BMA looks forward Era begins: Bolger arrives facing a new set of challenges to an enduring art museum.

ONE ERA ended and another began when Doreen Bolger took over this week as director of the Baltimore Museum of Art. She replaced Arnold Lehman, who had already left to take over that other BMA, the Brooklyn Museum of Art in New York. The transition includes the departure of Brenda Richardson, the deputy director, whose curatorial vision dominated the museum's priorities in modern art for two decades.

It won't be the same place, whatever new approaches the new director brings, but that won't be clear to the visitor's eye for some time. Most of the temporary exhibitions for the next two years have already been planned. What seems unlikely to change is the museum's emphasis on contemporary and recent art, among its other strengths and constituencies. It is a reasonable division of labor with the Walters Gallery of Art, not as a matter of turf but of common sense and of the community getting the most out of its finite resources.

For a museum that began as an agency of municipal government and is slowly losing that dependence, adapting to that change will be the greatest challenge. But the Baltimore Museum of Art has powerful private support, shown by an endowment of $51 million and 1997 attendance near 320,000. Ms. Bolger is challenged to attract more donors, members and visitors without losing the loyal following that was nurtured by Mr. Lehman and Ms. Richardson.

The period of expansion initiated by Tom Freudenheim, the director in the 1970s, and maintained by Mr. Lehman is probably over. The need is to strengthen underpinnings in attendance, membership and donor support. Ms. Bolger takes over with higher stature in the museum world than Mr. Lehman or Mr. Freudenheim had at the time of their appointments -- and with the best wishes and eager anticipation of the BMA's constituencies.

Pub Date: 2/19/98