But in deciding to enter a second career as professor at NYU’s Institute of Fine Arts, or IFA, the 73-year-old has chosen no easy path. Discussions with the Italians were reportedly so stressful that de Montebello broke out with shingles.Ĭould teaching graduate students really be more difficult? It seems unlikely. He also doubled the museum’s physical size, steered the institution out of years of budget deficits, and negotiated an innovative landmark agreement that secured a series of major art loans from the Italian state in exchange for the return of almost two dozen classical artifacts of questionable provenance-including, most famously, the Euphronios krater, a Greek terra cotta bowl once used to mix water and wine. In 31 years as director of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, de Montebello increased the number of annual visitors by more than 30 percent-to 5.2 million people. “It’s just exhausting,” says Philippe de Montebello, Fiske Kimball Professor in the History and Culture of Museums, and special adviser to the provost at NYU Abu Dhabi.
Graying, bespectacled, and wearing a tweed jacket over a V-neck sweater and tie, the teacher-despite his newness to the profession-is the very image of a professor of a certain age. His two-hour lecture ended some 20 minutes earlier finally, the last question has been answered and the last student has left the room.
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