Thomas Hoving
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Thomas Pearsall Field Hoving (January 15, 1931 – December 10, 2009) was an American museum executive and consultant and the director of the
Metropolitan Museum of Art The Metropolitan Museum of Art of New York City, colloquially "the Met", is the largest art museum in the Americas. Its permanent collection contains over two million works, divided among 17 curatorial departments. The main building at 1000 ...
.


Early life

He was born in
New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...
to
Walter Hoving Walter Hoving (December 2, 1897 – November 27, 1989) was a Swedish-born American businessman and writer. He was the chairman of Tiffany & Company from 1955 to 1980. Early life Hoving was born in Stockholm on December 2, 1897. He was a son of J ...
, the head of
Tiffany & Company Tiffany & Co. (colloquially known as Tiffany's) is a high-end luxury jewelry and specialty retailer, headquartered on Fifth Avenue in Manhattan. It sells jewelry, sterling silver, porcelain, crystal, stationery, fragrances, water bottles, wa ...
, and his wife, Mary Osgood Field, a descendant of
Samuel Osgood Samuel Osgood (February 3, 1747 – August 12, 1813) was an American merchant and statesman born in Andover, Massachusetts, currently a part of North Andover, Massachusetts. His family home still stands at 440 Osgood Street in North Andover ...
. Hoving grew up surrounded by New York's upper social strata. As recounted in his memoir, ''Making the Mummies Dance'', these early experiences would be invaluable in his later dealings with the Met's donors and trustees. After schooling at Manhattan's Buckley School,
Eaglebrook School Eaglebrook School is an independent junior boarding and day school for boys in grades six through nine. It is located in Deerfield, Massachusetts, on the Pocumtuck Range near Deerfield Academy and sited on an campus which is also preserved by ...
in Massachusetts and a brief stint at
Exeter Exeter () is a city in Devon, South West England. It is situated on the River Exe, approximately northeast of Plymouth and southwest of Bristol. In Roman Britain, Exeter was established as the base of Legio II Augusta under the personal comm ...
, Hoving graduated from the
Hotchkiss School The Hotchkiss School is a coeducational University-preparatory school#North America, preparatory school in Lakeville, Connecticut, United States. Hotchkiss is a member of the Eight Schools Association and Ten Schools Admissions Organization. It i ...
in 1949. He received a B.A. in 1953, an M.F.A. in 1958, and a Ph.D. in 1959, all from
Princeton University Princeton University is a private university, private research university in Princeton, New Jersey. Founded in 1746 in Elizabeth, New Jersey, Elizabeth as the College of New Jersey, Princeton is the List of Colonial Colleges, fourth-oldest ins ...
.


Career

As an undergraduate he majored in art and archaeology and supplemented his studies with regular trips to New York City to draw at the
Art Students League The Art Students League of New York is an art school at American Fine Arts Society, 215 West 57th Street in Manhattan, New York City, New York. The League has historically been known for its broad appeal to both amateurs and professional artists ...
. He went to work for the Met in 1959, serving on the staff of the medieval department at
The Cloisters The Cloisters, also known as the Met Cloisters, is a museum in the Washington Heights neighborhood of Upper Manhattan, New York City. The museum, situated in Fort Tryon Park, specializes in European medieval art and architecture, with a fo ...
until 1965, when he became curator of the department. He left the Met in 1966 to become New York mayor John V. Lindsay's parks commissioner, but in 1967 returned to the Met as director after the incumbent, James J. Rorimer, died suddenly on March 11, 1966. He assumed the directorship on March 17, 1967 and presided over a massive expansion and renovation of the museum, adding many important collections to its holdings.


