Esther Bell New Clark Director

Assumes Position in July

By: Clark - Jan 29, 2026

 

The Board of Trustees of the Clark Art Institute today announced the appointment of Esther Bell as the Institute’s Hardymon Director. Currently serving as the Clark’s Deputy Director and Robert and Martha Berman Lipp Chief Curator, Bell will become the Clark’s sixth director when she assumes her new role on July 1.

The Board unanimously elected Bell to the position following an extensive international search. Bell will be the first woman in the Clark’s seventy-year history to serve as its director. She succeeds Olivier Meslay, who announced last September that he would be leaving the Clark and returning to his native France in 2026.

“We are proud and deeply gratified to announce Esther Bell as our new director, based on her countless achievements at the Clark and a career of recognized excellence in the field,” said Denise Littlefield Sobel, chairman of the Institute’s Board of Trustees. “She is a consummate professional, a collaborative member of the Clark’s senior staff, and has honed her directorial acumen through sharp executive decision-making and a talent for forging close working relationships throughout the museum world. We look forward to her leading the Clark to even greater success in her new position.”

Of his successor, Meslay noted that “I first met Esther Bell in 2003 when she was pursuing a Fulbright Fellowship at the Musée du Louvre. I knew then that she was an exceptional art historian and I have watched her forge a brilliant career. I am delighted to know that the Clark’s next chapter will be entrusted to Esther’s exceedingly capable hands. She is a respected museum leader, an impressive scholar, and a passionate advocate for the arts. I congratulate Esther on her appointment and look forward to celebrating the continued growth and success she is sure to bring to the Clark.”

Bell is a key member of the Clark’s senior leadership team. In addition to leading the Institute’s curatorial staff and directing the care and growth of its collections, Bell oversees the work of the Clark’s library, its education and public programming teams, and its visitor services efforts. She also plays a central role in fulfilling the Clark’s commitment to visitor engagement, while representing the Clark on a number of community-based service organizations.

“I am honored by the opportunity to become the Clark’s Hardymon Director and extraordinarily inspired to imagine where we can take this beloved and celebrated institution in the years ahead,” said Bell. “With the support of my esteemed colleagues, I look forward to being a part of an exciting future for the Clark as we dedicate ourselves to ensuring that the Institute will always be a welcoming place of contemplation, inspiration, and education for all. As we continue to grow our campus and our collections, we recognize the significance of ensuring that we steward the Clark’s remarkable resources with care, consideration, and commitment to fulfill our mission of extending the public’s appreciation of art.”

ABOUT ESTHER BELL

Esther Bell joined the Clark’s staff in 2017 and was appointed Deputy Director in 2022. Her first engagement with the Institute came in 2001 when she came to Williamstown to pursue her Master’s degree in Williams College’s Graduate Program in the History of Art, which is jointly administered by and housed at the Clark.

In her time at the Clark, Bell has spearheaded the Institute’s embrace of a broader array of artists and genres, making ambitious acquisitions and encouraging critical scholarly research of the objects in the collection.  

Bell has been deeply involved in the Clark’s special exhibitions program and has organized several of its most important recent exhibitions, including:

• An Exquisite Eye: Introducing the Aso O. Tavitian Collection (June 13, 2026 to February 21, 2027), celebrating the transformative gift to the Clark from the foundation of the late collector and connoisseur Aso O. Tavitian. The exhibition will present some 150 of the works recently added to the Clark’s permanent collection, including rare Renaissance and Early Modern masterpieces by artists including Jan Van Eyck, Andrea della Robbia, Gian Lorenzo Bernini, Peter Paul Rubens, Jean-Antoine Watteau, and Elizabeth Vigée-Lebrun. Bell played a central role in the Clark’s acquisition of the Tavitian gift and conceptualized this exhibition, curated along with Lara Yeager-Crasselt, the Clark’s newly appointed Aso O. Tavitian Curator of Early Modern European Painting and Sculpture.
• Guillaume Lethière (June 15 to October 14, 2024), the first monographic exhibition ever presented on the Neoclassical artist. Forging new scholarship on an artist who played a central role in eighteenth and nineteenth century French art, the exhibition introduced Lethière’s work to contemporary audiences. Following its debut at the Clark, the exhibition traveled to Paris where it was presented at the Musée du Louvre, and is now on view at the Mémorial ACTe in Pointe-à-Pitre, Guadeloupe. Bell co-curated the exhibition at the Clark with Olivier Meslay and at the Louvre with Marie-Pierre Salé, chief curator in the Department of Drawings.  

