New Art Museums Director Named

After a year-long search, University President Lawrence H. Summers appointed Asian art expert Thomas W. Lentz to be the new director of Harvard University Art Museums (HUAM) on Friday.

Currently the director of the Smithsonian’s international art museums, Lentz will take over a museum system facing significant layoffs, limited exhibition space and much-needed renovations when he arrives in Cambridge this November.

The museums’ cornerstone Fogg Art Museum, which has not been physically updated since 1927, is in desperate need of plumbing, electrical and climate control renovations, according to acting director Marjorie B. Cohn.

With difficulty managing the temperature in the building, curators say they cannot show certain works for fear of damage.

Museum officials had also been worried that the museums would be relocated to Allston when that land is developed.

However, Summers told the Faculty Council last week that all of the museums will remain in Cambridge.

Last December, long-time HUAM director James Cuno left Harvard just weeks before University planners scrapped a proposal to build a new modern art museum along the Charles River.

Since Cuno’s departure, Cohn has served as acting director of the museums.

An advisory group comprising faculty members and curators has been searching for Cuno’s replacement since January and recommended Lentz to Provost Steven E. Hyman.

Cohn told The Crimson in June that the advisory committee was looking for someone with “charisma, someone able to inspire everyone to work hard.”

A 1985 graduate of Harvard’s doctoral program in fine arts, Lentz went on to a series of curatorial and institutional appointments at the Rhode Island School of Design, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art and the Smithsonian’s Freer Gallery of Art and the Arthur M. Sackler Gallery.

“Tom Lentz is a museum leader of exceptional wisdom, vision, and skill,” Hyman said in a press release on Friday. “He brings to the directorship a keen intelligence, knowledge of and deep affection for Harvard’s art museums, and a profound commitment to education.”

Lentz has served in his current role as the Smithsonian’s international art director since 2000.

“The educational mission for the visual arts is more important than ever today,” Lentz said in a press release. “My goal is to ensure that Harvard’s art museums not only remain vital to the University, the community, and the field, but that they continue to play a leading role in museum thinking and practice.”

—Staff writer Kristi L. Jobson can be reached at jobson@fas.harvard.edu.