James S. Snyder
Encyclopedia
James S. Snyder is the director of the Israel Museum
since 1996.
James S. Snyder has served as the Anne and Jerome Fisher Director of the Israel Museum since 1996. During his tenure, the Israel Museum has strengthened its international presence with an ambitious series of important loan exhibitions in Jerusalem and traveling exhibitions worldwide; continued to expand its holdings across all of its collecting areas; developed its network of International Friends organizations, now operating in fourteen countries worldwide; launched a campaign to double its endowment to $150 million; and undergone a series of upgrades and enhancements.
Most recently the Israel Museum has completed a comprehensive $100-million capital project led by Snyder and designed by James Carpenter Design Associates, New York, and Efrat-Kowalsky Architects, Tel Aviv. Created to resonate with the Museum’s original architectural plan and to unify and enhance the facilities throughout the campus, the project is the most comprehensive capital undertaking since the Israel Museum’s founding in 1965. Related projects include: the $3-million restoration of the Shrine of the Book
(2004); and the $6-million expansion of the Museum’s Shrine of the Book complex to encompass the Model of Jerusalem in the Second Temple period and a new Dead Sea Scrolls
Study Center (2006).
Throughout his tenure, Snyder has been responsible for the overall direction of the Museum’s curatorial program and has organized major international loan exhibitions at the Museum and traveled numerous exhibitions abroad. Recent highlights include Looking for Owners and Orphaned Art (2008), two exhibitions on art looted during World War II; Real Time: Art in Israel 1998-2008 (2008), as part of the State of Israel’s 60th anniversary celebrations; and Surrealism and Beyond (2007), a comprehensive survey of Dada and Surrealist art, which recently completed an international tour.
The Museum’s encyclopedic collection of 500,000 objects has been strengthened through strategic acquisitions and gifts under Snyder’s leadership. Highlights include: the Beth Shean Venus (3rd Century CE); the First Nuremberg Haggadah, Germany (ca. 1449); Nicolas Poussin
’s Destruction and Sack of the Temple of Jerusalem (1625); Rembrandt van Rijn’s St. Peter in Prison (1631); Jackson Pollock
’s Horizontal Composition (1949); the Arturo Schwarz
Collection of Dada and Surrealist Art; and Olafur Eliasson
’s Your Activity Horizon (2004). The Israel Museum was also recently gifted the major collection of European and American photography – ranging from earliest vintage 19th century images through modern and contemporary works – assembled by long-time Museum patrons Noel and Harriette Levine of New York.
Prior to his appointment at the Israel Museum, Snyder held a number of positions at The Museum of Modern Art
, New York
, culminating as Deputy Director from 1986 to 1996. During his tenure at MoMA, he oversaw the Museum’s $60-million, 350,000-square-foot expansion completed in 1984. He also had significant organizational responsibility for such major international loan exhibitions as Henri Matisse
: A Retrospective (1992) and Pablo Picasso
: A Retrospective (1980).
Snyder is a graduate of Harvard University and a Loeb Fellow of Harvard’s Graduate School of Design. His publications include: Museum Design: Planning and Building for Art (Oxford University Press) in 1993; and RENEWED: The Israel Museum, Jerusalem, Campus Renewal Project (The Israel Museum) in 2011. 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 2011, he was awarded the Jerusalem Foundation’s Teddy Kollek Award for Significant Contribution to Jerusalem.
James S. Snyder is married to Tina Davis Snyder, a graphic designer, and they have two children.
Israel Museum
The Israel Museum, Jerusalem was founded in 1965 as Israel's national museum. It is situated on a hill in the Givat Ram neighborhood of Jerusalem, near the Bible Lands Museum, the Knesset, the Israeli Supreme Court, and the Hebrew University of Jerusalem....
since 1996.
James S. Snyder has served as the Anne and Jerome Fisher Director of the Israel Museum since 1996. During his tenure, the Israel Museum has strengthened its international presence with an ambitious series of important loan exhibitions in Jerusalem and traveling exhibitions worldwide; continued to expand its holdings across all of its collecting areas; developed its network of International Friends organizations, now operating in fourteen countries worldwide; launched a campaign to double its endowment to $150 million; and undergone a series of upgrades and enhancements.
Most recently the Israel Museum has completed a comprehensive $100-million capital project led by Snyder and designed by James Carpenter Design Associates, New York, and Efrat-Kowalsky Architects, Tel Aviv. Created to resonate with the Museum’s original architectural plan and to unify and enhance the facilities throughout the campus, the project is the most comprehensive capital undertaking since the Israel Museum’s founding in 1965. Related projects include: the $3-million restoration of the Shrine of the Book
Shrine of the Book
The Shrine of the Book , a wing of the Israel Museum near Givat Ram in Jerusalem, houses the Dead Sea Scrolls—discovered 1947–56 in 11 caves in and around the Wadi Qumran...
