Arkansas Arts Center Director Todd Herman Resigns

Todd Herman
Executive Director of the Arkansas Arts Center

The Arkansas Arts Center Board of Trustees announced Friday that Todd Herman has resigned as the center’s executive director, effective Aug. 10.

Herman, who was featured in an Arkansas Business Executive Q&A in April, has accepted a job as executive director of The Mint Museum in Charlotte, North Carolina.

Herman had served as the Arkansas Arts Center’s director since 2011. Before that, he was chief curator for six year of the Columbia Museum of Art in Columbia, South Carolina.

The board is conducting a search for his successor. Laine Harber, the Arts Center’s deputy director and CFO, will act as interim director until the position is filled.

“Our priorities for the Arkansas Arts Center remain unchanged as we move towards the groundbreaking of our new facility in the fall of 2019,” Merritt Dyke, board chairman and president, said in a news release. “We are encouraged by the positive response and participation from the community regarding our capital campaign, co-chaired by Harriet and Warren Stephens. Everyone in the organization is focused on making the AAC an unparalleled cultural destination for the citizens of central Arkansas and beyond.”

The board and the Arkansas Art Center Foundation’s board will continue to implement a strategic plan developed in 2016. A redesign of the center is underway, with the new museum set to open in 2022.