Controversial museum chief quits

Vanda Vitali's directorship was marked by one controversy after another. Photo / Dean Purcell

A Canadian who ruffled Kiwi feathers in her capacity as director of the Auckland museum has resigned.

The Auckland Museum Trust Board said, in a statement released today, "that by mutual agreement, Dr Vanda Vitali has resigned as Director of the Auckland War Memorial Museum.

The first woman to be appointed as director of the museum, Dr Vitali took over from Dr Rodney Wilson following his retirement in September 2007 and found herself courting controversy within a matter of months.

Plans to install a bronze memorial sculpture honouring veterans of the World War II Bomber Command were scrapped on the eve of Anzac Day in 2008.

The sculpture was created by the award-winning Weta workshop after the RAF Bomber Command Association of New Zealand had raised $100,000.

Association administrator Peter Wheeler told the Herald that as a Canadian, Dr Vitali might not have understood how the decision could have affected the veterans.

In 2009 Dr Vitali and the museum engaged in a bitter, 18-month battle with the family of Sir Edmund Hillary.

The museum's trust board backed Dr Vitali's assertion that written articles and photographs bequeathed to the museum by the late mountaineer were intended for "the citizens of Auckland and New Zealand" and as such the museum was entitled to full publishing rights.

Hillary's children, Peter and Sarah, said the family had not been consulted on the museum's plans for the memorabilia and were disturbed that the museum intended to claim intellectual property rights based on a "misreading" of his will.

Prime Minister John Key and his office helped the parties to broker an agreement.

Dr Vitali had previously worked as vice president of public programmes and director of content development at the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County in California.

- NZ Herald staff