Rogers puts himself in MFA’s empty chair

George Shackelford, the former chair of the Art of Europe Department at the Museum of Fine Arts, held one of the most important cultural positions in Boston: He was responsible for looking after some of the MFA’s greatest treasures, among them masterpieces by Velazquez, Rubens, Manet, Gauguin, Van Gogh, and Manet. His job also extended to organizing major exhibitions, such as “Gauguin Tahiti’’ and the current “ Degas and the Nude.’’ Shackelford recently left to take up the post of senior deputy director at the Kimbell Art Museum in Fort Worth. In a surprise move, MFA director Malcolm Rogers has just appointed himself acting chair of the Art of Europe Department. Signs are that Rogers, whose expertise as a curator is in portraiture (he was previously deputy director at the National Portrait Gallery in London), might hold the “interim position’’ for some time. A search committee to fill Shackelford’s position has not yet been formed. Meanwhile, the MFA is looking to appoint a curator, of unspecified seniority, with expertise in 19th-century French art.