Did you know what you wanted to do with your life when you were very young?
Alex Rich did, and by the time he was in his 30s he was doing it – as chief curator and executive director of the Polk Museum of Art . The now 42-year-old loved art museums from childhood and equally loved teaching.
Now, as both the Polk museum director and art history professor at Florida Southern College, he inhabits his own personal cultural nirvana.
Rich did undergraduate work at Dartmouth and received his master’s and doctoral degrees from New York University. His specialties include modern and contemporary art as well as the history of photography.
Given his knowledge and background, the ever-ebullient Rich could probably lecture his way through the Whitney, Metropolitan and Hood museums in New York blindfolded, rarely pausing for breath.
Q. What were among your formative exposures to the art world?
A. I was born on the Upper East Side of Manhattan, a wonderful place to see the world through a lens of culture. I started drawing at age 2 and from the time I was a kid my favorite place was not Disney World, it wasn’t the playground, and my aspiration was not to be an astronaut. From an early age, my dream was to work in a museum. I loved museums and everything about them. As a 7-year-old I wanted to go to museums – that was my idea of a good time.