Hirshhorn Board Elects New Chair

Washingtonian Daniel H. Sallick Succeeds Peggy Burnet
Hirshhorn Announces New $500,000 Gift from J. Tomilson Hill and Janine Hill

5/31/16

The Board of Trustees of the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden this week elected longtime Washington, D.C. board member and contemporary art collector Daniel H. Sallick to serve as its new chair. Sallick succeeds Peggy Burnet of Minneapolis, who will remain a member of the board.

The board also welcomed contemporary art collector and investor Adam Singer of Phoenix as a new member. With 24 members, the board is strongest in number since its founding in 1966. The board has doubled in size during the tenure of Hirshhorn Director Melissa Chiu, who took the helm of the museum in 2014.

Sallick, a Washington communications executive, has been a member of the Hirshhorn board since 2010 and previously served as secretary, treasurer and most recently chair of the of the nominating and governance committee. A longtime contemporary art collector, he is a founder and partner of Subject Matter, a leading D.C. creative communications and strategy firm.

“I couldn’t be more excited to have Dan in this role and to have our first D.C.-based board chair in more than a dozen years,” Chiu commented. “His knowledge of the museum, commitment to contemporary art and background in communications and marketing make him a great fit to lead our board.”

“This is an incredible moment to take on this position,” Sallick said. “The board has never been stronger or more engaged. Melissa has assembled an impressive staff and set an ambitious agenda. I look forward to supporting her drive to see the museum recognized as a national and global leader while continuing to engage more deeply with the Washington community. We are a national institution but one that this community takes great pride in helping to support.”

Also this week, as an expression of support for the Hirshhorn’s direction under Melissa Chiu and in celebration of Sallick’s election, former board Chair J. Tomilson Hill and current board member Janine Hill announced a new $500,000 gift that will be used to support museum infrastructure and programming. “As the former Chair of the Hirshhorn’s board, I am making this gift in honor of the newly elected Chair, Dan Sallick, in support of his partnership with Melissa Chiu,” said J. Tomilson Hill. “Together Melissa and Dan are leading the Hirshhorn into a new chapter, with a strong slate of exhibitions and a newly global approach to building the collection.”

“We are so grateful to the Hills for their extraordinary generosity toward the Hirshhorn,” said Chiu. “Tom and Janine continue to give not just much needed resources but their time and strategic counsel as well.”

About the Board Members

Dan Sallick cofounded Home Front Communications in 1998 with Paul Frick. In 2015 Home Front merged with Elmendorf|Ryan to form the public affairs agency Subject Matter. Prior to founding Home Front, Sallick worked in political communications for more than a decade, serving as press secretary to House Democratic Leader Dick Gephardt and as communications director for the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee. He has served on the Hirshhorn’s board since 2010. He has collected contemporary art for more than 15 years, focusing on conceptual art including video, photography and text.

Adam Singer is president of The Prospective Investment and Trading Co., Ltd. (“PITCO”), an independently owned and operated oil and gas exploration and production company located in Scottsdale, Arizona. Before assuming operational control of PITCO in 1991, he worked in the investment banking divisions of both Salomon Brothers and Bear Stearns and Company. An avid contemporary art collector, he has served on the board of the Phoenix Art Museum since 2011 and serves on its Contemporary Forum. He has also been involved in various capacities with Tesseract School, located in Scottsdale.