There might not be a better fit for Seán O’Harrow than the Bowers Museum in Santa Ana with its diverse collection featuring art from cultures around the world.
“If there’s a museum that is the most similar to my personality and my upbringing and my background, it would this museum because I come from a multicultural family and my father is an American professor, born in Omaha, and my mother is a Vietnamese lady … born in Vietnam, but raised in Paris,” said O’Harrow, who was recently appointed the new president and CEO of the Bowers, a premier museum in Orange County.
O’Harrow, the former executive director of the Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art in Kansas City, Missouri, is the first new leader for the Bowers in decades. Peter Keller served as the museum’s CEO for 31 years – through two major expansions – until his death on Nov. 8, 2022.
“It’s great to come into an institution where major parts of the museum are fully developed and don’t really require any more development for the time being,” said O’Harrow, who grew up in Hawaii and acknowledged an affinity for Japanese paintings and prints and Chinese ceramics.
In addition to its status as a multicultural museum, O’Harrow said he was also drawn to the Bowers’ permanent collection of art that chronicles local history. He said he’s been familiar with the Bowers for more than a decade.
“It has the history of the region,” O’Harrow said. “It has the history of the city. I always like museums that have that kind of connection because I just love the way cities develop.”
With a staff of close to 90 employees and 300 volunteers, the 100,000-square-foot museum is a perfect size, O’Harrow said.
“I feel if a museum gets too large, and not only in terms of scale, but also just in terms of personnel, then it’s less personable to the people who visit,” he said. “A museum that has this size of staff and community interaction, to me, is my sweet spot because I…
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