Anthony Hirschel is now an independent consultant in the arts, advising museums and other cultural organizations. Previously, he spent two years as the Director of Exhibitions at the Alphawood Foundation in Chicago and as a consultant for a variety of academic art museums. Earlier, he served as the Dana Feitler Director of the Smart Museum of Art at the University of Chicago for more than a decade from 2005.

Trained as an historian of the art of the late Middle Ages and early Renaissance first at the University of Michigan and Yale, he was active as an art museum administrator for 28 years, 25 of them as a museum director. Much of that time was spent in some of the nation’s most ambitious academic art museums, first at Yale (1987-91) and then as the director of the art museums at the University of Virginia (1991-97) and Emory University (1997-2001). He also taught at Yale and Randolph-Macon Women’s College, and continues to do so at the University of Chicago Law School. Before coming to the Smart Museum of Art, Hirschel served as the Director and CEO (2001-2004) of the Indianapolis Museum of Art, one of the largest art museums in North America.