Six members of the Detroit Institute of Arts’ (DIA) board of directors recently resigned in disapproval of keeping on the museum’s director, Salvador Salort-Pons, the Detroit News reported.
The resignations from the 54-member elected board brought about a calculated DIA response and from Wayne County Executive Warren Evans, who applauded the former directors for “taking a principled stand against workplace harassment and insular management styles,” the article reported.
A seventh director resigned because of professional obligations, the DIA noted in the article; another member of the non-voting emeritus board also resigned, per the article.
Salort-Pons has been the DIA director since 2015, and was criticized since last summer over his leadership techniques (the Michigan Chronicle previously reported on here) and a reported ethical breach surrounding the loan of an El Greco painting that his father-in-law owned, according to the article.
A report to the board last November — leaked earlier this month after a secret recording of the meeting — noted that current and former museum employees painted a picture of Salort-Pons being “erratic, autocratic, condescending, intolerant of dissent and lacking in clear and effective communication,” per the article.
Among those leaving are Anne Fredericks, Mary Ann Gorlin, Julie Rothstein, Suzanne Shank, Carol Walters and Celeste Watkins-Hayes, and Marc Schwartz from the 32-member emeritus board. The board member who gave unrelated reasons is Christine Sitek.
Read the full story here.
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