Philippe de Montebello

Last updated
Philippe de Montebello
Born
Guy Philippe Henri Lannes de Montebello

(1936-05-16) May 16, 1936 (age 87)
NationalityAmerican
Education New York University Institute of Fine Arts
Alma mater Harvard University
Occupationmuseum director
Known forDirector of the Metropolitan Museum of Art
ChildrenLaure de Montebello
Marc André Marie de Montebello
Charles de Montebello

Philippe de Montebello (born May 16, 1936 in Paris) is an American museum director. He served from 1977 to 2008 as the director of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. On his retirement, he was both the longest-serving director in the institution's history and the third longest-serving director of any major art museum in the world (first is Irina Antonova while the second is Knud W. Jensen). From January 2009, Montebello took up a post as the first Fiske Kimball Professor in the History and Culture of Museums at New York University's Institute of Fine Arts.

Contents

Born to a French aristocratic family, de Montebello immigrated to the United States of America in the 1950s, and became a naturalized citizen of the US in 1955. He was educated in New York City at the Lycée Français de New York, graduated from Harvard University with a degree in art history, and earned an MA from New York University, after which he embarked on a career in Fine Arts. He became the Director of the Metropolitan Museum in 1977 and has become widely known as the public face of the museum.

He announced his retirement on 8 January 2008, stating that he intended to step down by the end of 2008 after more than 31 years at his post. [1] He is currently the chairman of the Hispanic Society of America, and became a director in 2017 of the Aquavella Galleries in New York. [2]

Biography

Early life

Born Guy Philippe Henri Lannes de Montebello in Paris in 1936 to a family descended from the Napoleonic aristocracy, de Montebello was the second of four sons. His father, Marquis André Roger Lannes de Montebello, December 2, 1986), was a portrait painter, art critic and a member of the French Resistance during World War II. His mother, Germaine Wiener de Croisset, was a descendant of the Marquis de Sade, [3] a daughter of the playwright Francis de Croisset, and a half-sister of the arts patron Marie-Laure de Noailles. One of de Montebello's great-great-great-grandfathers was Jean Lannes.

Both parents were involved in a project to develop a form of three-dimensional photography, and it was in search of venture capital for this enterprise that the family came to New York in 1951. Whereas his brothers would all eventually return to France to take up jobs in banking, he stayed in the United States and became an American citizen in 1955.[ citation needed ]

De Montebello was educated at the Lycée Français in New York, where he received his baccalauréat in 1954. He then went on to study art history at Harvard University, graduating magna cum laude in 1958. During his freshman year, De Montebello lived in Stoughton Hall. [4] He continued his studies at the New York University Institute of Fine Arts, where he studied under Charles Sterling, an expert in French Renaissance art. [5]

Early career

In 1963, he began work for the Met as a curatorial assistant in the Department of European Paintings, rising to full curator. He then spent four-and-a-half-years (1969–1974) as Director of the Museum of Fine Arts in Houston, Texas, returning to the Met as vice director for curatorial and educational affairs. He became director in 1977.

Family

On June 24, 1961 in New York, he married Edith Myles (born in New York, October 20, 1939), who is the financial-aid director of the Trinity School in New York City. They have three children.

Retirement

On January 8, 2008, he announced his intention to retire by the end of 2008 (Vogel, Carol (2008-01-09). "Director (and Voice) of Met Museum to Retire". The New York Times.). He was succeeded by Thomas Campbell in September 2008. [6]

Teaching

De Montebello is the first professor to teach the history and culture of museums at New York University's Institute of Fine Arts. He began teaching at NYU in January 2009 as well as consulting and lecturing at several museums on the modernization of their collections. [7] In 2012, de Montebello served as the Humanitas Visiting Professor in the History of Art at the University of Cambridge. [8]

Since 2008, De Montebello has also served as co-host of NYC-ARTS, a weekly program highlighting current New York City exhibitions, cultural institutions and profiling relevant contributors to the arts on Thirteen/WNET. [9]

In April, 2015 the Hispanic Society of America announced the appointment of Philippe de Montebello to chair the Society's Board of Overseers and spearhead a major effort to roughly double the museum's size by renovating the now-vacant, adjacent, Beaux Arts, former building of the Museum of the American Indian. [10]

Honors

Montebello was named a Gold Medal Honoree of the National Institute of Social Sciences in 1989. [11] Montebello was made a Chevalier de la Légion d'Honneur in 1991 (he was promoted to the rank of Officier in 2007). De Montebello was elected to the American Philosophical Society in 2001 [12] and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2004. [13] In 2007 De Montebello was awarded the Order of the Rising Sun, Gold & Silver Star, from the Government of Japan. [14] In 2017, Montebello received the Edmund Burke Award for Culture and Society, awarded by monthly cultural review The New Criterion.

