In Review

Rochester’s art gallery and advancement office are welcoming new leaders.

Memorial Art Gallery Director

Jonathan Binstock is the new Mary W. and Donald R. Clark Director of the Memorial Art Gallery. Most recently a senior vice president and senior advisor in modern and contemporary art for Citi Private Bank’s Art Advisory & Finance group in New York City, he brings more than a decade of curatorial work in major American museums.

Binstock succeeds Grant Holcomb, who retired in August after nearly 29 years in the position.

An expert in post–World War II art, Binstock joined Citi in 2007 as senior vice president and specialist in modern and contemporary art, working with clients and their families in the U.S. and abroad to build personal art collections. He also worked with Citi’s art finance program, ensuring the quality of artworks and assessing their value.

From 2000 to 2007, he was curator of contemporary art at the Corcoran Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C., and before that was assistant curator at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts in Philadelphia. His many exhibitions include the 47th (2002) and 48th (2005) Corcoran Biennials; Sam Gilliam: A Retrospective (2005); Atomic Time: Pure Science and Seduction (2003); and Andy Warhol: Social Observer (2000). His most recent curatorial project, Dan Steinhilber: Marlin Underground, was on view at the Kreeger Museum in Washington, D.C., in 2012.

Binstock is a board member of the American Federation of Arts and a scholarly consultant for the Visual Arts Gallery of the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture. He also serves as a peer reviewer for the U.S. General Services Administration’s Percent-for-Art in Architecture Program and served for a decade on the President’s Council for the Higher Achievement Program in Washington, D.C., an after-school educational mentoring organization.

He has taught art history at the University of Pennsylvania and the University of Michigan, from which he holds a master’s degree and a PhD in art history. He has written about artists as varied as Jeremy Blake, Ellsworth Kelly, Joan Mitchell, Alma Thomas, and Richard Tuttle. He has a forthcoming book about the artist Meleko Mokgosi.

Chief Advancement Officer

Thomas Farrell ’88, ’94W (MS) has been named to lead the University’s Office of Advancement, including the completion of The Meliora Challenge, Rochester’s $1.2 billion campaign.

Currently chief development officer for the University of Illinois and president/CEO of the University of Illinois Foundation, Farrell will begin at Rochester on November 1. He will replace James Osterholt, who has served as interim chief advancement officer since last fall.

Farrell will become senior vice president and James D. Thompson Chief Advancement Officer, a position made possible through a gift from University Trustee Larry Bloch ’75 and his wife, Cindy.

Farrell began his fundraising career at the University and brings more than 24 years of advancement experience. A class campaign fundraiser in 1990, he served as director of the reunion major gifts program from 1993 to 1995. He then led the fundraising program at the University of Buffalo School of Law before joining Dartmouth College as director of gift planning. In 2001, Farrell began a decade-long job at the University of Pennsylvania, where he managed Penn’s undergraduate and individual giving program and served as a member of its senior management team, responsible for coordinating all institutional advancement activity, including strategy for Penn’s recently completed $4.3 billion campaign.

In 2010, Farrell joined the University of Chicago as vice president for alumni relations and development, leading a staff of 450 advancement professionals from all schools, divisions, and units, and planning Chicago’s current comprehensive campaign.

At Illinois, he oversees development programs that span three campuses and the foundation, with a budget of $53 million and a combined staff of more than 400. As CEO of the foundation, he is also responsible for its investment office and the university’s core endowment.

At Rochester, Farrell earned a bachelor’s degree in history and political science, and an MS in education. In 2005, he completed his EdD at the University of Pennsylvania in higher education management.