Snootometer Update: Gary Tinterow Makes His Move!

When waiting, fingers crossed and breath bated, to hear if you’ll replace Philippe de Montebello as the new director of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, it must be quite helpful to receive a high-profile endorsement from a major critic. That’s what has just happened, in essence, to Gary Tinterow, a top curator under De Montebello and a leading candidate for the job. In today’s New Yorker, critic Peter Schjeldahl lovingly profiles the Met’s expanded nineteenth-century galleries, and guess whose quote opens the piece? Why, Gary Tinterow’s!

Schjeldahl’s piece is an ode to De Montebello’s tradition of giving curators primacy in the development of the Met, and Tinterow is clearly fingered as Philippe’s heir, the scholar whose hard work has illuminated the majestic new galleries. Schjeldahl’s essay ends with a veritable plea to the slow-moving search committee:

Perhaps we’ve had enough, at last, of preening and second-guessing, agenda-ridden, sweaty-palmed institutional imbroglios. De Montebello’s obvious formula should not elude the grasp of lesser mortals: get top people who love what they do, then have them do it. Make everything else secondary.

Accordingly, Gary Tinterow’s rating on the Snootometer™ has improved, from a 7.7 to a whopping 8.8. Could he reign supreme?

European Tour [NYer]
Earlier on the Snootometer:
Who’s Snooty Enough to Replace Philippe de Montebello?
Do the California Museum Raids Change the Race to Succeed Philippe?