Bernd Ebert, the curator in charge of Dutch and German Baroque painting at the Bavarian State Painting Collections since 2013, has been named the new director general of the Dresden State Art Collections, one of Germany’s biggest museum roles. He succeeds Marion Ackermann, who is leaving to run Berlin’s state museums.
Born in Berlin in 1972, Ebert has worked at museums including the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, Newtown Galleries in Johannesburg, the National Gallery of South Africa and the Berlin Gemäldegalerie. In Bavaria, he was also responsible for the state galleries in Bayreuth and Bamberg. He began his career in Dresden as a clerk at Deutsche Bank.
“He is an excellent art historian with an international reputation as a scholar,” Neil McGregor, a former director of the British Museum and a member of the finding committee, said in a statement issued by the state of Saxony. “But he is much more than that. He brings a rare mix of legal, financial and administrative abilities and has direct experience in handling the intellectual, practical and political complexities of a large encyclopaedic collection like Dresden’s.”
Ebert said his goals in Dresden include boosting research and communications at the 15 museums he will oversee. “Other priorities are to widen offerings to a broad public and increase the quality of visits to Dresden’s institutions,” he said.
Bernhard Maaz, the director general of the Bavarian State Painting Collections, said he regretted the loss of “a dedicated colleague” whose “work has gained recognition far beyond the borders of Germany.”
The exhibitions Ebert has curated in Munich include Rachel Ruysch. Nature into Art at the Alte Pinakothek, which opened last year. The show of the 17th- and 18th-century Dutch still-life painter moves on to Boston and Toledo this year.
Ackermann succeeds Hermann Parzinger as president of the Prussian Cultural Heritage Foundation on 1 June. Ebert takes up his new post on 1 May.