Glassell School of Art names new director
Art educator Paul Coffey will lead the teaching institute at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, hoping to grow its reach
Sculptor and educator Joseph Havel will leave the Glassell School of Art at the end of this month, having helped develop and steer the school for three decades. The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston has announced his successor: Paul Coffey, the School of the Art Institute of Chicago’s vice provost, will take over as Glassell director.
Coffey arrives after a long tenure in Chicago, but he says he felt a connection to Houston’s art scene even before he was offered the job.
“Having studied art all my life, being an art student since I was a teenager, I learned about the Menil Collection, the Rothko Chapel,” he said. “I’ve studied paintings at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston.”
Coffey said his wife took him to Houston for his 45th birthday as part of a Rothko pilgrimage.
“Houston always felt like it was on the perimeter of my study of art history and cultural history,” he said. “But I knew these titans — Rothko being one, Cy Twombly being another — felt a strong connection in Houston. So I’m excited to spend time with them and others.”
Gary Tinterow, director of the MFAH, said the organization interviewed numerous strong candidates for the job. “Paul’s experience and achievements as an educator and arts administrator were head and shoulders above others in a group of highly talented individuals in terms of his experience as an art educator, as a creator of educational programs,” he said. “He simply fit the bill.”
“I think he brings new emphases to Glassell, and he should be enabled to build upon the great foundation that Joe Havel created.”
Tinterow cited the Glassell’s new 102,500-square-foot campus on the other side of Binz from the MFAH, a formidable undertaking that opened shortly before the pandemic.
“We haven’t really had the opportunity to get our house in order,” Tinterow said.
Coffey said he’s excited about the opportunity and suggested the transition from Chicago to Houston will be a fluid one.
“Chicago always has that ‘second city’ mentality to New York, and I like having that little chip on the shoulder,” he said. “For me it is about embracing a state of becoming. It’s about what the possibilities are.”
At the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, Coffey attempted to expand the reach of the institution. He hopes to take a similar approach in Houston.
“In Chicago there are neighborhoods defined by ethnicity,” he said. “I understand Houston also has lots of different populations, and we want to use art — and to continue to use art — as a vehicle to reach all the populations of the city and think through together what art can be, what art education can be. I want to spend the time to understand Houston. What works in Chicago doesn’t necessarily work in Houston.”
Coffey expanded the School of the Art Institute’s areas of study to include different programs in art criticism and architecture study. “We made room for lots of different thoughts to coexist,” he said. “The idea was to make an environment where thinking about art history and making art could also coexist together and sharpen each other.”
Coffey said his former and present employers both serve as rare museum-based places of learning in the United States, and he described following Havel as “standing on the shoulders of giants.”
“There’s a rich history in the school connected to the museum,” he said. “This is not a redo. We are looking to add to the possibilities that are there now.”