•  Promenades on Paper: Eighteenth-Century French Drawings from the Bibliothèque Nationale de France (December 17, 2022 to March 12 2023), the first American presentation of works from the esteemed collection of France’s national library and the first public exhibition of many of the rare drawings in the library’s vast holdings. The exhibition was organized by the Clark in partnership with the Bibliothèque nationale de France, and was jointly curated by a Clark team including Bell, Sarah Grandin, the Clark-Getty Curatorial Fellow, and Anne Leonard, Manton Curator of Prints, Drawings, and Photographs, in collaboration with  Corinne Le Bitouzé, Conservateur general, Pauline Chougnet, Conservateur en charge des dessins, and Chloé Perrot, Conservateur des bibliothèques, from the Bibliothèque nationale.
• Renoir: The Body, The Senses (June 8 to September 22, 2019), the critically acclaimed exhibition was the first major exploration of Renoir’s unceasing interest in the human form. Bell and George T.M. Shackleford, deputy director of the Kimbell Art Museum, co-curated the exhibition and authored the accompanying catalogue. Following its premiere at the Clark, Renoir: The Body, The Senses traveled to Fort Worth for its presentation at the Kimbell.

Bell also played an integral role in the inaugural presentation of the Clark’s first outdoor exhibition, Ground/work (October 6, 2020 to October 17, 2021) and its second iteration, which is currently on view through October 12, 2026 on the Clark’s 140-acre campus. Featuring monumental sculptural works, both presentations underscore the relationship between art and nature that are so central to the experience of the Clark.  

In addition to her curatorial efforts, Bell was responsible for a major expansion of the Clark’s education and public programming activities, culminating in the 2025 establishment of its Division of Learning and Engagement. This project established a framework to more completely integrate the Clark’s educational activities, school and community outreach, and public programming initiatives in support of the Clark’s commitment to fostering meaningful engagements with art and nature.

Bell regularly teaches courses in the Williams College/Clark Graduate Program in the History of Art and frequently lectures in the United States and Europe. She has co-edited and contributed to numerous scholarly exhibition catalogues.

Before joining the Clark, Bell served as the curator in charge of European paintings at the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, where she organized important exhibitions including Degas, Impressionism, and the Paris Millinery Trade and The Brothers Le Nain: Painters of Seventeenth-Century France. Prior to that, Bell was the curator of European paintings, drawings, and sculpture at the Cincinnati Art Museum. She began her career in New York, holding positions as a research assistant and curatorial fellow at both the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Morgan Library & Museum.

Bell holds a doctorate in the history of art from the Institute of Fine Arts, New York University, with a specialization in seventeenth- and eighteenth-century European art. She earned a master’s degree from the Williams College/Clark Graduate Program in the History of Art, and a bachelor’s degree in the history of art from the University of Virginia. She completed a Fulbright Fellowship at the Musée du Louvre in 2003 and has held several other fellowships. 

In 2020, Bell completed a fellowship at the Center for Curatorial Leadership in New York. In 2015, Apollo magazine named her one of the top curators in North America under the age of forty.  

Bell is active in the Williamstown community and is a member of the boards of both the Williamstown Community Chest and the Williamstown Chamber of Commerce.

Russell Reynolds Associates, New York, coordinated the search for the Clark, working closely with a committee comprised of members of the Institute’s Board of Trustees.