Executive Director for Gilcrease Museum
Brian Lee Whisenhunt is the executive director for Gilcrease Museum. Prior to joining UTulsa in 2024, Whisenhunt served as executive director of The Rockwell Museum, an affiliate of the Smithsonian Institution, located in Corning, New York, for seven years. There, he built upon the museum’s stellar reputation as a leader in arts and museum education, grew the art collection by 25% with artists reflecting the diversity of the American experience, increased attendance and oversaw plans for the museum’s 50th anniversary celebration and reaccreditation.
During his tenure with Rockwell, Whisenhunt served on the Board of Directors of the Museum Association of New York, including a term as president of the board, and is a peer reviewer for the American Alliance of Museums Accreditation Commission. He was a member of the City of Corning Public Art Committee and served as grant reviewer for the New York State Council on the Arts.
Whisenhunt received his master’s degree in art history from the University of Oklahoma and wrote his thesis on earthworks, large-scale sculpture in the landscape from the early 1970s. In addition to his degrees in art history, Whisenhunt also attended the prestigious Museum Leadership Institute and has a certificate in nonprofit executive leadership from the University of Texas of the Permian Basin.
He began his professional career at the Wichita (Kansas) Art Museum before moving on to the Blanton Museum of Art at the University of Texas at Austin and then the Swope Art Museum in Terre Haute, Indiana. In 2011, Whisenhunt was named executive director of the Museum of the Southwest, a 5-acre multidisciplinary campus that includes the Turner Memorial Art Museum, Durham Children’s Museum, Blakemore Planetarium and a public sculpture collection. In 2016, the institution celebrated its 50th anniversary with a $5.4 million renovation of the art museum and historic Turner mansion.
The Thomas Gilcrease Institute of American History and Art, known as Gilcrease Museum, is owned by the City of Tulsa and managed by The University of Tulsa. The museum houses a comprehensive collection with more than 350,000 items representing the art, culture and history of the Americas, including the largest public holdings of art of the American West.