James Cuno
Attribution:
James Cuno
James Cuno
President and Director of The Art Insitute of Chicago
James Cuno is President and Director of the Art Institute of Chicago, and an author on several high-profile books on art history and the issue of repatriation. He is also a professor at Northwestern University. He is an expert is art from the ancient world to post-modernism, and has penned essays and books about artists from Imhotep to Jasper Johns.
Prior to his current job he was Elizabeth and John Moors Cabot Director of the Harvard University Art Museums, and Professor of History of Art and Architecture at Harvard. He gained his PhD from the prestigious US university in 1985. Some of his publications include Who's Muse?: Art Museums and the Public Trust, Master Paintings in the Art Institute of Chicago and Who Owns Antiquity? Museums and the Battle over our Ancient Heritage.
The latter work has become a modern opus on the question of whether ancient artefacts should be sent back to the countries of their origin. Though his motives as a museum director have been called into question by some, many nonetheless see the book as an important critique of the issue of whether artefacts abroad are hostages or ambassadors. The Financial Times says, "The argument presented here is thought-provoking. Cuno may be over-optimistic. But you can't help feeling that he is right."
