The Met's Marathon Man

What was Thomas P. Campbell's toughest challenge after being plucked from the curatorial ranks as the trustees' unexpected choice to succeed Philippe de Montebello as director of the Metropolitan Museum of Art?

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"My day starts at 8 in the morning. I have meetings through the day into the evening and very often dinners and benefits at night. This is nonstop. You go for every half hour, every 15 minutes, from one curator coming in to talk about an exhibition or an acquisition to one or two people discussing a donor issue or a fund-raising issue. . . . It's like a marathon."

View Full ImageZina Saunders

Born in Singapore and raised in Cambridge, England, Mr. Campbell has already run a long course since his public debut at the September 2008 press conference announcing his appointment. His most pressing task upon assuming his new job the following January was implementing a difficult phase of budget cuts and staff reductions necessitated by the financial crisis that caused a 26% drop in the museum's total endowment funds for the fiscal year ending June 30, 2009.

Ensconced in his book-lined lair that overlooks Central Park and is adorned by a hazy New Jersey landscape by George Inness, Mr. Campbell spoke cautiously, projecting both earnestness and intelligence. While he may lack his predecessor's charismatic, commanding presence, he nonetheless conveys a strong grasp of the intricacies of the job and his institution.

With hindsight, Mr. Campbell now sees a "silver lining" to the turbulence of his inaugural year. He acknowledged, when asked, that the crisis had given him the opportunity to appoint a hand-picked team much sooner and less controversially than would have otherwise been possible. That's because several key senior staffers were among the 96 employees who jumped at the offer of voluntary-retirement packages when they were announced last March. Carrie Rebora Barratt, for example, has been promoted from her position as a curator of American art to associate director for collections and administration, itself a position that has been expanded under Mr. Campbell. Still being sought: an associate director for exhibitions.

Also symbolic of rejuvenated leadership was the election in September of the museum's youngest trustee, Alejandro Santo Domingo, 32, a Columbian-American financier and son of Colombian billionaire Julio Mario Santo Domingo, a brewery and media mogul. "Going forward, a new generation of collectors and supporters will become a bigger part of boards, not only at the Met," Mr. Campbell predicted.

He noted that the financial crisis has forced him "to look hard at priorities—a good exercise." The museum, he says, "is a place with very creative, talented people, and it's releasing a huge amount of creative energy."

While much of that energy will involve doing more with less, there is one major growth area: the new digital-media department, created by Mr. Campbell.

Unlike his predecessor, Mr. Campbell has a soft spot for software, so digital media is one area where the new director is likely to make a conspicuous mark. One of his biggest curatorial accomplishments was overseeing the development of the online collections-management system for the museum's Antonio Ratti Textile Center, where he was the supervising curator. Now he wants to do the same for the entire museum.

"What I've done is to amalgamate a number of different teams into the new media department. They will be providing content for the Web site, touchscreen computers in the galleries and handheld devices."

More audio tours will focus on the permanent collection. Touchscreens like those in the recently reopened and refurbished American period rooms may be introduced in other decorative arts rooms. In paintings galleries, however, the museum will be "rightly cautious" about digital distractions, he said.

The museum's Web site is being completely rebuilt, a process expected to take up to 18 months. At the new metmuseum.org, virtual visitors will "find the museum and its treasures represented as they should be—beautiful illustrations, thoughtful information and a database that allows you to search the vast majority of the collection," says Mr. Campbell.

That database will be fed by what is arguably the most important (but, in his words, "not very sexy") behind-the-scenes project that Mr. Campbell is spearheading: reconciling and unifying the separate collections-management systems developed by each of the Met's 17 curatorial departments over the past 13 years. William Morris & Co. textiles, for example, are now scattered among three departments. Under the new system, "a curator will be instantly able to see all of them."

"The step beyond that, which is so important, is hardly rocket science: A consolidated database will allow us to deliver information through a range of digital media platforms"—touchscreens, handheld devices, the Web site.

Perhaps most controversially, technology may also alter the size and number of the museum's erudite, sumptuously illustrated catalogs—volumes for which the Met is famous.

"We will absolutely continue publishing beautiful books about our own collections. But I also want to make sure that we put energy and attention into getting all the collections online, or as much as is reasonable, because we have two million objects. At a time when scholarship is rapidly advancing, are you best serving a collection by publishing a three-volume catalog of 800 pieces, where much of it becomes out of date within six months?"

One side effect of the anemic economy is that Mr. Campbell may soon accomplish what Mr. de Montebello had long advocated—a significant reduction in the number of temporary exhibitions. Mr. Campbell also wants to see more shows drawn from the permanent collection—another cost-effective shift.

The two big exhibitions opening this spring are, in fact, from the Met's own trove: some 150 works by Picasso, a show conceived under Mr. de Montebello, in consultation Mr. Campbell while the latter was still the director-designate; and an array of some 80 examples of clothing worn by American women from 1890 to 1940, organized since Mr. Campbell took over.

There will also be smaller shows. Indeed, Mr. Campbell has already managed to slip some into the schedule he inherited from his predecessor, most famously last fall's popular display of Vermeer's masterpiece, "The Milkmaid," lent by Amsterdam's Rijksmuseum.

"We'll continue to do the big shows, the ambitious ones, but I also like shows that focus your attention on five, 10, 15 pieces," Mr. Campbell said.

Negotiations are in progress to send to the Shanghai Museum a sweeping survey of Chinese art drawn from the greatest treasures of the Met and three other American museums. But in light of what Mr. Campbell termed "jingoism" and "grandstanding" by China regarding its cultural patrimony in foreign collections, the lenders first need ironclad guarantees that whatever leaves U.S. museums will return there. A delegation of camera-wielding officials from Beijing recently visited the Met, searching the displays for looted objects. "We have nothing to hide," Mr. Campbell declared.

Certain articles of faith under Mr. de Montebello's administration may get a second look under Mr. Campbell—among them the policy against surcharges for blockbuster exhibitions and the disinclination to establish foreign branches in the manner of the Met's neighbor, the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum. When asked whether any of these would change, Mr. Campbell expressed both open-mindedness and an inclination toward the status quo.

"I'm not out to make rapid, showy changes," he told me at the end of our discussion. "What I am out to do is make sure that the Met continues to be the most exciting encyclopedic museum in the world. I want to sustain the vibrancy that makes it exciting to work here, that makes it exciting for visitors. The art remains central."

In that, he is just like his predecessor.

Ms. Rosenbaum writes on art and museums for the Journal and blogs as CultureGrrl at