After a nine-month search, evaluating candidates from across the country and overseas, the High Museum of Art has chosen Randall Suffolk, currently the director of the Philbrook Museum of Art in Tulsa, Okla., to serve as the Atlanta museum’s new director, the AJC has learned exclusively.

Suffolk replaces Michael E. Shapiro, who for two decades led the High through enormous growth and dramatic change. Shapiro announced last October he would step down this summer. His last day at the High is Friday, July 31.