Late last week, George Bolge, executive director at the Boca Raton Museum of Art, announced his retirement from the museum effective July 2011. A Vietnam War veteran and director emeritus of the Museum of Art | Fort Lauderdale, Bolge built the Boca Museum from the ground up, with a successful tenure spanning 16 years.
I spoke to Bolge this week about his decision, his future and his favorite memories at the Boca Museum.
What prompted his decision to retire?
You know, most of my career has been building museums. When [museums] go from small arts organizations to the first institutional steps, I’ve made a career in taking those kind of steps. Other directors will spend to two to three years in each institution and go on. My modus operandi is more or less checking in and getting to know community very well. It takes time to build an institution, and once it’s build, there’s the process of stabilizing it. When I came back to Boca, I came back ostensibly to build this museum for them. In Fort Lauderdale, I must have tried 10 times before it took place. They asked to come down and do it, and it’s taken me 16 years to build and stabilize a museum in a good financial state and make sure I have a wonderful staff and to get a permanent collection started.
At the end of this contract year, I had discussion with the board. We’re doing very, very well, we’ve balanced the budget for several years, the city has recognized us as its official museum and granted us $100,000 last year. At this point, it’s time to consider whether they might want to go in their own direction. Honestly, when you build a museum, you taker a strong stance in the values of whoever is doing that. Your point of view is, “This is my view as a community educator.” And you follow that fairly stringently. It’s one person’s view. Sometimes, most of the time, diversity of good, and it might be the time for the board to consider other philosophical directions they might want to go in. It’s a difficult thing to explain, but once you get there and are satisfied, you can place it by saying that we’re hired to build an institution but are not hired to run it for the rest of our lives.
Have you thought about a successor?
I’ve got my hands full completing this year. I believe board will now form a search committee. My main concern is continuing all the exhibitions I have pledged support for through the end of the season.
Are you retiring in general?
Not by a long shot. I’m just retiring from the museum. I haven’t decided what to do yet. I’d like to stay in the area. I doubt seriously I’d want to go to Iowa. I’ve made most of my career here, and I’d like to look for something that is a challenge. When you build an institution, you’re like a parent — you never want to leave it. Every time I built the office, I was the first person in there. You get to know everybody here – every staffer, every collector, every philanthropist – and I think there’s a trust they have with me too. I think if I were to stop moving forward, I’d just pass out.
What’s been your fondest memory as a museum director?
There is a great feeling you get when you work so diligently for something and it all comes together. When you build a building, it’s an empty space – a Cadillac showroom. But an institution is kind of a metaphor; it’s not something you can put your hands on. Yes, there are certain budgets and programs, but when you open the door to an empty space and the next day it’s a museum, it’s the greatest feeling in the world.
Do you have a favorite exhibition during your tenure at the Boca Museum?
We opened up with an amazing Picasso show with 300 of his works. It was amazing. You’d think it would have taken many years to complete, but it took a couple months. It was of Picasso’s later years, and it was prophetic because so many shows since have been based on that. We did a wonderful Arman show, with the whole gallery on the bottom floor filled with bronze cars and pianos. God only knows how we moved that. The pianos were 3,000 pounds. Probably the show I enjoyed the most was the M.C. Escher retrospective this year. Of course there were spectacular ones in between.
