Bronx Museum’s Executive Director Leaves During $33 Million Expansion

The head of the Bronx Museum of the Arts, which recently began a $33 million expansion and renovation project, is leaving his position to lead the Museum of Fine Arts in St. Petersburg, Fla.

The news that Klaudio Rodriguez, who has been at the Bronx Museum for seven years and became its executive director in late 2020, is leaving comes a month after the groundbreaking for the expansion.

The museum will be getting a new multistory entrance and lobby, additional exhibition space and a continuous gallery loop for the campus. Only the north wing is open during construction and the museum is expected to fully reopen in 2026.

The Bronx Museum will now be led on an interim basis by Shirley Solomon, the deputy director, and Yvonne Garcia, its chief advancement officer as the search for his replacement begins. A spokesman for the museum said Rodriguez’s departure and the search for a replacement was not expected to affect the timeline of the renovations or reopening.

The museum began in 1971 inside the Bronx County Courthouse before moving to its permanent site, the former Grand Concourse Synagogue at 165th Street and the Grand Concourse, in 1982. The building has had two previous major expansions, in 1998 and 2006.

The top job at the St. Petersburg museum has been vacant since Anne-Marie Russell departed in March. Russell became its executive director on an interim basis in 2022, after a controversial exhibition of Greek antiquities lent by the museum began touring. (Another museum raised concerns about the provenance of the items, and the curator who organized the show was fired.)

Rodriguez’s move to St. Petersburg is a homecoming of sorts. He was born in Nicaragua and raised in Miami; completed his undergraduate and graduate studies in Florida; and was originally recruited to come to the Bronx after working as the chief curator at the campus art museum at Florida International University.

“I am inspired by the museum’s expansive encyclopedic collection, supportive board, talented and dedicated staff, and the vibrant community in St. Petersburg,” Rodriguez said in the news release. “It is especially meaningful to return to the region where I was raised and began my career in arts and culture.”