Dan Weiss, president of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, served as the judge of the 2021 Plein Air Easton art competition.  As we worked with Dan during the festival, we found him to be a passionate, kind, and easy-going man that was able to say incredibly intelligent things in a way that felt connecting when other wise people may sound exclusionary.  He joined us virtually from quarantine to share the story of how he became such a uniquely qualified candidate for his role at the Met and express his love for Plein Air painting.

A scholar of art history and a seasoned leader of complex institutions, Dan Weiss was previously President and Professor of Art History of Haverford College and, from 2005 to 2013 of Lafayette College. He holds an MBA from Yale and a PhD from Johns Hopkins University in western medieval and Byzantine art, where he joined the art history faculty and in six years rose to full professor and then chair of the department. Three years later, he became the James B. Knapp Dean of Johns Hopkins’s Krieger School of Arts and Sciences. He holds a BA in Art History and Psychology from The George Washington University. 

The author of six books and numerous articles, Weiss has published and lectured widely on a variety of topics, including the art of the Middle Ages and the Crusades, higher education, museums, and American culture. His most recent books include In That Time: Michael O’Donnell and the Tragic Era of Vietnam (2019), and Remaking College: Innovation and the Liberal Arts (2013). Earlier in his career, Weiss spent four years as a management consultant at Booz, Allen & Hamilton in New York.

The recipient of fellowships from Harvard University, the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, and the National Endowment for the Humanities, Weiss received the Business and Society Award from the Yale School of Management, the Van Courtlandt Elliott Award from the Medieval Academy of America for scholarship in medieval studies, the Distinguished Alumni Award from George Washington University, and he was inducted into the Society of Scholars at Johns Hopkins in 2018.

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To inquire about being a guest or sponsoring the Plein Air Easton Podcast, send us an email at info@pleinaireaston.com.

This episode is sponsored by JFM Enterprises, providing distinctive ready-made and custom frames & mouldings to the trade since 1974.

Music in this episode was generously provided by Blue Dot Sessions & Scott Gratton.