Thomas K. Seligman – People, Operations and Relationships Mentor

Upon his recent retirement from Stanford University after twenty three years, Tom Seligman became the John & Jill Freidenrich Director Emeritus of the Iris & B. Gerald Cantor Center for Visual Arts at Stanford University. Prior to becoming the first full-time Director in the museum’s history, Tom was a deputy director and Curator of the arts of Africa, Oceania and the Americas at The Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, where he served for twenty years. Tom served as a trustee of the Association of Art Museum Directors,  the American Federation of Arts and The American Association of Museums International Council of Museums (AAM/ICOM). He is founder of the Friends of Ethnic Arts. From 1988-92, Mr. Seligman served on the President’s Cultural Property Advisory Committee, which reviews requests from other countries for assistance under the terms of the law implementing the 1970 UNESCO Cultural Property Convention. He is a specialist in the arts of Africa. As a Peace Corps volunteer in Liberia, West Africa in the 1960s, he taught at Cuttington College and directed a museum of African art. He subsequently specialized in the arts and culture of the Tuareg people of the central Sahara and recently has been researching jewelry makers in Rajasthan and Gujarat, India in preparation for an exhibition and publication.