Deputy Provost (Academic Operations and Inclusion) Teri Shearer announced on Wednesday that Jan Allen, Director of the Agnes Etherington Art Centre (Agnes) will retire from the position as of Jan. 1, 2020.
Allen has provided remarkable leadership in her time at the Agnes since her appointment in 2012 as acting director, followed by her appointment to director in 2014. During her tenure, she has overseen numerous exhibitions, publications, programs and acquisitions, including the most recent Rembrandt van Rijn, Head of an Old Man with Curly Hair, 1659, oil on panel. Gift of Linda and Daniel Bader, 2019 (62-002). Under her leadership the Agnes has won several prestigious awards and has nearly doubled its funding from the Canada Council for the Arts.
“Jan has laid a solid foundation for the Agnes’s continued success, working closely with the gallery’s Advisory Board, the university, and through her active engagement with the both the local and international art communities,” says Deputy Provost (Academic Operations and Inclusion) Teri Shearer.
An award-winning curator, writer and assistant professor in the Cultural Studies program, Allen has also served on numerous national-level juries and advisory committees and on the Boards of the Ontario Association of Art Galleries and the Canadian Art Museum Director’s Organization.
Allen will remain active in her remaining months at Queen’s supporting the fall 2019 launch of the new graduate program in Screen Cultures and Curatorial Studies in partnership with the Department of Film and Media, initiating a feasibility study and functional plan for an expanded and fully accessible facility, completing program planning and revenue development for programs over the next several years, overseeing reinstallation of the Etherington House and the launch of the new Franks Gallery, and advancing a major digital project in tandem with development of a Digital Strategy framework, supporting the final preparations of the exhibition Leiden circa 1630: Rembrandt Emerges in commemoration of the 350th anniversary of the death of Rembrandt van Rijn, and assisting the leadership transition.
A search for a new director is anticipated to begin in the very near future.