Sonoma Valley Museum of Art names new executive director

Linda Cano is the new executive director of the Sonoma Valley Museum of Art.

Cano brings extensive academic, curatorial, and museum management experience from Fresno, where she resurrected a fine art museum and established an art consulting firm that manages private and public art collections for museums, organizations and individuals.

She is slated to start the Sonoma job in mid-February.

“It is a tremendous honor to join the Sonoma Valley Museum of Art at this excitingtime in its history,” said Cano. “I look forward to leading the talented staff and to working with its dedicated Board and many supporters. We will focus on SVMA’s strengths to build momentum in connecting with all visitors and serving the richly diverse North Bay community.”

Cano replaces Kate Eilertsen, who served as the Executive Director for the last six years and left to pursue teaching, independent curating, and to start her own consulting firm.

Cano impresed the SVMA search committee with her work as the Executive Director and Chief Curator of the Fresno Art Museum from 2010 to 2014. At this American Alliance of Museums (AAM) accredited modern and contemporary art museum, Cano doubled membership, stabilized its financial position, and executed a new direction that broadened audiences and established marketing and educational programs for public and donor engagement.

“We are thrilled to have Linda Cano join the museum,” said Yvonne Hall, SVMA’s interim executive director and a member of the executive search committee. “The Sonoma Valley Museum of Art is in a great position as we look forward to 2016.”

Cano will build on what Hall called an iconic year for museum, a year hallmarked by world-class exhibitions-the works of Richard Diebenkorn and Eleanor Coppola, which attracted substantial crowds and record breaking donations from the community. Over its 17 years, Hall said, Sonoma’s extraordinary “small town” museum has become a force all its own-the most broadly supported and highly respected museum in the North Bay.

Cano gathered extensive experience with her firm AXIS Art Consulting on the Mariposa Plaza Activation Project, the primary partner and grant co-author for public art plan invigorating the cultural destination. Cano also taught as a professor at California State University, Fresno from 1993-2010 in both the Art and Design Department and the Classical Languages and Literatures Department.

She has been a member of numerous organizations including CREATE CA, an Arts Education Task Force, the Kennedy Center Ensuring the Arts for Any Given Child Project, the Fresno County Office of Education Foundation, American Alliance of Museums and the California Association of Museums, among others. Cano holds a Master of Arts from California State University, Fresno and graduated summa cum laude with a Bachelor of Arts from the same university.

Board President Douglas Fenn Wilson said, “I cannot imagine a better fit for SVMA’s leadership than Linda Cano. From the get go, we caught a whiff of intelligence, integrity, prescience, and curatorial experience that cannot help but lift our museum to the next level.”

Details regarding a welcome reception will be made available at a later date.