Davis Museum director resigns

Step follows loss of prized painting

David Mickenberg has resigned as director of Wellesley College's Davis Museum and Cultural Center, two weeks after news broke that the museum's prized 1921 painting by Fernand Léger had gone missing.

In a statement to faculty yesterday, Wellesley's president, H. Kim Bottomly, said she had accepted Mickenberg's resignation to "pursue other opportunities." The four-paragraph statement includes no mention of "Woman and Child," part of a family-themed series by the celebrated French cubist, which was donated to the museum in 1954. Last year, the average Léger painting sold for $2.8 million.

"Woman and Child" was discovered missing in November, and may have been unintentionally thrown out by museum staff members. Mickenberg did not respond to requests for comment yesterday. Wellesley officials said that Bottomly and museum staffers would not discuss the resignation.

Patricia Gray Berman, a Wellesley art historian who brought her students to look at the Léger every semester, said that she and other faculty members have been concerned since learning that the painting could not be located. She said that news of the incident created a negative public perception.

"I got a lot of responses from colleagues around the country and somebody abroad, too, who was just very concerned about how the museum was being managed," said Berman.

College and museum officials had largely been silent on the painting's whereabouts. But in late August, after the Globe published a story that brought attention to the situation, Bottomly promised new controls would be in place by October to better protect the museum's art.

Though investigators continue to search for the painting, Travelers Insurance has paid out approximately $3 million to the museum. The company has offered a $100,000 reward for the painting.

The Davis loaned the Léger to the Oklahoma City Museum of Art for an exhibit that ended in April 2007. Sent back to the Wellesley campus shortly afterward, it sat in a crate for months before the museum checked and found it missing.

Faculty members said they were reluctant to discuss the resignation of Mickenberg, who was director for seven years, until they had more information.

"It hasn't sunk in," said Jacqueline Marie Musacchio, associate professor of art at Wellesley. "I think we're just hoping we're going to get our painting back and the publicity may help us in some way."

Dennis McFadden, associate director of the Davis, will serve as interim director. Bottomly said she is forming a search committee to find a new director.

Brent Powell, chairman of the Packing, Art handling & Crating Information Network, said Mickenberg's resignation is unlikely to solve any systematic problem that caused the mishap.

"They have to just re-look at their policies, see where the mistake was made, which is their job whether a director leaves or stays," said Powell, the head of preparation at the Asian Art Museum in San Francisco. "It's like a baseball team. You can't fire the coach and hire another and figure everything will go right."

Geoff Edgers can be reached at gedgers@globe.com