The David C. Copley Director
Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego
Hugh Davies has served since 1983 as director of the Museum of Contemporary Art San
Diego, museum with dual facilities in La Jolla and downtown San Diego, and an
international reputation for its exhibitions, programs, and permanent collection. In
1998, his directorship was endowed by David C. Copley. The Museum is currently
engaged in a $30 million campaign to expand and endow MCASD Downtown, a project slated to
open in early 2007. He also oversaw the renovation and expansion of MCASD La Jolla
(1996), and the opening of the museum's first downtown facility (1993). In
addition to his leadership of the administrative and artistic activities of MCASD, Davies
has served as curator or co-curator for numerous exhibitions including Francis Bacon:
The Papal Portraits of 1953 (1999), William Kentridge: Weighing and Wanting
(1998), John Altoon (1997), Blurring the Boundaries: 25 Years of Installation
Art (1996-97), and John Baldessari (1996). In 2004, he received the
California Arts Council Director's Award, recognizing his more than twenty years of
service to the arts in California. He was one of six co-curators who organized the
Biennial 2000 at the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York.
Davies has written or contributed to numerous books and exhibition catalogues over the
years and is recognized internationally as a scholar in the field of contemporary and
modern art. His professional activities include his recent appointment as Adjunct
Professor, Department of Visual Art, University of California, San Diego; service on the
National Endowment for the Art Museum Program Overview Panel; the Federal Advisory
Committee on International Exhibitions; Friends of Art and Preservation in Embassies, 2000
Millennium Committee, the Advisory Council of the Princeton Art Museum, Princeton
University; and the Advisory Council of the Department of Art & Archaeology at
Princeton. Since 1984, he has been a member of the Association of Art Museum
Directors (representing over 170 of the largest art museums in North America), a Trustee
from 1994-2001, and served as President from 1998-1999.
Davies received his A.B., Summa Cum Laude, (1970), M.F.A. (1972), and Ph.D. (1976) from
the Department of Art and Archaeology at Princeton University. His dissertation on
British painter Francis Bacon was later expanded and published by Garland Press; he also
co-authored another volume on Bacon, published by Abbeville Press in 1986, and more
recently authored Francis Bacon: The Papal Portraits of 1953. Since the early
1970s, Dr. Davies' interests have focused on contemporary art. In 1976, he was
Guest Director of the U.S. Pavilion at the 37th Venice Biennale in Italy. From 1975
to 1983, he was Founding Director of the University Gallery at the University of
Massachusetts, Amherst. There, he served as both curator and director, arranging
numerous exhibitions and public sculpture commissions and publishing scholarly
catalogues, and was professor in the Art Departments at Amherst College as well as the
University of Massachusetts.
