The Smithsonian quietly removed its American Art Museum director after years of staff complaints

The Smithsonian Institution quietly removed the director of the Smithsonian American Art Museum this summer and placed her in another role, following years of complaints from staff about her management of the prominent institution, according to interviews with current and former museum employees and an internal email confirming her job change.

Stephanie Stebich, who joined the museum as director in 2017, told staff in July that she was taking indefinite medical leave. In September, she became a senior adviser within the Smithsonian Institution.

Current and former employees at the American Art Museum and its Renwick Gallery, which Stebich also led, accused the director of having a management style that frequently left staff members frustrated and confused. After years of declining morale, several senior staffers in the museum system outlined their complaints in a letter to Smithsonian leadership in July 2023, according to people familiar with the document. This article is based on interviews with almost a dozen current and former museum employees, most of whom spoke on the condition of anonymity, citing fears of retaliation or concern for their job security.

Members of the board of commissioners at the American Art Museum didn’t learn about the extent of dissatisfaction among staff until this year; the board began looking into the allegations in late spring, according to a board member and staff members who spoke with The Washington Post. Within a few months, the board asked the Smithsonian to remove Stebich from her position as director, according to the board member and museum staff. Leaders at the Smithsonian, including the undersecretary for museums and culture, Kevin Gover, resisted those calls for her removal, according to people who were present for those talks. The conflict culminated with an ultimatum, as multiple board members threatened to resign, according to the board member and staff with knowledge of the interaction.

Stebich was known as a strong fundraiser. But “she was an inexperienced director for an institution the size and complexity of SAAM,” said Virginia Mecklenburg, a longtime curator who retired from the museum in April.

“She was very good at managing up,” said the American Art Museum board member, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe sensitive meetings. “She was not very good at managing down.”

Jane Carpenter-Rock, deputy director for museum content and outreach since 2022, is now the acting director of the museum and its Renwick branch. Stebich now serves as senior adviser to Gover. Neither he nor Stebich responded to several requests for comment. A spokesperson for the Smithsonian said that the institution does not comment on personnel matters and that the search for Stebich’s replacement is underway.

The Smithsonian American Art Museum, billed as the nation’s first collection of American art, shares a building at Eighth and G streets with the National Portrait Gallery and also draws contemporary craft lovers to its Renwick Gallery near the White House. Stebich led some 140 employees across the two buildings and, according to the museum, prioritized scholarship and diversifying the collection. She was well-liked by the museum’s board, according to the board member, and supported notable achievements, including the Renwick Gallery’s 50th anniversary acquisition campaign, a reinstallation project for the American Art Museum’s permanent galleries and the museum’s robust traveling exhibition program.

Stebich came to the museum in 2017 after leading the Tacoma Art Museum in Washington state for more than a decade. The new role was a step up in scale and budget, but the Smithsonian noted her experience in overseeing a museum’s renovation and the expansion of its collection. “This is a dream position,” Stebich told The Post at the time. “This is an institution I’ve always admired, one of the jewels in the Smithsonian crown.”

As a museum director, Stebich raised more than $100 million over the past seven years - a feat that Smithsonian Secretary Lonnie G. Bunch III described as “outstanding” in an Aug. 16 email to staff explaining her new advisory role, which the Smithsonian shared with The Post. The email had not previously been made public.

“The Smithsonian and SAAM have benefited from Stephanie’s passion, dedication and creativity,” the email from Bunch reads. The founding director of the National Museum of African American History and Culture, Bunch in 2019 became the first museum director in decades to lead the Smithsonian Institution as secretary. The Smithsonian did not make Bunch available for comment.

Museum workers and managers who spoke to The Post described an atmosphere of fear and recrimination under Stebich. She publicly rebuked staff, according to employees who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they feared retaliation. Stebich gave contradictory instructions, they said, and at times changed them abruptly, disrupting routines and processes. Staff said she blamed them for her mistakes, berating people in meetings.

Employee satisfaction surveys showed a decline during Stebich’s tenure, according to current and past managers. (The surveys are not public.) Before employees sent the letter in July last year, the Smithsonian brought on management consultants and an executive coach to work alongside the director and facilitate conversations with staff, according to staff members who interacted with these consultants. Yet dissatisfaction remained high due to an “avalanche of factors,” as one senior staffer put it. “The obvious consensus was she was not making improvements.”

In one episode in spring 2023, a group of consultants conducted an exercise during an all-staff meeting. According to eight employees who were present at the meeting, held with more than 100 staffers in the American Art Museum’s auditorium and by video call, the consultants asked the audience to submit their top concerns using a Q&A tool. The anonymous results fed into a word cloud. “Burnout,” “bullying” and “staff morale” all popped up on the screen. Someone added “toxic director.” As other participants echoed this complaint, the phrase grew and grew, according to the eight employees - until “toxic director” dominated the word cloud.

In the room was Stebich herself, staff said, as well as several higher-ups from across the Smithsonian Institution. In the days following the meeting, deputies under Stebich chided employees for “staff bullying,” according to three staffers.

Museum employees said that Stebich created intra-staff rivalries and drove away talent. In 2019, Stebich effectively demoted Mecklenburg - a veteran curator who departed this year after 45 years at the American Art Museum - from chief curator to senior curator, staff said, a title change reflected on the Smithsonian website. In her place, Stebich elevated E. Carmen Ramos, a widely recognized curator of Latin American art who had been seen as the clear eventual successor for the role, to “acting” chief curator. Mecklenburg told The Post that Ramos was her “heir apparent.”

Stebich did not indicate when or whether a search for chief curator would take place - a situation that other staff said created uncertainty around top-level decisions about acquisitions and exhibitions. Ramos, who did not return a request for comment, left the Smithsonian to join the National Gallery of Art as its chief curator in 2021.

Mecklenburg declined to comment on the circumstances of her own employment and departure but said that she fully supported the staff at American Art. “There’s not a competitive bone in the body of any of those curators in terms of gallery space or acquisitions funds,” she said.

As a fundraiser, Stebich cemented gifts that led to several named galleries at the American Art Museum, including the Kelly M. Williams Gallery, named after investor Kelly Williams, who is also vice chair of the board for the museum, as well as the Robert and Faye Davidson Family Gallery, named after entrepreneur Robert C. Davidson Jr., the current museum board chair.

Yet, at times, the director’s fundraising efforts made some staff members cringe, two employees said. In 2017, the museum accepted a monetary gift from the real estate developer Albert H. Small that came with a bequest of 1,297 models of Corvettes, Jaguars and other miniature cars. About 130 of these models now have their own permanent display space at the American Art Museum, putting the cars on the same level with American masterpieces by Albert Bierstadt and Nam June Paik that are also on permanent display.

Stebich’s departure follows another leadership controversy at a Smithsonian museum. In July 2023, Nancy Yao withdrew from her appointment as the founding director of the Smithsonian’s forthcoming American Women’s History Museum after The Post reported that she settled three wrongful-termination lawsuits with staff during her tenure as president of the Museum of Chinese in America.

Smithsonian museums have advisory boards, but as non-fiduciary boards, they do not have the authority to hire or fire museum directors. Ultimately, all final personnel decisions for senior-level Smithsonian museum positions are made by Bunch, the secretary.

The board member for the American Art Museum said the group was “quite shocked” to learn of the extent of dissatisfaction among staff as late as it did, particularly since Smithsonian administrators had been aware of staff complaints earlier.

“The feedback loop didn’t always touch the board in these matters,” the board member said. “It was always self-contained within the Smithsonian system.”