Richard E. Oldenburg has died

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  Richard Erik Oldenburg, 1933-2018. Photo Sweden New York / artforum

• Richard E. Oldenburg, known as the very successful director of the Museum of Modern Art, has died. He was 85.
  Oldenburg was born in Stockholm, Sweden on Sept. 21, 1933. His father, Gösta, was a diplomat and his mother, Sigrid (Sigelle) Lindforss, was an opera singer in Sweden and became an artist in the United States. His older brother, Claes Oldenburg, is well known for his modern and pop art. It was Gösta’s work with the Swedish diplomatic service that brought the family to the United States; they settled in Chicago in 1936.

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  Richard Oldenburg stands with curators Anita Alvin Nilert and Elfi von Kantzow Alvin at the opening of his mother's art exhibit: "Sigelle - Selected Works" at the Trygve Lie Gallery in NYC in 2011.

• Oldenburg was educated at Harvard, served in the United States Army, and in 1959 become an American citizen. He began his professional life in journalism and went on to work in the art world, though he didn’t create art like his mother and brother did. He served as MoMA's director from 1972 to 1994, having previously been acting director of the museum and, before that, director of MoMA’s Department of Publications. During his 22-year tenure as director, Oldenburg led MoMA’s programming and significantly increased its staff, he oversaw important exhibitions of works by the likes of Cézanne, Matisse and Picasso, and spearheaded a major $55 million expansion for the museum and its galleries. He increased MoMA’s annual budget from $7 million to $50 million, pushed its endowment from $20 million to $180 million and raised attendance considerably. Oldenburg greatly enhanced the collection with major acquisitions that solidified the museum's reputation as the foremost museum of modern art in the world.

• After he retired from MoMA, he became chairman of Sotheby's America from 1995 to 2006 and president of the Board of Overseers at Harvard University for a year.

• Oldenburg died in his Manhattan apartment on April 17, 2018. He is survived by his wife, Mary Ellen and his brother, Claes.