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Metropolitan Museum of Art</span> Art museum in New York City

The Metropolitan Museum of Art, colloquially referred to as the Met, is an art museum in New York City. It is the largest art museum in the Americas and fourth-largest in the world.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">John Pope-Hennessy</span> British art historian

Sir John Wyndham Pope-Hennessy, was a British art historian. Pope-Hennessy was director of the Victoria and Albert Museum between 1967 and 1973, and director of the British Museum between 1974 and 1976. He was a scholar of Italian Renaissance art. Many of his writings, including the tripartite Introduction to Italian Sculpture, and his magnum opus, Donatello: Sculptor, are regarded as classics in the field.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Marie-Laure de Noailles</span> French art collector (1902–1970)

Marie-Laure Henriette Anne de Noailles, Vicomtesse de Noailles was a French artist, regarded one of the 20th century's most daring and influential patrons of the arts, noted for her associations with Salvador Dalí, Balthus, Jean Cocteau, Ned Rorem, Man Ray, Luis Buñuel, Francis Poulenc, Wolfgang Paalen, Jean Hugo, Jean-Michel Frank and others as well as her tempestuous life and eccentric personality. She and her husband financed Ray's film Les Mystères du Château de Dé (1929), Poulenc's Aubade (1929), Buñuel and Dalí's film L'Âge d'Or (1930), and Cocteau's The Blood of a Poet (1930).

Lowery Stokes Sims is an American art historian and curator of modern and contemporary art known for her expertise in the work of African, African American, Latinx, Native and Asian American artists such as Wifredo Lam, Fritz Scholder, Romare Bearden, Joyce J. Scott and others. She served on the curatorial staff of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Studio Museum in Harlem, and the Museum of Arts and Design. She has frequently served as a guest curator, lectured internationally and published extensively, and has received many public appointments. Sims was featured in the 2010 documentary film !Women Art Revolution.

Robert Emmanuel Hecht, Jr. was an American antiquities art dealer based in Paris.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">James Rorimer</span> American museum curator

James Joseph Rorimer, was an American museum curator and former director of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, where he was a primary force behind the creation of the Cloisters, a branch of the museum dedicated to the art and architecture of Medieval Europe. During World War II, Rorimer served in the U.S. Army's Monuments, Fine Arts and Archives Section, a.k.a. the "Monuments Men," protecting cultural sites and recovering stolen art work.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Francis de Croisset</span> Belgian-born French playwright and opera librettist

Francis de Croisset was a Belgian-born French playwright and opera librettist.

The Association of Art Museum Curators (AAMC) was founded in New York in 2001 to support the role of curators in shaping the mission of art museums in North America.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Jeff Daly</span> Architect, museum gallery and exhibition designer

Jeffrey L. Daly is an American designer, specialising in museum gallery and exhibition design.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Oscar White Muscarella</span> American archaeologist (1931–2022)

Oscar White Muscarella was an American archaeologist and former Senior Research Fellow at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, where he worked for over 40 years before retiring in 2009. He specialized in the art and archaeology of the Ancient Near East, in particular Ancient Persia and Anatolia. Muscarella was an untiring opponent of the Looting of ancient sites and earned a reputation as the conscience of the discipline. He received his Ph.D. from the University of Pennsylvania in 1965.

Thomas Patrick Campbell is the director and CEO of the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, overseeing the de Young and Legion of Honor museums. He served as the director and CEO of the Metropolitan Museum of Art between 2009 and 2017. On 30 June 2017, Campbell stepped down as director and CEO of the Metropolitan Museum of Art under pressure and accepted the Getty Foundation's Rothschild Fellowship for research and study at both the J. Paul Getty Museum in Los Angeles and at Waddesdon Manor, in the UK.

