Longtime Director to Part with Warhol Museum

Tom Sokolowski will leave his position as director of the Andy Warhol Museum soon after 14 years at the post.

The Carnegie Museums of Pittsburgh announced Sokolowski’s December 31 departure in a news release, but didn’t give a reason for his exit.

In the release, departing Carnegie Museums President David Hillenbrand says Sokolowski “saw beyond what could have been the limitations of a single-artist museum.”

Pittsburgh Center for the Arts Executive Director Charlie Humphrey says Sokolowski brought both regional and international recognition to the Warhol Museum. Humphrey says he imagines the next director will have many of the same qualities as Sokolowski.

“Someone who has the chops of having operated a gallery (Tom came from the great gallery at NYU), who has the scholarship, the deep understanding of Warhol himself,” says Humphrey. “Tom’s charisma’s pretty hard to replace. I don’t know how you shop for that.”

Neither the Carnegie Museums nor Sokolowski returned calls for comment.