Maxwell and Jacqueline Anderson. (Courtesy Patrick McMullan Company)

Maxwell Anderson has run the Whitney Museum and the Indianapolis Museum of Art, and currently directs the Dallas Museum of Art. He’s also a Dartmouth alumnus, Class of 1977, as it happens, and he recently explained in a Q&A published in The Dartmouth newspaper how he figures out what to work on when he arrives at a new institution. Here’s his explanation:

“It’s fun. It’s like dating a new person — you try to figure out what motivates them, how you fit together and where the strengths are and largely about the history and culture of a place. That way you don’t come in with a head of steam of your own ideas that may not map to what the museum needs. After a while, you start to hear familiar refrains, and you start to see patterns of how that culture has manifested.”

The complete interview is published here. Well worth a read.

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