of the Final National Mall Plan / Environmental Impact Statement—a 2010 plan by the National Park Service to craft a vision and planning document to guide the National Mall in Washington, D.C., for the next 50 years.

President Barack Obama appointed Powell to a second full four-year term on the CFA in August 2012.

As a scholar of the works of Thomas Cole, Powell has written extensively on the painter's art. His more prominent works include "Thomas Cole's 'Dream of Arcadia'" (published in Arts Magazine in November 1977), and "Thomas Cole and the American Landscape Tradition: The Naturalist Controversy" (published in Arts Magazine in February 1978). Powell also authored a monograph on Thomas Cole in 1990. A revised second edition was published in 2000.

Honors Powell has been honored with several positions. He was elected to a three-year term on the Pitzer College Board of Trustees in 1986, and was a director of the Georgia O'Keeffe Foundation in 2005.

Powell was member of many academic organizations, including the American Philosophical Society, the Federal Council on the Arts and the Humanities, and the National Portrait Gallery Commission.

Powell has also been awarded honorary doctorates from the Otis College of Art and Design (1987)

Among the many awards Powell has received are the St. Olav's Medal from Norway (1978), the Order of Prince Henry from Portugal (1995), the Order of Merit of the Italian Republic from Italy (1998), Knight of the Legion of Honour from France (2000), Officer of the Ordre des Arts et des Lettres from France (2004), the Saint Gaudens Medal (2005), Order of the Aztec Eagle from Mexico (2007), and the Officer's Cross of the Order of Merit of the Republic of Hungary (2009).

Personal life Earl Powell married Nancy Landry of New Orleans in 1971. They have three children.

The Powells owned a summer home in Newport, Rhode Island, where (as of 1992) Powell's mother and mother-in-law both lived.