Deerfield, Massachusetts (May 6, 2021) — Historic Deerfield, Inc., has named John Davis, former Provost and Under Secretary for Museums, Education, and Research at the Smithsonian Institution, as President and Chief Executive Officer. Davis succeeds Philip Zea, who is retiring from the museum after 18 years in the top post.
“On behalf of the Board of Trustees, I am delighted to welcome John as the next President and CEO of Historic Deerfield,” Joe Gromacki, chair of Historic Deerfield’s Board of Trustees, said. “John is someone who demonstrates the ability, aptitude, and desire to take Historic Deerfield to a new level of impact and success as we move into the next chapter of Historic Deerfield’s institutional life. He has demonstrated a deep passion for Deerfield as a place, as well as a strong recognition of its importance in the American cultural landscape.”
“I am so excited to become the next President and CEO of Historic Deerfield,” Davis said. “Deerfield is a cultural asset to the entire nation. Its ability to tell America’s story in a way that captures the experiences of the diverse groups of people that lived and worked in the village demonstrates the relevance and transformative power of American history, art, and material culture in our society. I look forward to working with the staff, board, and community as we envision an even more impactful Historic Deerfield for the future.”
Davis is currently the Interim Director of Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum in New York City. Previously, he served as Provost and Under Secretary for Museums, Education, and Research at the Smithsonian, from 2017 to 2020. As Provost, Davis was responsible for 19 museums, 9 research institutes, 22 libraries and archives, and the National Zoo. One of his principal roles at the Smithsonian was to drive pan-institutional, interdisciplinary initiatives that leveraged the power of individual museums across the Institution. While there, Davis designed and implemented a comprehensive Open Access initiative, a massive undertaking that has made over three million objects in the Smithsonian collections available in high-resolution digital format to anyone, anywhere in the world, at no cost, for any use. He was also the architect and co-chair of the American Women’s History Initiative (AWHI), the largest national undertaking to tell the diverse stories of the contributions of women and girls in every area of artistic, cultural, political, and professional achievement.
Prior to his time with the Smithsonian, Davis served as Executive Director, Terra Foundation for American Art Europe (Paris) and Executive Director of Global Academic Programs. Among his responsibilities was to oversee the Terra Summer Residency in Giverny and manage the foundation’s historic buildings and landscapes.
Before his work at the Terra Foundation, Davis was a faculty member and administrator at Smith College, in Northampton, Massachusetts, serving for five years as Associate Provost and Dean for Academic Development. He was a member of the Dean’s Council of Five Colleges, Inc., partnering with colleagues at Amherst, Mount Holyoke, and Hampshire Colleges, and the University of Massachusetts Amherst to develop collaborative programs and joint hires. He was also the Alice Pratt Brown Professor of Art and a professor in the American Studies program.
Davis is a distinguished figure in the field of American art history. He holds a Ph.D., M. Phil., and M.A. from Columbia University, and an A.B. from Cornell University, with honors in Art History. Davis taught at Columbia and Princeton Universities before joining the Smith faculty in 1992.
He has authored or co-authored seven books and museum catalogs and contributed dozens of essays to other publications. His most recent book, co-authored with Michael Leja, Art of the United States, 1750-2000: Primary Sources was published in 2020 and will soon be translated into French, German, and Japanese. Two of his books, The Landscape of Belief: Encountering the Holy Land in Nineteenth-Century American Art and Culture and American Art to 1900: A Documentary History co-authored with Sarah Burns, were named Outstanding Academic Book by CHOICE magazine in 1996 and 2009. His article, “Eastman Johnson’s Negro Life at the South and Urban Slavery in Washington, D.C.,” was named by the College Art Association as one of the 32 most important essays published in the first hundred years of the Art Bulletin, the leading art history journal in the world.
Davis has served as a visiting professor in France, Belgium, and Japan, and his research on 19th-century art and architecture has been supported by grants from the Henry Luce Foundation, the Center for the Advanced Study in the Visual Arts, the National Endowment for the Humanities, the Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History, and the Fulbright Association. He has lectured at over 60 museums and universities and is an elected member of the American Antiquarian Society.
Davis’s appointment comes after an extensive search conducted for Historic Deerfield by Isaacson, Miller, a national search firm, and a search committee of Historic Deerfield’s Board of Trustees.
Davis is originally a native of northeastern Ohio. He and his husband, Jason Heffner, will move to Deerfield later this summer.
Historic Deerfield, which maintains more than 50 historic structures in Old Deerfield, Massachusetts, focuses on the significance of small-town America to the national culture. Founded in 1952, the museum includes 12 historic houses dating from 1730 to 1850, which are regularly open to the public as well as the exhibition building, the Flynt Center of Early New England Life. It stewards a nationally significant collection of approximately 32,000 fine and decorative arts objects and household artifacts, both rare and common – including furniture, metalwares, textiles, needlework, ceramics, and more – many with documented histories of ownership or manufacture. These authentic objects document the stories and founding years of our nation, and through them, visitors learn the stories of generations of real people whose beliefs, belongings, lifestyles, conflicts, economy, and technology unlock the door to the past and help us to better understand today. Historic Deerfield offers a full calendar of events to the public, including museum house tours, self-guided tours, special exhibitions, and over 75 annual public programs. Additionally, Historic Deerfield has sponsored, since 1956, the annual Summer Fellowship Program for college undergraduates seeking to enter the museum field.
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