The wounds are mostly healed more than four months after Michael De Marsche, the controversial head of the Colorado Springs Fine Arts Center, startled everyone by announcing his resignation just days after the opening of a $30 million addition.
“I’m not surprised he left,” said Eve Tilley, president of the Pikes Peak Arts Council and a member of the arts center’s performing arts committee, who describes herself as a good friend and fan.
“I’m sorry he didn’t stick around. Another three months would have been nice, just because it really upset the town when he left. But I think we’ve gotten past that now.”
De Marsche’s record as president and chief executive officer was a mixed one. He championed and oversaw the arts center’s successful expansion and assembled a first-rate staff, including two experienced curators with ties to the Denver Art Museum.
At the same time, he put together a string of high-profile exhibitions that significantly boosted attendance and membership but also damaged the museum’s credibility by putting more emphasis on glitz and marketing than substance.
Along the way, he split the board, with Timothy Hoiles, a major contributor, leaving the board of trustees a few weeks after De Marsche’s resignation.
“Mike De Marsche was a very polarizing person,” Tilley said. “I think you either loved him or you really couldn’t stand him. He created a situation among board members — there were those who wanted to get rid of him and those who were mad when they did get rid of him.”
Comparing De Marsche to instrument salesman Harold Hill in “The Music Man,” Tilley called him a “change agent,” who was not suited to running an organization after he had transformed it.
Jon Stepleton, the arts center’s new board chairman, had primarily praise for De Marsche’s tenure.
“He repositioned the center from a really significant community institution to what I would call a regionally and nationally significant museum,” Stepleton said.
The arts center is completing the formation of a search committee for a new chief executive officer and plans to advertise the position in January. A replacement could be selected as soon as five months later.
“I may be a little bit naive, but I think this is a great job,” Stepleton said. “We have a wonderful building with unlimited potential. We’ve gotten most of the hard, heavy lifting of the capital campaign over. So, it’s like come here and take us where we want to go as a community and organization.”
