Philippe de Montebello

Humanitas Visiting Professorship in History of Art (2012-2013)

The Humanitas Visiting Professorship in the History of Art at the University of Cambridge provides a dynamic opportunity for the study of art history and visual culture. It allows leading art historians and museums directors to share their multifaceted discipline with diverse audiences from inside and outside the field. The Visiting Professorship in History of Art has been made possible by the generous support of J.E. Safra and is hosted by St Clare College, Cambridge.

Philippe de Montebello is the former Director of the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Fiske Kimball Professor, Institute of Fine Arts, New York University.

Philippe de Montebello’s series begins with a lecture on The Many Faces of Context, which introduces the audience to the notion of re-contextualisation as a form of appropriation.

His second lecture, Destruction, Alteration, and Renewal, explores how iconoclasm, vandalism, and restorations affects the work of art and the viewer.

In his final lecture, Change as Constant, de Montebello speaks about how intrinsic and extrinsic factors account for the transformations in works of art over time.