Philippe de Montebello to Join IFA Faculty
By Richard Pierce
NYU recently announced the appointment of Philippe de Montebello—one of the most prominent, admired, and respected figures in the world of art and museums—as the first Fiske Kimball Professor in the History and Culture of Museums at the Institute of Fine Arts (IFA). His appointment will be effective January 2009 or upon the arrival of his successor as director of The Metropolitan Museum of Art.
“There is no voice more recognizable, more cogent, or more powerful in the world of art and museums than that of Philippe de Montebello,” said Mariët Westermann, director of the IFA and vice chancellor for NYU Abu Dhabi. “His extraordinary leadership of the Metropolitan Museum of Art contributed incalculably to New York’s stature as an international capital of art, culture, and ideas, and in so doing he has vastly improved the public’s respect for, understanding of, and love of art.”
In addition to his professorship, de Montebello will also serve as special advisor on NYU Abu Dhabi, the comprehensive liberal arts and science campus NYU is establishing in the Middle East. He will be involved in visual arts programming for the NYU Abu Dhabi Institute and the campus, the development of arts curricula, and structuring museum placement opportunities for students and graduates.
“I am thrilled to be rejoining the IFA as a member of its distinguished faculty,” said de Montebello. “In this new phase of my career, I will move from a life of action in the art field to one of reflection—and, of course, pedagogy. My courses and seminars will be about ideas, not museum management or practice, but through them I hope to inspire new generations of gifted graduate students in art history to look favorably on opportunities in the museum world of the future.”
De Montebello has been director of the Metropolitan Museum for 31 years; he first came to the Met in 1963 as a curator in the Department of European Paintings. Under his leadership, the Metropolitan nearly doubled in size, vastly increasing its exhibition space, while acquiring significant collections and masterpieces, mounting acclaimed international loan exhibitions, developing wide-reaching educational programs, and reinstalling much of its encyclopedic permanent collections in new and refurbished galleries.
De Montebello is the recipient of honors and awards including a National Medal of the Arts; honorary doctorates from NYU, Harvard, Dartmouth, and Lafayette College, among others; the National Institute of Social Sciences Gold Medal; being named as a commendatore in the Order of Merit of the Republic of Italy; being named an Officier dans l’Ordre National de la Légion d’Honneur; the Order of the Rising Sun, Gold and Silver Star, from the Government of Japan; and the Spanish Institute’s Gold Medal Award, among others. He received his B.A. from Harvard College and earned his M.A. at NYU’s Institute of Fine Arts.
