Buffalo AKG appoints Jillian Jones as executive director, Cathleen Chaffee as artistic director

New co-leadership roles expand institutional capacity for future

Buffalo AKG Art Museum press release & photo

The Buffalo AKG Art Museum announced the appointment of two leaders for the 164-year-old museum of modern and contemporary art: Chief Curator Cathleen Chaffee has been appointed artistic director, and Deputy Director Jillian Jones has been appointed executive director. They will begin serving in their new roles Nov. 1.

The creation of the executive director and artistic director roles reflects the Buffalo AKG's evolution following the completion of its historic campus development project into a larger, more complex institution. Guided by two leaders with complementary expertise and a shared commitment to artistic excellence, operational strength and public service, the museum is well-positioned to deepen its artistic impact, strengthen civic impact, and build upon its growing national and international reputation.

These appointments will coincide with the implementation later this year of a new strategic plan that positions the Buffalo AKG as an agile, innovative, and globally engaged cultural institution grounded in artistic excellence and financial sustainability.

The museum's 11^th director, Janne Sirén, will conclude his tenure Oct. 31.

"The board saw an opportunity to embrace a leadership model as ambitious as the museum itself, and as forward-looking as the moment demands," Board President Alice F. Jacobs said. "Over the past 12 years, Jillian Jones and Cathleen Chaffee have each had a transformative impact on this institution – the talent we needed was already here. Together, Jillian Jones as executive director and Cathleen Chaffee as artistic director bring a bold, shared vision for the Buffalo AKG's next chapter, and we could not be more excited about where they will take us."

“It is an extraordinary privilege to serve as executive director at this pivotal moment in the museum's history,” Jones said. “At a time when it is increasingly easy to retreat into familiar perspectives, museums invite us to remain curious, embrace complexity, and encounter one another with openness. Artists make those moments possible. Our responsibility is to create the conditions in which their work can flourish and continue to challenge and inspire. I am excited to work alongside Cathleen, our board, and our exceptional staff to build on this momentum while ensuring the Buffalo AKG continues to lead through artistic excellence, cultural leadership, and a spirit of innovation.”

“Great museums inherit extraordinary histories. Their responsibility, however, is always to the future,” Chaffee said. “The Buffalo AKG has earned its place among the world's leading museums through generations of artists, staff, trustees and supporters who have shaped this institution with imagination, dedication and generosity. To build on their work alongside Jillian and our colleagues across the museum is an honor and a profound responsibility. My hope is that we continue to surprise people through the artists we champion and the conversations their work makes possible. I look forward to what the next generation of artists and audiences will ask of us.”

Together, Jones and Chaffee bring more than three decades of museum leadership experience and nearly 25 years of combined service to the Buffalo AKG. Their partnership has helped guide the museum through the most ambitious period of growth in its history, laying the foundation for this next chapter of shared leadership.

Cathleen Chaffee

Chaffee, Ph.D., joined the Buffalo AKG Art Museum in 2014 and served as Charles Balbach Chief Curator since 2017 before being appointed artistic director. Throughout her career, Chaffee has built collections, cultivated long-term partnerships with artists and their estates, and advanced scholarship and public engagement through exhibitions and publications, strengthening museums as enduring stewards of artists’ work and cultural legacy.

Since joining the Buffalo AKG, Chaffee has overseen the museum’s artistic program through one of the most transformative periods in its history, including the museum’s OMA-designed expansion and reopening in 2023. She directed planning for the landmark reinstallation of the collection, which featured major site-specific commissions by Firelei Báez, Olafur Eliasson and Miriam Bäckström, and has helped strengthen the museum’s renowned collection of modern and contemporary art through strategic acquisitions, transformative gifts, and long-term collection planning.

Chaffee oversees the Buffalo AKG’s stewardship of the Marisol estate, including more than 700 works, the artist’s archives, library and copyright. Under her leadership, the museum has developed a sustained program of exhibitions, publications and research that has established the Buffalo AKG as the center for the study of Marisol’s work. Her broader engagement with museums, artist estates and cultural philanthropy includes participation in the Aspen Institute’s 2025 “Seminar on Strategy for Artist Endowed Foundation Leaders.”

Continuing the Buffalo AKG’s longstanding commitment to living artists, Chaffee has organized numerous exhibitions marking artists’ first U.S. museum surveys, major retrospectives and significant new commissions. Recent projects include “Marisol: A Retrospective,” “Stanley Whitney: How High the Moon,” and “Stanley Whitney: The Italian Paintings,” an official collateral exhibition of the 59th Venice Biennale.

Before joining the Buffalo AKG, Chaffee served as Horace W. Goldsmith Assistant Curator of Modern and Contemporary Art at the Yale University Art Gallery and previously held curatorial positions at The Museum of Modern Art and the Cleveland Museum of Art. She received her Ph.D. from the Institute of Fine Arts, New York University; and her M.A. from The Courtauld Institute of Art, University of London. Chaffee is a 2026 Fellow of the Center for Curatorial Leadership and a former Fulbright Fellow and VIA Art Fund Curatorial Fellow.

Jillian Jones

Jones joined the Buffalo AKG in 2015. Prior to her appointment as deputy director in 2023, Jones served as director of advancement, the Buffalo AKG’s chief fundraising officer. In this capacity, Jones, working closely with the Peggy Pierce Elfvin Director and the board president, led the museum’s historic $230 million capital campaign – the largest such campaign for a cultural institution in the history of Western New York. Beyond fundraising, Jones served on the museum's senior leadership team throughout the planning, design and realization of the Buffalo AKG's campus transformation, working alongside architect Shohei Shigematsu and his team at OMA to help shape the institution's physical and operational future.

As deputy director, Jones has been responsible for the management of the Buffalo AKG’s general business operations and other key museum initiatives, including project implementation, strategic planning, equity and diversity, accessibility, and sustainability.

Prior to joining the Buffalo AKG, Jones served in leadership roles on the philanthropy team at the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts. She received her MA in museum studies with a concentration in public administration from the George Washington University. Jones has represented the Buffalo AKG nationally and internationally through lectures and conference presentations on museum leadership, institutional transformation, and mission-driven revenue models. In 2021, Jones was named one of Buffalo Business First’s “40 Under 40” and, in 2025, included in “Power 200 Women.” She is a member of the Art Museum Development Association and volunteers for the Western New York Women’s Foundation.

More about the Buffalo AKG Art Museum: Founded in 1862, the Buffalo AKG Art Museum is the sixth-oldest public art institution in the U.S. For more than 160 years, the Buffalo AKG has collected, conserved and exhibited the art of its time, often working directly with living artists. This tradition has given rise to one of the world’s most extraordinary collections of modern and contemporary art.

In June 2023, following the completion of the most significant campus development and expansion project in its history, the Buffalo AKG opened anew to the public. The project was funded by a $230 million capital campaign, the largest such campaign for a cultural institution in the history of Western New York, including $195 million raised for construction and $35 million in additional operating endowment funds.