Kelly Lao, vice president of museum experiences for Davenport’s Putnam Museum and Science Center, will become new director of the Muscatine Art Center on Aug. 3, 2026.
The former executive director of the German American Heritage Center & Museum, Davenport, she was chosen earlier this month by the Art Center board after a three‑month national search to replace former director Melanie Alexander, who resigned on April 2, 2026.
Alexander left the position after the city council approved a $200,000 cut to the center’s FY 2026-27 budget. The funding reduction was part of the council's effort to cover a projected $700,000 budget shortfall.
“Kelly accepted with enthusiasm and is looking forward to being part of our community,” Mark Seaman, president of the Muscatine Art Center Board of Trustees, said in an announcement Thursday, July 16. “She sparked joy, optimism, and confidence in all of us for the future of the art center.”
The Putnam Museum’s vice president of museum experiences since 2022, Lao brings extensive experience in museum leadership, community engagement, and statewide arts advocacy. She serves on multiple boards and committees, including the Acquisition Committee for the Figge Art Museum, the Quad Cities Chamber of Commerce, and the Scholarship Committee of the Quad Cities Community Foundation. She is also a member of LULAC and president of the Iowa Cultural Coalition.
“Kelly’s background, her passion for the arts, and her commitment to community made her stand out,” Seaman said. “We are excited for the next chapter.”
Lao holds a B.A. in Anthropology from the University of Iowa and a Master of Arts in Museum Studies from Western Illinois University. Her career includes more than a decade of leadership at the German American Heritage Center (including six years as executive director) before joining the Putnam Museum.
“I had visited the Muscatine Art Center many times. We take our field trips as staff and visit other museums around the area, and we've always enjoyed visiting there, and the staff was really accommodating of us and even gave us behind-the-scenes tours of the collection,” she said in an interview Friday, July 17 with WVIK. “I knew it was a very beautiful, special place with a really rich collection that I enjoyed. And just really enjoyed the colleagues there as well.”
"I really enjoy that there is beautiful artwork that reflects the
community, but also of international significance, as well as a rich history collection,” Lao said. The center (owned and operated by the city of Muscatine) has a handful of other employees.
The Muscatine Art Center reflects that community’s pride in its history, and making it available free to the public, Lao said.
“The children's educational programming is free as well. And it is two blocks from Jefferson School, and many students walk over there,” she said. “I look forward to working with those kids, working with the staff to have those enriching experiences so people can come in anytime and, find something exciting, something new to learn. Just really take advantage of that wonderful resource that the community has in Muscatine.”
The 1908 mansion, which sits in a residential neighborhood (45 minutes from the QC) at 1314 Mulberry Ave., Muscatine, has been free since the center’s 1965 founding.
As a department of the city of Muscatine, the Art Center’s mission is to collect, preserve, interpret and exhibit objects of historical and aesthetic importance for the benefit of present and future generations. The Muscatine Art Center was established as a museum in 1965 when Laura Musser’s heirs, Mary Catherine McWhirter and Mary Musser Gilmore, donated the Musser Mansion to the city (which has a population of about 23,000).
The collection includes several works by Marc Chagall, paintings by Edgar Degas, Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Camille Pissarro, and Henri Matisse, and works on paper by Vincent van Gogh, Pablo Picasso, and Toulouse-Lautrec.
Leaving behind a Putnam legacy
At the Putnam (1717 W. 12th St., Davenport), Lao and her team led the reimagining and creation of seven galleries, interactive experiences, and educational spaces through the recent Putnam Re-Imagined capital campaign, which included the regional history exhibit Common Ground: Our Voice, Our Stories. Lao recently led the acquisition of a Triceratops dinosaur, which is being excavated by community members for display in late 2027.
"I am incredibly grateful for my time at the Putnam Museum,” Lao said. “It has been a privilege to work alongside such talented colleagues and a community that truly values the power of science, culture, and lifelong learning. Together, we've created meaningful experiences that inspire curiosity, foster connection, and enrich lives.”
