The Frick Collection announced the appointment of leading museum director Axel Rüger as the museum’s next director. He will take office in the spring of 2025.

Rüger comes to the Frick after serving as director of the Royal Academy of Arts in London and director of the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam. Throughout his career as a two-time museum director, he has been recognized as an accomplished arts leader and visionary, with distinct expertise in developing audiences, engaging stakeholders, fundraising, building institutional brands, and producing critically acclaimed exhibitions.

Rüger currently serves as Secretary and Chief Executive of the Royal Academy of Arts, London. Appointed in May 2019, he steered the organization through the Covid-19 pandemic, including a significant restructuring that steadied the institution. Prior to his time at the Royal Academy, Rüger served as Director of Amsterdam’s Van Gogh Museum and sister institution, The Mesdag Collection, in The Hague, which showcases the art assembled by the nineteenth-century seascape painter Hendrik Willem Mesdag and his wife.

From May 1999 to March 2006, Rüger served as Curator of Dutch Paintings 1600–1800 at the National Gallery, London. His specific activities included the reinstallation of the Dutch paintings collection, three major exhibitions (Vermeer and the Delft School, with the Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2001; Aelbert Cuyp, with the National Gallery of Art, Washington DC, and the Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam, 2002; and The Dutch Portrait, with the Mauritshuis, The Hague, 2006–2007).

Rüger’s appointment concludes the Frick’s search for a next director, which began in spring 2024 after the announced retirement of Ian Wardropper. During fourteen impactful years at the Frick, Wardropper led the museum and research library through a period of strategic planning and growth, which included the first comprehensive renovation and upgrade of the Frick’s historic buildings in nearly ninety years, an acclaimed series of exhibitions, and a focused acquisitions program that enhanced the institution’s art and library collections. After a temporary relocation to the Frick Madison, the Frick will reopen its historic buildings at 1 East 70th Street in early 2025.