Olga Raggio was an art historian and curator who worked with the Metropolitan Museum of Art for over 60 years, and discovered the 'lost' bust of Cosimo I de' Medici by Bartolommeo Bandinelli.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Sherman Lee</span>

Sherman Emery Lee was an American academic, writer, art historian and expert on Asian art. He was Director of the Cleveland Museum of Art from 1958 to 1983.

<i>Beauty Revealed</i> Painting by Sarah Goodridge

Beauty Revealed is an 1828 self-portrait by the American artist Sarah Goodridge, a watercolor portrait miniature on a piece of ivory. Depicting only the artist's bared breasts surrounded by white cloth, the 6.7-by-8-centimeter painting, originally backed with paper, is now in a modern frame. Goodridge, aged forty when she completed the miniature, depicts breasts that appear imbued with a "balance, paleness, and buoyancy" by the harmony of light, color, and balance. The surrounding cloth draws the viewer to focus on them, leading to the body being "erased".

Joseph Henry Breck (1885–1933) was an American curator and museum director. During his career he served as a Director of the Minneapolis Society of Fine Arts, Curator of the Decorative Arts Department of The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Assistant Director of The Metropolitan Museum of Art, and first Director of The Cloisters.

Mahrukh Tarapor is an Indian museum professional and art consultant, known for her scholarship in museum art, especially Islamic art. She was honoured by the Government of India, in 2013, by bestowing on her the Padma Shri, the fourth highest civilian award, for her contributions to the field of art.

Walter Arthur Liedtke, Jr. was an American art historian, writer and Curator of Dutch and Flemish Paintings at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. He was known as one of the world's leading scholars of Dutch and Flemish paintings. He died in the 2015 Metro-North Valhalla train crash.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Max Hollein</span> Austrian art historian and business manager

Max Hollein is an Austrian art historian and the current CEO and Director of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City. He served as Director and CEO of the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco from July 2016, until April 2018, the Metropolitan Museum of Art announced that Hollein would become its 10th director.

Elmer Arthur Carmean Jr. was an American art historian and curator. Carmean focused his studies on twentieth-century American and European modernism in art. Later in his career, he became an Episcopal canon.

References

  1. Patrician Director of Metropolitan Museum to Retire The New York Times , January 9, 2007 (accessed January 9, 2007)
  2. Pogrebin, Robin (2017-07-26). "Philippe de Montebello, Former Met Chief, Joins Acquavella". The New York Times. ISSN   0362-4331 . Retrieved 2023-07-14.
  3. "Stock Photo - The wedding of Count Andre Roger de Montbello, the French portrait painter and art critic, to Germaine Wiener de Croisset, distant relative of the Marquis de Sade. 30". Alamy. Retrieved 2020-07-22.
  4. http://www.hcs.harvard.edu/~dorms/index.cgi?name=montebello&grad=&year=&dorm=-+Any+-&room=
  5. de Montebello, Philippe (2014). Rendez-vous with Art. London: Thames & Hudson. p. 68. ISBN   978-0-500-23924-7.
  6. "Metropolitan Museum Takes Bold Step; Taps young insider as its new director", Kate Taylor, New York Sun, September 10, 2008
  7. Carol Vogel (2008-05-20). "Met Director Will Become Professor at N.Y.U. Institute". The New York Times. Retrieved 2008-05-20.
  8. "Event : Institute for Strategic Dialogue". Strategicdialogue.org. Archived from the original on 2014-12-02. Retrieved 2015-10-25.
  9. https://www.thirteen.org/sundayarts/preview/new-hosts-philippe-de-montebello-and-paula-zahn/185/
  10. Catton, Pia (20 April 2015). "New Chairman Hopes to Boost Profile of Often-Overlooked Museum". The Wall Street Journal. Retrieved 23 April 2015.
  11. "Gold Medal Honorees — the National Institute of Social Sciences". Archived from the original on 2019-07-02. Retrieved 2019-07-02.
  12. "APS Member History". search.amphilsoc.org. Retrieved 2021-10-15.
  13. "Philippe de Montebello". American Academy of Arts & Sciences. Retrieved 2021-10-15.
  14. Japan, Ministry of Foreign Affairs: "2007 Fall Conferment of Decorations on Foreign Nationals," p. 2. Mofa.go.jp

Sources

Further reading

Cultural offices
Preceded by Metropolitan Museum of Art by Simon Fieldhouse.jpg
Director of the Metropolitan Museum of Art

19772008
Succeeded by