The former director of the Smithsonian National Portrait Gallery, who stepped down after President Donald Trump claimed to have fired her, will now run the Milwaukee Art Museum.
Kim Sajet resigned in June from the Smithsonian gallery that includes presidential portraits along with artists and other luminaries. Trump said she was a “highly partisan person” in a statement claiming to have fired her. The Smithsonian maintained that Trump did not have the legal authority to do so.
In a statement at the time, Sajet said stepping down was “not an easy decision, but I believe it is the right one” for the institution.
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She will head the Milwaukee Art Museum as it celebrates the 50th anniversary of the museum’s Bradley Collection of Modern Art, the museum noted in a release. That collection includes “nearly 400 modern masterpieces that transformed the museum and put Milwaukee on the cultural map,” according to the release, including works by Pablo Picasso, Mark Rothko and Andy Warhol.
Sajet was born in Nigeria to Dutch parents and raised in Australia. She’s lived in the U.S. for nearly 30 years. Before she was director of the National Portrait Gallery, she worked for history and art institutions in Pennsylvania, including the Philadelphia Museum of Art.
In a statement, she said she was “keen to expand on (the museum’s) commitment to living artists and also explore the educational opportunities that flow from the art and design of the past.”
National Portrait Gallery Director Kim Sajet, center, and actor Tom Hanks, right, pose for a photograph before a ceremony for the unveiling of the official portraits for former President Barack Obama and former first lady Michelle Obama at the Smithsonian’s National Portrait Gallery, Monday, Feb. 12, 2018, in Washington. Andrew Harnik/AP Photo
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