Arnold Lehman, the headline-hitting director of the Brooklyn Museum in New York, has jumped the fence, and taken a top job at Phillips auction house. From September, Lehman will be senior adviser to the company’s chief executive Ed Dolman. The art world veteran will advise on the global expansion of the Phillips brand, oversee a programme that supports exhibitions and art projects in US museums, and serve as a member of the Phillips advisory board, says a press statement. Lehman, who has a doctorate from Yale University, is certainly plugged in to Modern and contemporary art, having helped organise more than 200 exhibitions in Brooklyn including the controversial Sensation show in 1999. He is retiring this summer after 17 years at the helm of the encyclopaedic museum. Phillips has, meanwhile, made numerous high-profile appointments in the past year under Dolman who joined the auction house last July. The CEO hired, for instance, Damien Whitmore, a former V&A bigwig, as creative director last year.
