Anne d'Harnoncourt, the highly respected director of the Philadelphia Museum of Art and a vibrant force as an arts activist and advocate for the arts in Philadelphia, died unexpectedly late Sunday night.

In a prepared statement, David B. Brownlee, professor and chair of Art History at the University of Pennsylvania stated that "Philadelphia has lost one of the greatest cultural leaders in its entire history. Anne d'Harnoncourt transformed the Philadelphia Museum of Art in a way that modeled and contributed to the transformation of the city of Philadelphia. She attracted the best and brightest curators in the world, created with them an ideal collegial environment in which to work and charged them with the task of creating exhibitions and other programs that would change the city and speak to the world."

Last year the arts blogsphere used her as an example in salary parity issues between museum directors when the The Art Newspaper's 2006 international survey of salaries for museum directors revealed that d'Harnoncourt's compensation was among the lowest in her peer group of US museum art directors, and bloggers called for a salary raise for d'Harnoncourt.

Donations in her memory may be made to the Philadelphia Museum of Art, P.O. Box 7646, Philadelphia, Pa., 19101-7646.

Anne d'Harnoncourt's portrait courtesy of the Philadelphia Museum of Art.