Cookin' With Potts: Is the Met Hungry?

Kimbell Museum Photo

Saturday's follow-up article in the Dallas Morning News about the resignation of Timothy Potts' (above) from the directorship of the Kimbell Art Museum makes it clear that my Number Two Pick for next director of the Metropolitan Museum is officially in play. (Number One, Neil MacGregor, director of the British Museum, is unlikely to cross the pond.)

Michael Granberry reports:

Dr. Potts, 48, hinted Friday that he may embark on a job elsewhere.

"I'm thinking about that," he said. "Like many directors, I do get offers from time to time, and there are things that I'm seriously considering."

Given my deserved reputation in some corners of the museum world (particularly at 81st and Fifth) as an annoying nuisance, my polishing Potts might actually tarnish his chances. A more serious potential deal-killer: We still don't know where the blame lies for his too-sudden flight. Despite the publicly amicable divorce, departures of long-term, respected museum directors simply don't happen this way---on short notice, with no immediate exit strategy---unless there's been a falling out.

I've been trying, of course, to get Potts to talk with me (but I'm sure that he must talk to Carol Vogel first). On Friday, after the news broke, I was informed by press spokesperson Mindy Riesenberg that he was gone for Memorial Day weekend, but "he has your number with him, and if he has a minute, he'll give you a call, but don't hold your breath, to be honest." I breathlessly awaited his call, but now Mindy herself is gone until Thursday, and Potts is said to be "out of the office this week" (presumably exploring job prospects and/or avoiding the media).

Still, what are the chances that the Met may now be ready to fire up its much anticipated director search?

I asked The Question of both the museum's board chairman, James Houghton, and its director, Philippe de Montebello, at the press preview last month for the new Greek and Roman galleries. (Why haven't I told you this before? I guess I was waiting for a moment like this.)

A while back, Philippe had told me that he did not wish to retire until he had successfully overseen the renovation and expansion of the Greek and Roman galleries. Now that that he's done that, and in light of the fact that, in July, it will be 30 years since he became the museum's acting director, I dared to ask again.

His response:

I'm still here. I'm not God. I live from moment to moment.

Houghton was slightly more enlightening:

There are no plans to make plans. Sure he's going to have to retire at some point, but we're not thinking about that yet. And he's got several projects: He's got the American Wing. He's healthy, so we'll keep him going. You know, he's exactly my age and we were classmates at Harvard.

Well, that settles that. And actually, it's not just the American Wing that remains unfinished. It's new galleries for modern photography, for Oceanic art, for American Indian art, for 19th-century European painting and sculpture, the renovation of the Wrightsman Galleries for French decorative arts....This takes us at least into the winter.

After that, who knows what the dean of American art museum directors may yet have up his sleeve?