Career at the Metropolitan Museum of Art

His tenure at the
Metropolitan Museum of Art The Metropolitan Museum of Art of New York City, colloquially "the Met", is the largest art museum in the Americas. Its permanent collection contains over two million works, divided among 17 curatorial departments. The main building at 1000 ...
was characterized by his distinctive approach to expanding the Met's collections. Rather than build more comprehensive holdings of relatively modest works, he pursued a smaller number of what he termed "world-class" pieces, including the Euphronios Krater depicting the death of
Sarpedon Sarpedon (; grc, Σαρπηδών) is the name of several figures in Greek mythology * Sarpedon, a son of Zeus, who fought on the side of Troy in the Trojan War. Although in the ''Iliad'', he was the son of Zeus and Laodamia, the daughter of Bell ...
(returned to Italy in 2008), Velázquez's ''
Portrait of Juan de Pareja The ''Portrait of Juan de Pareja'' is a painting by Spanish artist Diego Velázquez of his slave Juan de Pareja, a notable painter in his own right, who was owned by Velázquez at the time the painting was completed. Velázquez painted the portr ...
'', and the
Temple of Dendur The Temple of Dendur (Dendoor in the 19th century) is a Roman Egyptian religious structure originally located in Tuzis (later Dendur), Nubia about south of modern Aswan. Around 23 BCE, Emperor Augustus commissioned the temple dedicated to the E ...
.Thomas Hoving, ''Making the Mummies Dance: Inside the Metropolitan Museum of Art'', Simon & Schuster, 1993. The expansion of the Met during Hoving's directorship was not confined to its collections. Hoving also spearheaded a number of building projects and renovations of the Met itself, from a controversial expansion of its galleries into Central Park to the construction of its underground parking garage. Two of the building's most characteristic features—the huge exterior banners announcing current shows, and the broad plaza and steps leading from Fifth Avenue to the Met's entryway—are products of Hoving's tenure. At one point, he even floated a plan to remove the Met's "great staircase" leading from the central lobby to the second-floor galleries. That particular project remains unrealized. Hoving described the negotiations between the Metropolitan Museum, the
Cairo Museum The Museum of Egyptian Antiquities, known commonly as the Egyptian Museum or the Cairo Museum, in Cairo, Egypt, is home to an extensive collection of ancient Egyptian antiquities. It has 120,000 items, with a representative amount on display ...
, Egypt's Organization of Antiquities, and the U.S. State Department to bring the exhibition ''The Treasures of Tutankhamun'' to the Met as "the high point of my Metropolitan career." The exhibition was the result of years of negotiations, including plans for a variety of cross-cultural collaborations, galvanized by President Richard M. Nixon's June 1974 trip to
Egypt Egypt ( ar, مصر , ), officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, is a transcontinental country spanning the northeast corner of Africa and southwest corner of Asia via a land bridge formed by the Sinai Peninsula. It is bordered by the Mediter ...
and finalized in an accord signed by Secretary of State
Henry A. Kissinger Henry Alfred Kissinger (; ; born Heinz Alfred Kissinger, May 27, 1923) is a German-born American politician, diplomat, and geopolitical consultant who served as United States Secretary of State and National Security Advisor under the preside ...
and Foreign Minister
Ismail Fahmi Ismail Fahmy ( arz, اسماعيل فهمى) (2 October 1922 – 21 November 1997) was an Egyptian diplomat and politician. He served as ambassador to Austria (1968–1971), tourism minister (1973), foreign minister (1973–1977) and deputy prim ...
in October 1975. In July 1976, Hoving visited Egypt to negotiate terms of the traveling exhibition and finalize details of the Museum's collaboration with officials there. Hoving was the director of the controversial "
Harlem On My Mind ''Harlem on My Mind'' is a studio album by American jazz singer Catherine Russell, released on September 9, 2016. It earned Russell a Grammy Award nomination for Best Jazz Vocal Album. Reception Christopher Loudon of ''JazzTimes ''JazzTime ...
" exhibit, curated by Allon Schoener, which garnered significant protests from local activists and artists for its exclusion of black artists, as well as for the inclusion of an anti-Semitic essay in the catalogue. Hoving apologized and included disclaimers before the essay in the catalogue, but did not remove it. In his memoirs he revealed 2009 that
Leonardo da Vinci Leonardo di ser Piero da Vinci (15 April 14522 May 1519) was an Italian polymath of the High Renaissance who was active as a painter, Drawing, draughtsman, engineer, scientist, theorist, sculptor, and architect. While his fame initially res ...
s masterpiece
Mona Lisa The ''Mona Lisa'' ( ; it, Gioconda or ; french: Joconde ) is a half-length portrait painting by Italian artist Leonardo da Vinci. Considered an archetypal masterpiece of the Italian Renaissance, it has been described as "the best known ...
was sprinkled for several hours inside the Metropolitan Museum.


