Maxwell L. Anderson

Max Anderson joined NewCities in September 2015 after a 35-year career as an art museum curator and director, and is past chairman of the Dallas Art District in Dallas, Texas. He has long sought to address challenges facing the cultural sector, from operational sustainability to programmatic relevance, transparent business practices, community engagement, ownership disputes, and the impact of digital platforms on communications. His role at NewCities focuses on how digital platforms can improve the lives of city dwellers internationally.

He graduated with an A.B. with Highest Distinction in Art History from Dartmouth College in Hanover, New Hampshire, and received his A.M. and Ph.D. degrees in art history from Harvard University. He is the author of dozens of publications including the monograph Pompeian Frescoes in The Metropolitan Museum of Art, along with The Quality Instinct: Seeing Art Through a Museum Director’s Eye (American Alliance of Museums, distributed by the University of Chicago Press). His current book project is Antiquities: What Everyone Needs to Know (Oxford University Press, forthcoming 2016).

Anderson is a Research Affiliate in Arts and Cultural Policy Studies at Princeton University’s Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs. He was decorated as a Commendatore dell’Ordine al Merito della Repubblica Italiana (Knight Commander in the Order of Merit of the Italian Republic) in 1990, and decorated with the rank of Chevalier dans l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres (Knight in the Order of Arts and Letters of the French Republic) in 2010.