“It's been a really amazing time. Right when I started, I was able to work with my team to redo the exhibit River, Prairie, and People, which had been in place, the history of the Quad Cities, for quite some time. And we updated that to become Common Ground: Our Voice, Our Stories,” she said Friday, noting the Putnam worked with many community partners to expand and diversify the second-floor permanent exhibit.
“We were able to rewrite every word and replace every artifact and just redo every inch of that 6,000-square-foot exhibit. And now, it tells a truly rich tale of the people who make the Quad Cities special. So, that was a really great experience to redo that flagship exhibit,” Lao said.
“But we didn't stop there. We rolled right into Quad City Innovators. Creating that gallery which once was a hallway. So that was a really unique challenge, but we are so glad to be able to do storytelling around people who are innovators, trailblazers, and even inventors here, right here in the Quad Cities, and create some of that pride of place and where you are from, and that you can become an innovator, trailblazer, even if you're a kid or anything, no matter where you come from.”
Lao also helped to redo the Science Center and update the ground-level Black Earth, Big River with Native American traditional ecological knowledge, as well as create The Vault, permanent displays of more of the Putnam’s quarter-million piece collection.
“We are working on that still every day. But it's a gorgeous place, and you can have interactive stations where you can build your own exhibit, and even stations where you can see more of the collection that might not be visible were on display at that time,” she said. “Another thing I'm proud of is the creation of the preschool program. We have been able to expand our educational offerings to pre-K. And we have a family discovery center that supports our work. So that's a really special place that we made in a space that was formerly kind of a meeting room, boardroom. And is a nice spot for littles to build and play comfortably.”
Lao was part of the first museum group that traveled in July 2024 to Lusk, Wyoming, to help dig Triceratops fossils for a new permanent exhibit, the first full dinosaur skeleton in Iowa.
“I actually used my family vacation time a couple years ago to take my spouse and my child, my youngest, to Wyoming,” she recalled. “That was a really great project to be getting off the ground floor. About a year later, we were able to welcome our newest CEO and continue our work towards getting that Triceratops under contract and paid for and everything else. So now we've (different Putnam groups) been out there to Wyoming another two times.”
“Oh my gosh, it’s such a wonderful project that involves so many members of the community making it their dinosaur,” Lao said. “It's been really fun. So I'm sad to not see that through completion, but I know that the team has been doing so much good work on it already, that it's in good hands.”
A new era in Muscatine
Lao is eager to capitalize on the community enthusiasm for science, culture, and art in Muscatine, and expand the legacy of the Muscatine Art Center.
“As I begin this new chapter as director of the Muscatine Art Center, I am inspired by the opportunity to build on the institution's remarkable legacy while imagining what the future can be,” she said. “I believe museums have the power to spark creativity, bring people together across generations and cultures, and serve as dynamic spaces where art, history, and community can intersect.”
Lao is excited to connect and work with the staff, volunteers, and the community to enhance the learning experience of the Muscatine Art Center.
“I look forward to working alongside the dedicated staff, supporters, volunteers, and the Muscatine community to ensure the Art Center continues to be a vibrant destination and essential resource for generations to come."
Including working with the Figge Art Museum, visual art is one of Lao’s passions.
“Just being able to take a new angle on that with learning more about their collection, their artworks in their space, as well as continuing my long history with working with historic collections is really neat,” she said. “I really look forward to connecting with the business owners and the nonprofit professionals and just all the community, the city leaders of Muscatine and really creating new collaborations and being out in the community.”
Seaman is also looking forward to the future with Lao at the helm of the Art Center, and thanked those involved in the search process.
“I would like to thank Stephanie Romagnoli from the city’s HR department, Vince Lawson as chair of our personnel committee, and the many volunteers who supported this effort,” Seaman said. “You all enabled us to find the very best candidate.”
For more information on the center, click HERE.
This story was produced by WVIK, Quad Cities NPR. We rely on financial support from our listeners and readers to provide coverage of the issues that matter to the Quad Cities region and beyond. As someone who values the content created by WVIK's news department, please consider making a financial contribution to support our work.
