“To create a balance between the local and the universal”

Exclusive interview with James Snyder, director of the Israel Museum in Jerusalem

MúzeumCafé 40.

James S. Snyder was born in 1952 in Pittsburgh, USA. He is a graduate of Harvard University and a Loeb Fellow of Harvard’s Graduate School of Design. His maternal grandfather emigrated from Hungary to America in 1917. His grandmother and mo-ther with the siblings followed in 1922. From 1986 to 1996, Snyder served as deputy director of New York’s Museum of Modern Art, the expansion of which was managed and organized by him. During his time at MOMA major international loan exhibitions were staged. Snyder has been the Anne and Jerome Fisher Director of the Israel Museum since 1996. He aims at strengthening the international presence of the museum and organizing major travelling exhibitions, like the one last year presenting works of the greatest Impressionists staged jointly with the Hungarian National Gallery. Mr. Snyder visited Hungary on the occasion. The International Friends of the Israel Museum network is present in 16 countries worldwide. Under his direction, the museum has made important acquisitions, including works of Poussin, Rembrandt and Jackson Pollock. In 2006, Snyder was awarded the Commendatore dell’Ordine della Stella della Solidarietà Italiana (Commander of the Order of the Star of Italian Solidarity) of the Republic of Italy. In 2010 he received the Chevalier de l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres (Knight of the Order of Arts and Letters) of the French Republic. And in 2012 he was made an Honorary Citizen of Jerusalem, an honour originally awarded to Israel’s first president, Chaim Weizmann. In 2010 he was named one of the fifty most influential people in the art world.