Till-Holger Borchert and Hubert de Witte have been appointed as new directors of Musea Brugge. The two will succeed Manfred Sellink, who left Musea Brugge to become general director and head curator of the Koninklijk Museum voor Schone Kunsten Antwerpen on the first of December. Till-Holger Borchert, who is currently chief curator at the Groeningemuseum, becomes the director responsible for artistic programming and content. Hubert De Witte, former deputy director to Manfred Sellink, will start as managing director.
From Musea Brugge’s press release, 18 December 2014
Till-Holger Borchert and Hubert De Witte have been appointed as new directors of the Bruges Museums.
Hubert De Witte (* 1955 in Sinaai), who previously served as Deputy director to Manfred Sellink who stepped down to become the new director of the Royal Museum of Fine Arts in Antwerp, is the new managing director of the Bruges Museums. The trained archaeologist started his career in Bruges in 1977 by starting up the Bruges archaeological department. One of the highlights (in 1979) was the discovery of the burial vault and the skeleton of Mary of Burgundy. He had until recently been in charge of the Museum of Bruges’ history that he himself conceptualized as the multi-location Bruggemuseum. Next to his task as managing director, Mr De Witte will keep overseeing the city’s historical collections.
Till-Holger Borchert (*1967 in Hamburg) is the director responsible for artistic program and content of the Museums, and will remain in charge of the Fine Arts Collections. He joined the Bruges’ museums in 2002 after his curatorship for Bruges 2002- Cultural Capital of Europe. He has been Chief Curator of the Groeningemuseum since 2003 and founded the Flemish Research Center for the Arts of the Burgundian Netherlands. A renowned scholar in the field of Early Netherlandish Painting, Till-Holger Borchert curated several of Bruges’ critically acclaimed exhibitions such as "Jan van Eyck, the Flemish Primitives and the Mediterranean World" (2002), "Memling’s Portraits" (2005), "Fake/Not Fake" (2005), "Van Eyck to Dürer" (2010). Recently he curated the monographic Memling show currently on view in Rome.
With their intimate knowledge of the Bruges museums and their history as well as their broad experience in the national and international cultural sector they are extremely well qualified to provide inspired leadership for the Bruges’ museums for the coming decade.