(2004); and the $6-million expansion of the Museum’s Shrine of the Book complex to encompass the Model of Jerusalem in the Second Temple period and a new Dead Sea Scrolls
Dead Sea scrolls
The Dead Sea Scrolls are a collection of 972 texts from the Hebrew Bible and extra-biblical documents found between 1947 and 1956 on the northwest shore of the Dead Sea, from which they derive their name...
Study Center (2006).
Throughout his tenure, Snyder has been responsible for the overall direction of the Museum’s curatorial program and has organized major international loan exhibitions at the Museum and traveled numerous exhibitions abroad. Recent highlights include Looking for Owners and Orphaned Art (2008), two exhibitions on art looted during World War II; Real Time: Art in Israel 1998-2008 (2008), as part of the State of Israel’s 60th anniversary celebrations; and Surrealism and Beyond (2007), a comprehensive survey of Dada and Surrealist art, which recently completed an international tour.
The Museum’s encyclopedic collection of 500,000 objects has been strengthened through strategic acquisitions and gifts under Snyder’s leadership. Highlights include: the Beth Shean Venus (3rd Century CE); the First Nuremberg Haggadah, Germany (ca. 1449); Nicolas Poussin
Nicolas Poussin
Nicolas Poussin was a French painter in the classical style. His work predominantly features clarity, logic, and order, and favors line over color. His work serves as an alternative to the dominant Baroque style of the 17th century...
’s Destruction and Sack of the Temple of Jerusalem (1625); Rembrandt van Rijn’s St. Peter in Prison (1631); Jackson Pollock
Jackson Pollock
Paul Jackson Pollock , known as Jackson Pollock, was an influential American painter and a major figure in the abstract expressionist movement. During his lifetime, Pollock enjoyed considerable fame and notoriety. He was regarded as a mostly reclusive artist. He had a volatile personality, and...
’s Horizontal Composition (1949); the Arturo Schwarz
Arturo Schwarz
Arturo Umberto Samuele Schwarz son of a German father and an Italian mother, is an Italian scholar, art historian, poet, writer, lecturer, art consultant and curator of international art exhibitions...
Collection of Dada and Surrealist Art; and Olafur Eliasson
Olafur Eliasson
Olafur Eliasson is a Danish-Icelandic artist known for sculptures and large-scale installation art employing elemental materials such as light, water, and air temperature to enhance the viewer’s experience. In 1995 he established Studio Olafur Eliasson in Berlin, a laboratory for spatial research...
’s Your Activity Horizon (2004). The Israel Museum was also recently gifted the major collection of European and American photography – ranging from earliest vintage 19th century images through modern and contemporary works – assembled by long-time Museum patrons Noel and Harriette Levine of New York.
Prior to his appointment at the Israel Museum, Snyder held a number of positions at The Museum of Modern Art
Museum of Modern Art
The Museum of Modern Art is an art museum in Midtown Manhattan in New York City, on 53rd Street, between Fifth and Sixth Avenues. It has been important in developing and collecting modernist art, and is often identified as the most influential museum of modern art in the world...
, New York
New York
New York is a state in the Northeastern region of the United States. It is the nation's third most populous state. New York is bordered by New Jersey and Pennsylvania to the south, and by Connecticut, Massachusetts and Vermont to the east...
, culminating as Deputy Director from 1986 to 1996. During his tenure at MoMA, he oversaw the Museum’s $60-million, 350,000-square-foot expansion completed in 1984. He also had significant organizational responsibility for such major international loan exhibitions as Henri Matisse
Henri Matisse
Henri Matisse was a French artist, known for his use of colour and his fluid and original draughtsmanship. He was a draughtsman, printmaker, and sculptor, but is known primarily as a painter...
: A Retrospective (1992) and Pablo Picasso
Pablo Picasso
Pablo Diego José Francisco de Paula Juan Nepomuceno María de los Remedios Cipriano de la Santísima Trinidad Ruiz y Picasso known as Pablo Ruiz Picasso was a Spanish expatriate painter, sculptor, printmaker, ceramicist, and stage designer, one of the greatest and most influential artists of the...
: A Retrospective (1980).
Snyder is a graduate of Harvard University and a Loeb Fellow of Harvard’s Graduate School of Design. His publications include: Museum Design: Planning and Building for Art (Oxford University Press) in 1993; and RENEWED: The Israel Museum, Jerusalem, Campus Renewal Project (The Israel Museum) in 2011. 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 2011, he was awarded the Jerusalem Foundation’s Teddy Kollek Award for Significant Contribution to Jerusalem.
James S. Snyder is married to Tina Davis Snyder, a graphic designer, and they have two children.
See also
- Joan Darragh and James Snyder, Museum design: planning and building for art, New York: Oxford University Press, 1993
- James Snyder, Renewed: The Israel Museum, Jerusalem campus renewal project, 2011