With a heated-up art market and expanding museums dominating the cultural landscape, it was only a matter of time before a graduate school of art history found the limelight, too.

It happened this week, to New York University's Institute of Fine Arts, which announced not only the recruitment to the faculty of the outgoing director of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Philippe de Montebello, but also an expansion into the building next to its home on 78th Street and Fifth Avenue, made possible by a gift of parcels assembled by its chairman emeritus, real estate developer Sheldon Solow.

Then again, perhaps the school has always had it right. When it was founded 75 years ago, it hitched its star to New York's museums, galleries, and auction houses, by deciding not to be a collecting institution, as other schools had.

In any case, the news of the moment certainly turned the dinner on Tuesday night, celebrating the 75th anniversary of the school, into a momentous event, or, as the institute's chairwoman, Judy Steinhardt, put it, "the happiest of occasions."

"The institute is blessed with a wealth of friends and resources," Mrs. Steinhardt, who succeeded Mr. Solow in the chair position five years ago, added.

Mr. Solow, who joined the board in 1987 and became chairman in 1992, succeeding John Loeb Sr., has been chief among those friends.

The dinner honored Mr. Solow, with a tribute by the institute's Sheldon H. Solow Professor in the History of Architecture, Jean-Louis Cohen.

Mr. Cohen described Mr. Solow's impact on the city as a developer, describing his "ambition for changing New York, first in the selection of his sites, and second, in the making of the buildings."

He used the example of 9 W. 57th St., constructed between 1968 and 1974 on 17 lots. "It completely changed the scale of the neighborhood," Mr. Cohen said.

In contrarian fashion typical of the Brooklyn-born New York University dropout, Mr. Solow delivered his remarks standing by his dinner seat, rather than at the podium in the front of the Loeb Room.

"I hate to tell you what this room looked like 15 years ago," Mr. Solow said, referring to some of the much-needed repairs and restorations that he helped accomplish.

The 100 guests at the dinner included Mr. Solow's wife, sculptor and jewelry designer Mia Solow; his sons, Stefan and Nikolai; a grandson, Carson, and sisters Rosalie and Renée.

Rosalie said her brother "is a sensational collector" and that art has always been in her family's blood. "Since we were little, our parents took us to museums."

Mr. Solow's latest contribution to the school is the first floor and basement of the building next door, which will be turned into a student center and a library (in addition to those already existing in what were once the bedrooms of the James Duke House, which became the institute's home in 1958 after a refitting for educational use by a young Robert Venturi).

Fund-raising is under way for the project, which will include an underground passageway linking the spaces. Architectural Research Office, the hot firm behind the Prada store downtown and buildings for Princeton and Brown universities, has been hired to design the project.

Mr. de Montebello, an alumnus of the school, said the dinner felt "very much like a homecoming." Indeed, he mingled with board members of the Met, such as Shelby White and Leon Black, as well as his future colleagues on the institute's faculty, such as Jonathan Alexander, who studies illuminated manuscripts, and Jonathan Brown, who studies Spanish painting.

"For so long I've had to suppress the didact in me. Here I can deal with ideas, with reflection and analysis," Mr. de Montebello said.

The hire is part of a run of eight new hires in the past three years by the institute's director, Mariët Westermann, including a specialist in Modern and Contemporary art, Thomas Crow, who came from the Getty Research Institute, and a specialist in Islamic art, Finbarr Barry Flood.

Ms. Westermann leaves in June to oversee New York University's campus in Abu Dhabi, a project on which Mr. de Montebello will be consulting.

The current chairman of the institute's Conservation Center, Michele Marincola, will become interim director.

agordon@nysun.com