Peter may have a complete report on FrontRow about Tuesday’s media luncheon with Maxwell Anderson, the new director of the Dallas Museum of Art. But at first blush Anderson’s a big-time arts guy straight out of central casting: polished, corporate, carefully spoken. Tailor-made for Dallas, in other words. Asked about lessons he’d learned after sometimes rocky stints at the Whitney in New York and the Indianapolis art museum — institutions where he reportedly clashed with board members and big donors — Anderson replied the problem was that too many of those people were not art collectors themselves, in contrast to the situation here.
The new director is married, by the way, to the beautiful, Houston-reared actress/entrepreneur Jacqueline Buckingham Anderson, who’s likely to give Anna-Sophia a run for her money as a head-turner on the social circuit. Just now Jacqueline — who literally does hail from central casting — is said to be overseeing the building of a new home for the Andersons in Preston Hollow. (She’s had practice at such things, having “redecorated” the couple’s 12,000-square-foot, museum-provided residence in Indy with buying trips to California and Europe, according to the NYT). According to John Eagle, president of the DMA board, she may eventually start her own business here putting art into public or corporate spaces like hospitals.