WASHINGTON, DC.- The National Endowment for the Arts will welcome Patricia Loiko as its new indemnity administrator. Loiko brings extensive experience in museum administration to the NEA including many years with the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston and the Museum of Art at the Rhode Island School of Design in Providence. She comes to the agency from the Art Institute of Chicago where she was executive director of museum registration. She will join the NEA staff on May 29, 2012.

The Arts and Artifacts Indemnity Program that Loiko will lead was created by the Arts and Artifacts Indemnity Act of 1975 (20 U.S.C.971) to minimize the costs of insuring international exhibitions (and amended in 2007 to include domestic exhibitions). The program is administered by the NEA on behalf of the Federal Council on the Arts and the Humanities, which comprises agency heads throughout the government. To date, the program has indemnified more than 1,000 exhibitions, saving the organizers nearly $330 million in insurance premiums. More than 250 museums nationwide have participated in the program.

"Patricia will be a wonderful asset to the NEA," said NEA Chairman Rocco Landesman. "From her years at some of the country's most respected fine arts institutions, she knows how museums work. Her experience with our indemnity program from the museum perspective will prove invaluable for the continued success of this important part of the NEA's mission to bring art works to more people."

At the NEA, Loiko will be responsible for preparing the panels that review applications from museums that are submitted under two annual deadlines. From each deadline, 30-50 exhibitions are indemnified. She will monitor the issued Certificates of Indemnity and prepare all reports.

Loiko joined the Art Institute of Chicago in August 2008 as the executive director of museum registration overseeing all elements of the registration activities of the museum. These included negotiating loans and traveling exhibitions, assuring the correct transportation and storage of objects, and documenting and researching objects. She was with the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston starting in 1983 as the operations coordinator for the department of painting and advanced steadily to become head registrar, a position she held from 2001 to 2008.

Patricia Loiko said, "I am thrilled to join the NEA and to lead the program that has made it possible for museums to share cultural treasures with the American public and beyond. I know firsthand not only the program's value in allowing greater access to the arts, but also the significant financial benefit it provides to the institutions. So much art would not have been seen by so many people were it not for the Arts and Artifacts Indemnity Program."

Loiko replaces Alice Wheilhan who retired after 32 years of service as the indemnity administrator.