Richard Armstrong was the Director of the Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation and its constellation of museums, including the Guggenheim Museum, New York; the Peggy Guggenheim Collection, Venice; the Guggenheim Museum Bilbao; and the future Guggenheim Abu Dhabi. Armstrong also served on the Foundation’s Board of Trustees.Since Armstrong was named to the directorship in November 2008, the Guggenheim has undertaken global initiatives to broaden the geographic scope of the museum’s collection and activities, particularly its Asian Art Initiative and the future Guggenheim Abu Dhabi. With an emphasis on scholarship exploring lesser-known histories, exhibitions presented under Armstrong’s direction include Lee Ufan: Marking Infinity; ZERO: Countdown to Tomorrow, 1950s–60s; On Kawara—Silence; Alberto Burri: The Trauma of Painting; Monir Shahroudy Farmanfarmaian: Infinite Possibility. Mirror Works and Drawings, 1974 – 2014; Doris Salcedo; Agnes Martin; Art and China after 1989: Theater of the World; Danh Vo: Take my Breath Away; Hilma af Klint: Paintings for the Future, among others.
Armstrong was previously the Henry J. Heinz II Director at Carnegie Museum of Art, Pittsburgh where he began as a curator in 1992. Prior to that, Armstrong worked at the Whitney Museum of American Art, first as a co-leader of the Whitney Independent Study Program, and then as a curator where he co-organized four Whitney Biennials and numerous other exhibitions. In 1980, he served on the Artists Committee to organize the Museum of Contemporary Art (MOCA), Los Angeles. He began his career as a curator at the La Jolla Museum of Contemporary Art in California.
Armstrong serves on a number of foundation boards and is a member of the Association of Art Museum Directors (AAMD). A native of Kansas City, Missouri, he graduated from Lake Forest College (Illinois) with a BA in art history and studied at the Université de Dijon and the Université Paris-Sorbonne, Paris IV.
