Taking a Step-by-Step Approach to Growth

March 19, 2009, The New York Times — NEAL BENEZRA is not a showman. But as museum directors nationwide face plummeting endowments and potentially crippling budget cuts, Mr. Benezra’s even-keeled approach and penchant for collaboration in his stewardship of the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art may be a blueprint for how to endure the financial uncertainty.

“We benefited from the fact that we went through a tough time seven years ago,” said Mr. Benezra, 55, who grew up in the Bay Area.

He became director in 2002, soon after the dot-com bubble had burst. The museum had just undergone a huge growth spurt. Riding the wave of affluence amassed in the area from high-tech industries since the 1980s, the museum had moved in 1995 from cramped, shared quarters in the War Memorial Building to its expansive home designed by Mario Botta.

Under the leadership of Jack Lane and then David Ross, it aggressively acquired works by artists like Piet Mondrian, René Magritte, Mark Rothko and Robert Rauschenberg to fill its new galleries. But the institution’s quick growth could not be sustained. When the dot-coms crashed in 2001, Mr. Ross left abruptly, a dozen staff members were laid off, and the museum faced a $2 million deficit.

Mr. Benezra, who came to the job after serving simultaneously as deputy director and head curator of modern and contemporary art at the Art Institute of Chicago, said he learned a lot from his initiation, when he cut $2 million from the budget.

“We actually lost more money than we saved, which was a revelation to me and the board,” said Mr. Benezra, who has operated the museum in the black since 2003. “Our membership declined, our attendance declined, our philanthropy declined.”

He then took a more deliberate tack of slowing the pace of exhibitions and stretching resources, rather than shutting down activities as the city recovered. “If you cut excessively — and I think I can say this is wisdom for our current situation in our field right now — the public will lose interest in you,” he said. “It’s a very fine line, but you can create a recession of your own making if you’re too extreme in the reduction of your program.”