Sasha Suda sues the Philadelphia Art Museum
The suit says there was no "valid basis" for her dismissal, and seeks two years' worth of compensation and other damages.
Sasha Suda, the recently ousted director and CEO of the Philadelphia Art Museum, sued her former employer Monday, alleging that she had been recruited to “transform a struggling museum, but was later terminated when her efforts to modernize the museum clashed with a small, corrupt, and unethical faction of the board intent on preserving the status quo.”
The suit details Suda’s tensions with board members over how much authority she had to act on certain issues without their approval, as well as the last weeks of her tenure, when, after an investigation into Suda’s handling of financial matters, she and the museum tried and failed to reach terms of a termination agreement.
Her dismissal came “without a valid basis,” says the suit, which was filed in Philadelphia Court of Common Pleas and requests a trial by jury.
» READ MORE: Read Sasha Suda’s lawsuit against the Philadelphia Art Museum
The Art Museum said in a statement that it was “aware of the recently filed complaint against the museum, and we believe it is without merit. We will not be providing further comment at this time.”
Suda, 45, was fired last week for cause, The Inquirer reported, after the museum commissioned an independent investigation, according to Art Museum leaders. The investigation was conducted by an outside law firm, which made the recommendation that Suda’s employment be terminated.
One part of the investigation focused on an increase to Suda’s salary, according to a source close to Suda who spoke to The Inquirer on the condition of not being named. However, this source said, the increase — about $39,000 over two years — was an “authorized” and “budgeted” cost-of-living increase that was “fully approved” and “disclosed.”
Suda’s lawyer, Luke Nikas of Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan, said on Saturday that “a small cabal of trustees commissioned a sham investigation to create a pretext for Ms. Suda’s unlawful termination.”
The suit paints a portrait of Suda as a “star” coming from the National Gallery of Canada to a museum suffering from “dysfunction,” but with “untapped potential.”
Before accepting the position, the suit says, Suda, who began at the Art Museum in September 2022, received promises of her authority to “make necessary, difficult decisions”; that her staff and programming changes would be supported; and that “the lines between governance and management, which were long blurred at the museum, would be restored.”
The board’s hiring committee assured her they were “ready to embrace change and would support her vision to bring the museum to life.” With those assurances, she accepted the position.
“But the museum’s statements were all lies,” the suit says.
The suit details instances of friction between Suda and board chair Leslie Anne Miller and her successor, Ellen T. Caplan, with the latter soliciting board opinions “on every aspect of the museum and on Suda personally,” the suit says.
“Board meetings quickly devolved into complaint sessions about operations, with Suda cast as the common target,” the suit says.
Suda’s accomplishments are detailed in the suit, including the claim that Suda had secured a $25 million gift toward a proposed education center at the museum’s north entrance. Suda was terminated from her job less than a week after the donor made a verbal commitment of the gift, the suit says.
In late 2025, the outside law firm reviewed Suda’s expenses — expenses, the suit says, that were “cleared by the head of audit” —for “board-sponsored club memberships and travel costs incurred for events where Suda stayed near trustees for the benefit of the museum. Upon information and belief, despite finding no actual misconduct, the law firm falsely characterized Suda as financially irresponsible and recommended that she be given the opportunity to resign.”
The museum’s executive committee then voted 8-2 to dismiss Suda, the suit says, after a previous “vote of confidence,” earlier in the fall, had yielded an 8-2 vote in her favor.
Suda and the museum leadership attempted to negotiate terms for her exit. But the suit says that the museum was offering only six months’ severance, though her contract entitled her to two years’.
Suda now seeks those two years of pay, Nikas said, as well as “significant damages for the museum’s repeated and malicious violations of the non-disparagement and confidentiality clauses in her employment agreement, and an injunction enforcing the confidentiality and non-disparagement terms of her agreement.”
Suda in 2023 earned a salary of $728,945 plus $30,306 in other compensation, according to the museum’s tax return.
Suda was informed of the termination decision on a morning when she was hosting a group of cultural leaders, including the executive directors from France’s Centre Pompidou and Britain’s Tate museums, the suit says, putting her in the position of processing her dismissal while hosting the event.
The suit also alleges that the museum told the law firm handling Suda’s green card process — she is a Canadian citizen — that the museum would not be paying those bills.
The museum “then proposed a severance package to Suda beginning in January, after her scheduled green card interview, with the intention of leaving Suda without a source of income to qualify for the document,” the suit states.
“This would give Suda 60 days to leave the country where she resides with her family and where her children attend elementary school.”
The dismissal and lawsuit came about a month after the museum announced a new visual identity and name change, to Philadelphia Art Museum. The lawsuit, however, refers to the defendant by the name by which it was known for 87 years: the Philadelphia Museum of Art.