Arts | Entertainment | Sports 2024: ERIK H. NEIL

Since joining the Chrysler Museum in 2014, Neil has guided the museum’s growth. In 2022, his position was endowed through a $34 million donation from Virginia Beach philanthropist Joan Brock that also included donated artwork. From December 2023 through April, the Chrysler hosted the U.S. debut of Sir Paul McCartney’s photography exhibit, which included pictures the former Beatle took during the band’s landmark U.S. tour in early 1964. While it wasn’t quite at the screaming heights of Beatlemania, the museum attracted about 60,000 visitors, some from as far as California.    

Meanwhile, Neil has been focused on the completion of the $55 million Perry Glass Studio expansion project that concluded in late summer.

In August 2023, “The Wounded Indian,” an 1850 statue by Peter Stephenson that had been on display at the Chrysler, was returned to Boston’s Massachusetts Charitable Mechanic Association following a decades-long ownership dispute and investigation by the FBI. Said Neil, “The Chrysler is pleased with the amicable resolution, and we wish the best for the MCMA.”

Neil received his bachelor’s degree from Princeton University and a master’s degree and doctorate in art and architecture history from Harvard University.