Meet our Senior Leadership

Jeffrey N. Brown
CEO

Jeffrey Brown was selected by the Board of Trustees in October 2021 to serve as CEO of the Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art, having served as Interim CEO and Director since April 2021, and as a Trustee since 2012. He has previously served as a senior executive of Newman’s Own, the family of companies founded by actor Paul Newman and senior executive at Webster Financial Corp. At Newman’s Own, he served as the President of three subsidiary companies including the licensing arm of the organization, where he oversaw the use of all Newman’s Own marks and Paul Newman’s intellectual property rights. He also served as Executive Vice President and Chief Administrative Officer of both Newman’s Own Foundation, the parent organization, and the food company Newman’s Own, Inc. Previously, he was Executive Vice President and Chief Administrative Officer for Webster Financial Corporation and Webster Bank N.A. in Waterbury, Connecticut. He is an Honorary Trustee of The Bushnell Center for the Performing Arts and serves as a director of the Eastern Connecticut State University Foundation. His past affiliations include membership on the advisory board of the Yale Center for Consumer Insights and as the founding president of the Harold Webster Smith Foundation. He is a chair emeritus of the Communications Council of the American Bankers Association, a former representative to the Financial Services Roundtable, and a past vice chairman of the Connecticut Economic Resource Center.

Matthew Hargraves
Director

Matthew Hargraves joined the Wadsworth in 2021 as Interim Robert H. Schutz Jr. Chief Curator after having served for nearly a decade as Chief Curator of Art Collections at the Yale Center for British Art. Hargraves is an art historian specializing in the history of British art, especially the art of the eighteenth century. He holds a Ph.D. in the History of Art from the Courtauld Institute of Art, University of London, and a BA from the University of Warwick. At the Wadsworth, he oversees the curatorial and conservation departments as well as the Auerbach Art Library and exhibition program. Hargraves is the author a variety of publications including Candidates for Fame: The Society of Artists of Great Britain (Yale University Press, 2006); Great British Watercolors from the Paul Mellon Collection at the Yale Center for British Art (Yale Center for British Art, 2007); and A Dialogue with Nature: Romantic Landscapes from Britain and Germany (Paul Holberton, 2014). At the Yale Center he oversaw the cataloguing and digitization of the collections and their dissemination online in 2011 and led the complete reinstallation of the collections when the Center reopened in 2016 after a two-year renovation closure. That installation, Britain in the World, puts British art in a global context, tracing the relationship between art and Britain’s imperial ambitions from the sixteenth century to today.

Anne Butler Rice
Georgette Auerbach Koopman Director of Education

Anne Butler Rice oversees programs for multiple audiences, including the museum’s public programs, academic programs and internships, preK–12 school tours and professional development services for teachers, youth and community programs, the docent program, and visitor services. Rice managed public programs at the Wadsworth before becoming department director in 2016. During her tenure she helped secure NEH funding to imagine and create the museum’s Cabinet of Art and Curiosities and its digital interactive; has brought notable artists, critics and scholars to the museum to enliven the public experience of art; played a leading role in the Community Engagement Initiative; and launched Second Saturdays for Families, one of the museum’s most successful mission-driven programs for children and families. Previously, she was the Museum Educator for Teacher Programs at the Brooklyn Museum of Art. She began her museum education career at the Metropolitan Museum of Art and has held lecturing and teaching positions at the Yale University Art Gallery, the Cloisters branch of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Cathedral and Treasury of St. Mary in Aachen, Germany, and at Brandeis University. She holds a BA in the History of Art and Religion from Bowdoin College, and an MA in Religion with a concentration in Art History from Yale University.

