On March 26 we learned of the death of Dr Edmund P. (“Ted”) Pillsbury at the age of 66 from an apparent heart attack. He died on March 25 after returning from lunch with a consignor. All of us at Heritage Auction Galleries wish to express our deepest sympathy to his wife, children, coworkers and all others who knew and loved him.
Dr Pillsbury was well-known as one of the world’s foremost art museum professionals. He earned his PhD in Italian Renaissance art from the University of London’s Courtauld Institute of Art. Among the places that flourished under his leadership are Yale Center for British Art, the Paul Mellon Centre for Studies in British Art in London, the Kimbell Art Museum in Fort Worth, Texas (he served as director of the Kimbell for 18 years and built it into one of the great art museums of the world), the Bellagio Gallery of Fine Art in Las Vegas, and the Meadows Museum at Southern Methodist University. He also served as an advisor to The Hermitage in Saint Petersburg, Russia.
Ted joined the Heritage family in 2005 and, with his dynamism, unimpeachable reputation and encyclopedic knowledge of fine art, made an immediate impact as chairman of our fine arts and director of museum services departments. He essentially built both departments from scratch, recruiting a world-class team of experts and other professionals.
His tenure here at Heritage lasted nearly five years, the longest of any institution he served other than the Kimbell, and we all expected to be working with him for many more years to come. This is a sad time for Heritage’s 375 employees, and for the art community at large. Ted will be terribly missed, though his legacy will continue.
‼i>Steve Ivy & Jim Halperin,
Heritage Auction Galleries Co-Founders
