ART & MUSEUM MANAGEMENT SERVICES

Professional Background​

Dr. Michael W. Schantz has forty years of executive experience running American Alliance of Museums accredited art museums. He is knowledgeable about all aspects of museum management, including governance, facilities operations, strategic planning, financial management, and the care, development, interpretation, valuation, acquisition, and installation of fine art collections.

From October 2010 to September 2020 he was the Executive Director, CEO, and Chief Curator of the Heckscher Museum of Art, Huntington, New York, where he was responsible for managing the day-to-day operations, including stewardship of a permanent collection of more than 2,500 European and American paintings, sculptures, and works on paper. 

Prior to his Heckscher appointment, he was the Patricia Van Burgh Allison Executive Director, CEO, and Chief Curator of the Woodmere Art Museum, Philadelphia, a position he held from 1981 through 2009.  In that capacity, he was responsible for acquiring, through purchase and gift, more than 2,000 objects of American art for the Museum’s permanent collection, as well as curating, co-curating, and/or initiating more than 200 art exhibitions. Just before stepping down from this post, he directed the Museum to selection as a Pew Charitable Trusts Philadelphia Cultural Leadership Program Award winner for 2008/09, placing it “among the region’s most accomplished institutions both programmatically and operationally.”  

Previous to his work at Woodmere, Dr. Schantz was the Assistant Director of the Grunwald Center for the Graphic Arts, University of California, Los Angeles (1977-1981), where he managed the day-to-day operations of UCLA’s works on paper collection, which focuses on European, American, and Japanese prints, drawings, photographs, and artists’ books from the Renaissance to contemporary time, one of the largest and most distinguished collections of its kind in America, now under the auspices of the Armand Hammer Museum of Art, Los Angeles. 

Academic Background

Dr. Schantz earned his Ph.D. in art history at UCLA, under the guidance of Dr. E. Maurice Bloch, distinguished scholar of American Art History and the History of Prints. He did his dissertation on the graphic art of New York-based artist James David Smillie (1833-1909), entitled James D. Smillie and the Evolution of American Printmaking.  His M.A. degree is in Art from San Diego State University, San Diego, California and his B.A. is from Muhlenberg College, Allentown, Pennsylvania.

Continuing Education

In addition to his academic degrees, he is also a graduate of New York University’s 2-year Appraisal Studies in Fine and Decorative Art Certificate Program. He also successfully completed a 15-hour course and passed the examination for the Uniform Standards of Professional Appraisal Practice, the Congressionally-recognized set of appraisal standards promulgated by The Appraisal Foundation. Dr. Schantz specializes in the appraisal of 18th, 19th, and early 20th century American Art and fine art prints from the Renaissance until the present.

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