Philippe de Montebello - Curator of The Metropolitan Museum

Curator of The Metropolitan Museum

Under his directorship the Metropolitan Museum has nearly doubled in size to two million square feet. Notable changes have included the opening of the beloved Carroll and Milton Petrie European Sculpture Court in 1990, the widely acclaimed new galleries for Greek & Roman art, the recently opened 25,000-square-foot (2,300 m2) Ruth and Harold D. Uris Center for Education, the remodelled and reinstalled galleries for Oceanic and Native North American art, and expanded galleries for Chinese, Cypriot, Ancient Near Eastern, and Korean art. In 2007, the Metropolitan reopened its expanded galleries for 19th- and early 20th-century century European paintings and decorative arts, formerly Modernist, in a historicizing Beaux-Arts style, and a new high-ceilinged gallery to show off Giovanni Battista Tiepolo's monumental paintings to their best advantage. Occasional criticism of de Montebello has focused on his alleged conservatism regarding modern and contemporary art: in a 1999 op-ed piece in the New York Times he lauded the city's mayor Rudy Giuliani for rubbishing Chris Ofili's infamous painting Holy Virgin Mary, which used elephant dung as one of its materials. In the early years of his tenure, the Department of Modern Art was said to lag behind the museum's other departments in its spending power. But in recent years, the Museum has purchased iconic works by Jasper Johns, Damien Hirst, and Robert Rauschenberg, and mounted exhibitions by contemporary artists like Johns, Rauschenberg, Tara Donovan, Sean Scully, and Kara Walker.

Mr. de Montebello's other major building programs have included the expansion and renovation of period rooms and galleries for the decorative arts, the opening of new permanent exhibition galleries for drawings, prints, and photographs (supplemented in 2007 with the new Joyce and Robert Menschel Hall for Modern Photography), the conservation and installation of the Gubbio Studiolo, the opening of the Antonio Ratti Textile Conservation Center, the opening of the new Mary and Michael Jaharis Gallery for Byzantine art, and the installation of Coptic art in an evocatively designed, crypt-like gallery carved out of former storage space beneath the museum's Great Hall staircase. Current renovation programs underway at the Met will enhance its Medieval art galleries and expand and reinstall the American Wing—projects that will add space without breaking the outside footprint of the building in Central Park.

Under de Montebello's directorship, the Met acquired many major private collections, notably the Jack and Belle Linsky Collection of European Paintings, sculpture, and decorative arts; the Heinz Berggruen collection of works by Paul Klee; the gift of 10 paintings by Clyfford Still by the artist's widow; the Annenberg Collection of Impressionist and Post-Impressionist paintings; the Florene Schoenborn collection of 20th-century works; the Jacques and Natasha Gelman Collection of modern paintings; the Gilman Paper Company Collection of 19th-century photographs; the Muriel Kallis Steinberg Newman Collection of Abstract Expressionist and other modern works; and most recently, the Diane Arbus archive.

De Montebello also worked to acquire a number of individual masterpieces over the years,including works by Vermeer, Rubens, Guercino, and Nikolaus Gerhaert von Leiden. Among the most celebrated of these acquisitions have been the 11th-century gilt-bronze Cambodian deified king known as the "Golden Boy" in 1988; Vincent Van Gogh's "Wheat Field with Cypresses" in 1993, Jasper Johns' masterwork White Flag in 1998, and in 2004 the much-applauded Madonna and Child by the Renaissance master Duccio di Buoninsegna.

Throughout this period, the Met under de Montebello's leadership mounted some 30 special exhibitions annually, involving not only all the museum's 17 curatorial departments, but also presenting works of art on loan from public and private collections around the world (current shows listed on the museum's website, metmuseum.org). Many of the shows were accompanied by the publication of major catalogues. Under de Montebello, the Met has become the leading art book publisher in the U.S., issuing some 25-30 lavishly illustrated volumes each year, most carrying an introduction by the director.

Long the "voice of the Met," de Montebello also narrates the Met's audio guides for both exhibitions and the permanent collection. He lectures on museological matters throughout the world, and has also given public readings of French poetry by Baudelaire, Rimbaud and others at the museum.