Boca Raton, Florida (October 2, 2024) – The Board of Trustees of the Boca Raton Museum of Art today announced the appointment of Dr. Ena Heller as the Museum’s next director. She will start in the position February 3, 2025.
Ena will join the Museum after a successful tenure as the Bruce A. Beal Director of the Rollins Museum of Art. She came to Rollins in 2012 from the Museum of Biblical Art (MOBIA) in New York City, where she was founding Executive Director. Prior to MOBIA she held positions in the Medieval and Education Departments at the Metropolitan Museum of Art and taught at the College of the Holy Cross (Worcester, MA) and Manhattanville College (Purchase, NY).
“On behalf of the Board of Trustees and staff, I am thrilled to welcome Ena Heller to work with us,” said Board Chair John DesPrez III. “The Board engaged PBR Executive Search which undertook a national search to identify and recruit the right leader for the Museum. As it turned out, our chosen candidate was only 200 miles away in Winter Park, Florida.
“Ena impressed us all with her strategic insight and proven ability to inspire and offer clear direction. She has mastered the complex position of being a museum director at two institutions and will find a willingness on the part of her new colleagues here in Boca Raton to take our Museum to even greater achievements.
““As we embark on our 75th anniversary, there is much to which we can look forward with our expanded exhibition and education programming. For this, I extend my deepest gratitude to Irvin Lippman who over the last eleven years has led the Museum with great vision and leadership. He established an esprit de corps that impacted the Board, staff, and our volunteers. The Museum most certainly has been made worthy of continued support.”
“I am honored and happy to have been chosen as the next director of the Boca Raton Museum of Art,” said Ena Heller. “Due to an energetic and engaged board, and to Irvin’s steady leadership over the last decade, the Museum is at an inflection point in its institutional history. I believe in its potential to become a greater resource for Boca Raton and the region, to expand its educational mission and serve the community in a unique way, and I am ready for the challenge.”
Ena Heller holds a Ph.D. in art history from the Institute of Fine Arts, New York University, and is a graduate of the Getty Museum Leadership Institute. She has presented papers at the conferences of the Association of Academic Museums and Galleries, Society of Architectural Historians, College Art Association, at the Institute of Fine Arts, and at numerous museums and universities throughout the country. Under her tenure at Rollins, more than 1,300 new acquisitions were added to the collection; the museum’s visitor numbers quadrupled; part of the contemporary collection started being shown at The Alfond Inn (a boutique hotel owned by the college whose proceeds go to student scholarships); the operating budget doubled, and the first endowment specifically for exhibitions was created. In spring 2023, architectural drawings for a new museum building were approved by the Winter Park City Commission; the capital campaign is on track for completion in late 2024 - early 2025.
Her publications include the edited volumes Perspectives on Medieval Art: Learning through Looking (2009) and Reluctant Partners: Art and Religion in Dialogue (2004) and contributions to History of Jewish Architecture (2019); From the Margins I & II: Women of the Hebrew Bible and their Afterlives/Women of the New Testament and their Afterlives (both in 2009); and Women’s Space: Patronage, Place, and Gender in the Medieval Church (2005).
About the Boca Raton Museum of Art
Founded by artists in 1950 as the Art Guild of Boca Raton, the Boca Raton Museum of Art has evolved into a vital cultural resource. The Museum's original building on Palmetto Park Road now serves as the Museum's Art School, nestled within a 3-acre sculpture park. In 2001, the Museum was provided land in Mizner Park, a mixed-use area in downtown Boca Raton. Designed by Donald Singer, the current Museum facility, with its bold volumes and emblematic design, reflects the spirit of Addison Mizner's Mediterranean Revival architecture of the 1920s that provides an indelible mark on Boca Raton. Located in Palm Beach County, the Museum attracts visitors from a wide range of regions, with nearly 50% being cultural tourists from drive markets or out-of-state, underscoring the appeal of its reputation, quality of programs, and supporting the Museum’s mission to be a vital cultural resource dedicated to the creative life.For interviews and editorial info, contact Lauren Ricks at [email protected] or call 561-299-3381.