Later career

He left the Met on June 30, 1977, to start an independent consulting firm for museums, Hoving Associates. From 1978 to 1984 he was an arts correspondent for the
ABC ABC are the first three letters of the Latin script known as the alphabet. ABC or abc may also refer to: Arts, entertainment, and media Broadcasting * American Broadcasting Company, a commercial U.S. TV broadcaster ** Disney–ABC Television ...
newsmagazine A news magazine is a typed, printed, and published magazine, radio or television program, usually published weekly, consisting of articles about current events. News magazines generally discuss stories, in greater depth than do newspapers or new ...
''
20/20 Visual acuity (VA) commonly refers to the clarity of vision, but technically rates an examinee's ability to recognize small details with precision. Visual acuity is dependent on optical and neural factors, i.e. (1) the sharpness of the retinal ...
''. In 1978, he published ''Tutankhamun. The Untold Story'', a non-fiction book about the discovery of the Egyptian tomb, with particular attention to its discoverer, Howard Carter. He edited ''Connoisseur Magazine'' from 1981 to 1991; along with his memoirs of his time at the Met, he is also the author of books on a number of art-related subjects, including art forgeries, Grant Wood,
Andrew Wyeth Andrew Newell Wyeth ( ; July 12, 1917 – January 16, 2009) was an American visual artist, primarily a realist painter, working predominantly in a regionalist style. He was one of the best-known U.S. artists of the middle 20th century. In his ...
,
Tutankhamen Tutankhamun (, egy, wikt:twt-ꜥnḫ-jmn, twt-ꜥnḫ-jmn), Egyptological pronunciation Tutankhamen () (), sometimes referred to as King Tut, was an ancient Egypt, Egyptian pharaoh who was the last of his royal family to rule during the end ...
, and the 12th-century walrus ivory crucifix known as the Bury St. Edmunds Cross. Additionally, in 1999, he wrote the text for the ''Art For Dummies'' book in the " ...For Dummies" series.


Personal life

In 1953, Hoving was married to Nancy Bell, a
Vassar College Vassar College ( ) is a private liberal arts college in Poughkeepsie, New York, United States. Founded in 1861 by Matthew Vassar, it was the second degree-granting institution of higher education for women in the United States, closely follo ...
graduate whom he met at a house party in Princeton. She was the daughter of Elliott V. Bell (1902–1983), a writer for ''
The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...
'' who managed the two successful gubernatorial campaigns for his friend,
Thomas E. Dewey Thomas Edmund Dewey (March 24, 1902 – March 16, 1971) was an American lawyer, prosecutor, and politician who served as the 47th governor of New York from 1943 to 1954. He was the Republican candidate for president in 1944 and 1948: although ...
. Together, they were the parents of a daughter, Petrea "Trea" Hoving. Hoving died of
lung cancer Lung cancer, also known as lung carcinoma (since about 98–99% of all lung cancers are carcinomas), is a malignant lung tumor characterized by uncontrolled cell growth in tissue (biology), tissues of the lung. Lung carcinomas derive from tran ...
at his home in
Manhattan Manhattan (), known regionally as the City, is the most densely populated and geographically smallest of the five boroughs of New York City. The borough is also coextensive with New York County, one of the original counties of the U.S. state ...
, New York City, on December 10, 2009.


In popular culture

Hoving appeared in '' Who the *$&% Is Jackson Pollock?'', a 2006 documentary by Harry Moses about a supposed "lost"
Jackson Pollock Paul Jackson Pollock (; January 28, 1912August 11, 1956) was an American painter and a major figure in the abstract expressionist movement. He was widely noticed for his " drip technique" of pouring or splashing liquid household paint onto a hor ...
painting, where he dismissed the claims, believing that true connoisseurs are the only ones who can identify the real from fake paintings and that fingerprints and forensic evidence are secondary. The clincher, he stated, was that the 'Pollock' painting had a gesso ground, something that Pollock never used. Kennedy, Randy. "Could Be a Pollock; Must Be a Yarn," ''The New York Times'', Thursday, November 9, 2006.
/ref> He was the subject of the titular profile in ''A Roomful of Hovings and Other Profiles'', a 1969 collection of biographical pieces by
John McPhee John Angus McPhee (born March 8, 1931) is an American writer. He is considered one of the pioneers of creative nonfiction. He is a four-time finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in the category General Nonfiction, and he won that award on the four ...
.


Works

* * * * * Hoving, Thomas. ''King of the Confessors: A New Appraisal.'' cybereditions.com: Christchurch, NZ, 2001. * Hoving, Thomas. ''King of the Confessors.'' Simon & Schuster: New York, 1981.
Artful Tom, A memoir // Artnet


Bibliography

* * "Outdoorsman of the Big City", ''Life'', April 29, 1966. *


References


External links



* ttp://libmma.org/digital_files/archives/Thomas_Hoving_records_b18583829 Thomas Hoving recordsat the Metropolitan Museum of Art Archives. {{DEFAULTSORT:Hoving, Thomas 1931 births 2009 deaths American art curators Deaths from lung cancer in New York (state) Directors of the Metropolitan Museum of Art People from Manhattan Hotchkiss School alumni Princeton University alumni New York City Department of Parks and Recreation Buckley School (New York City) alumni