Grachos to exit Albright-Knox for Texas

Jim Bush

Louis Grachos is leaving the Albright-Knox Art Gallery for a new position ion Austin, Texas.

After 10 years at the helm, Louis Grachos is leaving the Albright-Knox Art Gallery for a new post in Austin, Texas, in January 2013.

The board of trustees will identify a search firm to help identify a new executive director to lead the Buffalo organization.

Grachos will become the first executive director of a museum formed last November by the merger of the Austin Museum of Art (AMOA) and Arthouse at the Jones Center. Like the Albright-Knox, the organization will focus on modern and contemporary art at two sites ? AMOA?s Driscoll Villa at a 12-acre Laguna Gloria site on the shores of Lake Austin, and Arthouse?s exhibition space in downtown Austin. Both facilities currently exhibit works, with additional plans for a new gallery and a sculpture park slated for Laguna Gloria.

With combined revenues of about $3.2 million and a $15 million endowment, the organization is a fraction of the size of the Albright-Knox, but Grachos says it?s the opportunity to grow it into something more that excites him. Grachos says he previously worked with many of the arts professionals involved with the two groups and sees it as a ?ground-up? type of challenge.

?I will be defining the mission and growing this new organization,? he says. ?I thought this would be a great challenge for me. It felt like the right time to move forward.?

The Albright-Knox has an annual operating budget of $6.5 million, including a $118 million endowment. Total revenue (including non-operating revenue) last year totaled $12.7 million, with Grachos receiving a salary of $246,375.

Grachos says he leaves the Albright-Knox in great shape, and will have another six months yet to finish out projects here, concluding with its 150th anniversary celebration.

Tracey Drury covers health/medical, nonprofits and insurance

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