Hirshhorn Director Melissa Chiu Departs to Lead Guggenheim
15April 10, 2026
Melissa Chiu, who has served as director of theHirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Gardenin Washington, DC, forover a decade, will leave the institution to helm theSolomon R. Guggenheim Museumin New York. She will take up her new post on September 1, succeeding Dr. Mariët Westermann who has been the Director and CEO of the Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation since 2023. Hirshhorn deputy directorAaron Seetowill serve as interim leader of the Washington institution.
The Australia-born Chiu in 2014 became director of the Hirshhorn. There, she gained a reputation for staging attention-getting exhibitions, luring throngs of visitors and filling the museum’s coffers. Among the notable shows she staged during her tenure are those of Laurie Anderson, Georg Baselitz, Mark Bradford, Yayoi Kusama, Osgemeos, and Adam Pendleton. Under Chiu’s leadership, the institution raised some $250 million and tapped into new revenue sources, notably television, in the form of the 2023 reality series “The Exhibit: Finding the Next Great Artist,” a collaboration between MTV and the Smithsonian Channel.
“Melissa has guided the Hirshhorn with thoughtfulness and purpose, strengthening its role as a national museum while supporting artists, scholars and the public,” Lonnie G. Bunch III, secretary of the Smithsonian Institution, said in a statement. “We are grateful for her leadership and wish her continued success in this next chapter.”
Though her departure comes as the Smithsonian, which oversees the Hirshhorn, contends with President Donald Trump’s efforts to reshape the institution to reflect his anti-DEI agenda, Chiu told the New York Times’s Zachary Small that his meddling did not affect her decision.
“This is a dream job,” she said. “Under any circumstances I would have taken [it], and I feel confident in the legacy that I’m leaving behind at the Hirshhorn.”