Sharmin Mahmud Price
Director of Advancement

Sharmin Price is a highly skilled development professional who has worked for some of the most acclaimed institutions in New York City. Most recently Price served as Director of Individual Giving at The Studio Museum in Harlem, NY, where she was chiefly responsible for designing and implementing all major gifts fundraising and development activities. She also established a new Legacy Society Planned Giving program, and directed efforts towards a Board and Patron travel program including the Museum’s recent trip to the Venice Biennale. Throughout her career, Sharmin Mahmud Price specialized in relationship building, event planning, and high-level donor programs in the arts and cultural sector, as well as social impact causes. She has served as Associate Director of Principal and Major Gifts at Consumer Reports, Associate Director of Major Gifts at Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts, Senior Major Gifts Officer at the Metropolitan Opera, and Director of Special Events at the Abyssinian Development Corporation. Price holds a BA in History from Clark University and earned an MA in Arts Administration, including MBA coursework, from New York University.

Cecil B. Adams
Director of Facilities & Capital Projects

Cecil B. Adams has over 42 years of professional museum experience at the Wadsworth. He has served in many roles in the curatorial and exhibitions departments and is currently the Director of Facilities and Capital Projects. Primarily focused on exhibition design and production, he has worked on over 425 exhibitions across genre, medium, place, and time. Recently, he has created an in-depth Capital Improvement Plan for the facility, which spans five connected buildings that encompass 50,000 square feet of gallery space, as well as a plan for capital replacement that stretches into the future. He cherishes his work with MATRIX artists and The Amistad Center for Art & Culture, past work with Randolph Simpson and leading community group galleries including the CRT Craftery Gallery in the 1980’s, and artists from Sol LeWitt to Keith Haring, the Baron Thyssen Collection to Sam Wagstaff’s extraordinary Photography Collection, and Impressionist Art, Baroque art, African American Art, Art by leading Women artists, and all forms of sculpture, both kinetic and conceptual. Most important to him are the personal relationships he has developed with curators, directors, visitors, and patrons over the years. These creative partners paired with the ability to have a fantastic art experience every day, make his work a true labor of love. His design experience, knowledge of the facility, and love of artworks ensures a meaningful visitor experience.

April Swieconek
Director of External Affairs

April Swieconek is a seasoned communications professional with a wealth of experience in both commercial and nonprofit organizations, much of it in support of art museums in the United States and internationally. Most recently she served as Director of Communications for the Yale University Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, where she was responsible for developing and implementing strategic communications plans encompassing a wide range of audiences and stakeholders, coordinating content across print, digital, social and other media. Early in her career, April Swieconek was interim Director of Marketing and Communications at the Georgia O’Keefe Museum in Santa Fe, New Mexico, and subsequently served as Director of Public Relations for the Peabody Essex Museum in Salem, Massachusetts. Later relocating to London, Swieconek was Senior Public Relations Officer for The National Gallery and upon return to the United States led Communications and Marketing at the Yale Center for British Art. Swieconek earned a BA in English and Art History, cum laude, from Case Western Reserve University and a certificate in Art History from Cambridge University.

Mary Busick
Chief Registrar

Mary Busick organizes all registration and collections management at the Wadsworth, including in-house, co-organized, and traveling exhibitions; the outgoing loans program; special projects; and other permanent collection needs. She instructs and educates volunteers, interns, and staff on all aspects regarding registration and collections management, museum policy and procedures, methodology, and best practices. Busick also supports access to the collection by researchers. In her present position since 2021, she served previously as Registrar for Loans and Exhibitions, Associate Registrar, and Assistant Registrar at the Wadsworth, where she began as an intern two decades ago. She has also served since 2016 as staff liaison to the Costume & Textile Society of the Wadsworth and has shared her expertise with various constituencies in gallery talks and presentations. Mary is a past board member of the Registrar’s Committee of the American Alliance of Museums and served for a decade as co-chair of the New England Museum Association Registrar’s Committee. She is a graduate of The College of William and Mary in Williamsburg, Virginia, and has chaired numerous panels and made professional presentations at the International Registrar’s Symposium, American Alliance of Museums, and New England Museum Association.