Quick Take
Robb Woulfe has announced his departure as the executive director of the Museum of Art & History after 4½ years. The MAH's board will begin a monthslong search for his replacement.
The Museum of Art & History in Santa Cruz will soon have new leadership. Lookout has learned that MAH Executive Director Robb Woulfe will be leaving his position within the next nine months, and the MAH board will begin the search for new leadership at Santa Cruz County’s most prominent museum. According to a media release, Woulfe cited his family’s “plan to relocate” as the reason for his departure.
In the wake of Woulfe’s resignation, the MAH will hold a series of feedback sessions to collect public input on the priorities of the search for a new ED. The first of those sessions is scheduled to take place Friday, June 7, from 5 to 7 p.m. at the MAH, during the monthly First Friday art tour. Those interested can also participate in an online survey.
Woulfe started his tenure as the MAH’s leader with extraordinarily unlucky timing, coming in just a few weeks before the pandemic shutdown in the winter of 2020. His entire first year at the helm of the MAH was largely spent in crisis mode with the museum closed to the public. The museum used federal Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) funds to keep its full-time staff employed, though some were laid off in 2022, after the museum had reopened.
Woulfe will mostly likely be remembered for bringing two biennial festivals to the MAH, presented in alternating years, the high-tech-oriented “Frequency” and the outdoor-based “CommonGround,” the latter to take place in September.
Woulfe’s departure represents another moment for the MAH to consider its direction, amid continuing budget challenges and a recent history of turmoil (pandemic-related or otherwise), including much staff change. With public input, the board could continue along the path Woulfe has established, or reorient itself with a new vision. Woulfe followed the eight-year tenure of Nina Simon. who reengineered the museum experience at the MAH to the delight of many and the consternation of others. Simon’s (some might say “bold,” others say “reckless”) opening up of the museum to a wider audience was itself a deliberate redirection from her predecessor, the traditionalist Paul Figueroa.
As a programmer, Woulfe often represented a middle way between the two poles of traditionalist and radical revisionist. Among the exhibitions at the MAH under his tenure was the brash and colorful “The Art of Santa Cruz Speed Wheel,” in conjunction with the Santa Cruz-based NHS skateboard company, and a recently closed retrospective of perhaps Santa Cruz’s most accomplished visual artist, Richard Mayhew, titled “Inner Terrain.”
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