Michael J. Anderson Grew OKCMOA’s Collection by 30 Percent. Now He’s Bringing His Approach to Portland.

October 5, 2026 / Sophie Clearwater /

Incoming Portland Art Museum director Michael J. Anderson. Courtesy PAM

Last month, the Portland Art Museum announced that Michael J. Anderson will step up as its next director in October. Anderson arrives from the Oklahoma City Museum of Art, where he has been president and CEO since 2019 and on staff since 2014. He joins PAM just as it has seen a 35 percent bump in attendance following the opening of its $111 million Mark Rothko Pavilion, which is named for the artist, whose family settled in Portland after emigrating from Ellis Island. We caught up with Anderson to hear about inheriting a newly finished building, collecting Native American art and relocating to a city he had never set foot in before his interview.

Brian Ferriso ran PAM for nearly two decades. How does it feel stepping into such a legacy? What lessons do you think you might learn from that long and successful tenure?

First, I feel extremely honored to have been chosen as Brian Ferriso’s successor. His legacy is immense in Portland: one that you see in the recently completed Rothko Pavilion, outstanding staff and trustee leadership, a very talented team of curators and educators, great programming and exhibitions, to name just some of the areas that he positively impacted. I think the easy lesson, and something that fills me with a lot of excitement and confidence, is that I will be inheriting and collaborating with the same incredible staff, board leadership and community partners that I’ve only begun getting to know. Collectively, and working closely with Brian, they have made PAM what it is today, and position us for incredible success moving forward.

You arrive at a museum that just finished a $111 million expansion. In some ways it’s easier to build a new wing than to program one. What are your early plans for the new building?

Perhaps that’s true, but for me the programming is why PAM exists, and it’s where the real fun begins. This institution exists to serve the city and region, and again I’m stepping into a situation where you have an incredibly talented and passionate staff that wants to bring world-class art experiences to Oregonians. I want to be a part of that, of forging a unique identity that builds on the Museum’s incredible collections and partnerships in ways that only this Museum, collection and community can. Of course, I have ideas of what that might be, but there is a lot of listening that I need to do first and conversations that I need to have since this is all going to be a deeply collaborative effort in the end.

During your time in Oklahoma City you built relationships with Tribal Nations and Native artists in Oklahoma, and Portland holds a major Native American collection. Such work is having a moment, as they say. What did you learn in Oklahoma about how it should be presented?

What I learned is to listen, and that these artists and communities need to drive these efforts as much as the Museum. On the one hand we worked with Pacific Northwest glass artist Preston Singletary on an exhibition of his that ultimately led our Museum to partner with Oklahoma City’s First Americans Museum on a blessing ceremony and related programming that were artist-led efforts. We wouldn’t have thought of or known the importance of these celebrations without listening to the artist and asking him to shape the experience of his exhibition in Oklahoma, a place to which I know he felt a deep connection. Likewise, we have remained close partners of the Chickasaw Nation in particular and have found ways to collaborate—such as free children’s admission, a program that was launched during my tenure—that benefited their community and our entire city. They’ve been amazing partners throughout my time in Oklahoma and are deeply invested in what we do at OKCMOA.

Your Ph.D. is in art history and film studies, you came into museum work as a film curator, and Portland has PAM CUT and the Tomorrow Theater. Few directors inherit a museum with a film arm that size. Do you have any early plans for it?

Again, I would say that while I’m beyond excited to be working with a museum film program of this scale, and certainly I have a few ideas coming in, the first order of business is to really learn what works well for this very successful program. Naturally there are always opportunities to further diversify offerings, especially with the Whitsell Auditorium’s reopening; and I suppose that I can say I’ll have the same hope that I did when first moving to Oklahoma City 12 years ago: that we will participate in a broader film culture that gives Portlanders access to all the most exciting and innovative films out there on the theatrical landscape. I think we have accomplished that in Oklahoma City over the last dozen years.

You grew the collection in Oklahoma City by 30 percent, bringing in works by Kehinde Wiley, Thomas Cole and Fletcher Benton. What was your approach there? How should a contemporary director approach accessions?

One thing that I believe the curators, collections team and I did successfully in Oklahoma City was build trust with collectors. We showed that we cared about their art, and that when given the opportunities to be entrusted with their work, that we would beautifully present and meaningfully interpret their gifts for our public. In terms of strategy, we focused on existing areas of strength such as Modern art, American art and photography, but when given the opportunity to add a major collection of studio glass, for example, we pivoted and rethought our overall exhibition strategies and priorities. In doing so, we were able to complement our already incredible Dale Chihuly collection and tell a more expansive story of the studio glass movement. Likewise, in my earlier role as Director of Curatorial Affairs, we changed our collection plan to add the active acquisition of Native American art. Where earlier incarnations of the Museum didn’t want to compete with other Oklahoma arts entities, we knew that we couldn’t tell the stories of Oklahoma art and American art without it—and since then we’ve added great work by Singletary, T.C. Cannon, Benjamin Harjo, Jr. and others. Overall, I believe we have successfully diversified our collection, another key goal, whether that was by acquiring a video piece by Thai queer artist and globally prominent filmmaker Apichatpong Weerasethakul or our recent purchase of a work by Aminah Robinson, which amazingly is the first work by a Black woman artist to be added to our collection.

I think different Museums have different collecting imperatives today, but I strongly believe that it is always the director’s responsibility to work with curators and collectors to make their collection better, to create more meaningful experiences and tell new stories that reflect and speak to everyone in the community.

You’ve said you’d never been to Portland before you interviewed, and the same was true of Oklahoma City. What does arriving somewhere cold let you see that a local wouldn’t? And how do you learn about how to be a director in a new geography?

I think by coming in fresh, you become acquainted with how a community understands, thinks of and speaks about itself, and I think that’s very useful for a museum director. Moving to Oklahoma City, growth and change were always front of mind when I was learning about my adopted home—through conversation, and by reading as much as I could about my new home. Twelve years later, I am leaving a place that really has transformed itself in many positive ways, a place that truly was growing and changing during that span. Portland won’t have the same story, but coming in fresh again, I do perceive the great importance of the Museum, of creativity, and of distinct but overlapping artistic experiences of every kind (be it the visual arts, food, craft arts, etc.), not to mention the immense natural beauty of the region and, similar to Oklahoma, the importance of its indigenous populations. Perhaps it’s more of an aesthetic and quality of life story than Oklahoma City’s was, and I can’t wait to learn more!

What are you proudest about in your tenure in Oklahoma City?

Building lasting relationships, adding important work to the collection, bringing world-class exhibitions to Oklahoma, helping to create one of the nation’s great museum art-house cinemas, greatly expanding our educational offerings (both inside the Museum’s walls and outside in the community) and making the Museum far more accessible, from free days to bilingual translation. I’ve worked with an amazing team in Oklahoma and really believe that we’ve positively impacted our community and have helped foster a lasting love for the arts in the lives of many Oklahomans.