Philippe de Montebello

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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.

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]