Veneciano selected as new Sheldon Museum of Art director

Jorge Daniel Veneciano will become director of Sheldon Museum of Art on July 1, University of Nebraska-Lincoln Chancellor Harvey Perlman announced today.

For the past three years, Veneciano has been director of Paul Robeson Galleries at the Rutgers University campus in Newark, N.J. He has 10 years arts administration and fund-raising experience, including five years as exhibitions curator at The Studio Museum in Harlem in the 1990s. Before moving to New York in 1994, he directed three community arts centers for the City of Los Angeles Department of Cultural Affairs. He has taught at Rhode Island School of Design and Columbia University.

"Daniel Veneciano brings a solid background in arts administration and in developing community arts centers, and I am confident in perspective he brings to leading the Sheldon," Perlman said. "I am excited about his enthusiasm for developing outreach programs and look forward to his leadership role in the development of Lincoln's Arts and Humanities Corridor, with space for more of the Sheldon collection to be enjoyed by more people."

Veneciano has a doctoral degree in English and comparative literature from Columbia University and a master of fine arts degree from the California Institute of Arts in Valencia, Calif. He also holds a master's of art and art history from California State University, Los Angeles, and a bachelor's degree from the University of California, Los Angeles.

During his tenure at the Paul Robeson Galleries, Veneciano has tripled the operating budget through multilevel fundraising, added three new exhibition spaces, and created new arts education programs serving schools, health and youth centers. Recently, he led a $5 million campaign for a consortium of university arts interests. He has also secured funds to publish several interdisciplinary catalogs accompanying recent exhibitions.

Veneciano will lead Sheldon's artistic and strategic programs engaging both the university and Nebraska arts communities. The museum houses collections of more than 12,000 American artworks including prominent holdings of 19th-century landscape and still life, American Impressionism, early Modernism, geometric abstraction, Abstract Expressionism, pop, minimalism and contemporary art. Throughout the campus, Sheldon also exhibits more than 30 monumental outdoor sculptures.

With funding from the Sheldon Art Association, the museum's private, nonprofit support group, the museum presents more than a dozen exhibitions each year and numerous community events, symposia, lectures, children's workshops and tours. More than 50,000 people annually visit the Sheldon.

Veneciano succeeds Janice Driesbach, who resigned in September. He will be the museum's fourth director since the Philip Johnson-designed building opened in 1963. Earlier directors were Norman Geske and George Neubert.

Sheldon Museum of Art, 12th and R streets on the UNL City Campus, is open free to the public Tuesday through Sunday. Hours are 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday and Saturday, 10 a.m. to 8 p.m. on Friday, and noon to 5 p.m. on Sunday. Additional information is also available on the Sheldon Web site, www.sheldon.unl.edu.