Met Hires Search Firm

The Metropolitan Museum of Art has hired a New York-based executive search firm, Phillips Oppenheim, to handle the search for a successor to its current director, Philippe de Montebello, who announced his retirement last month.

It is standard for museums to employ search firms in seeking directors. The firms identify potential candidates and often do preliminary interviews. Phillips Oppenheim is also currently handling the search for a new director of the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum.

Mr. de Montebello has said he will leave the museum at the end of 2008 or when his successor is named. People who have been mentioned as likely candidates include the Met's curator in charge of 19th-century, Modern, and Contemporary art, Gary Tinterow; the director of the British Museum, Neil MacGregor; the director of the Art Institute of Chicago, James Cuno; the director of the Fitzwilliam Museum in Cambridge, England, Timothy Potts; the director of the Louvre Museum, Henri Loyrette, and the director of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Michael Govan.