The Museum of Fine Arts, Boston has named Pierre Terjanian as its next director and chief executive. Terjanian, 56, currently serves as the museum’s chief of curatorial affairs and conservation. He will succeed Matthew Teitelbaum, who has been the director since 2015, starting his new role in July.
“The predominant feeling is excitement,” Terjanian said in an interview. “This is a great institution, and it has a big part to play in Boston, in New England, and beyond.”
Terjanian addressed the current challenges facing museums, describing the environment as “volatile.” He emphasized the importance of compliance with legislation and the need to adapt to changes. Despite receiving some funding from the city of Boston, the museum relies on less than 1 percent of its budget from the government.
Terjanian assured that the museum would continue with its programs, even amidst political uncertainties. A native of Strasbourg, France, Terjanian joined the Museum of Fine Arts in 2024 and has been integral in overseeing the conservation of the museum’s vast collection of over 500,000 objects. He also helped develop the current exhibition exploring an artist’s relationship with a neighboring family in the South of France in the 1880s.
Previously, Terjanian worked at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York as a curator in charge of the department of arms and armor. During his tenure at the Met, he organized notable exhibitions such as the ambitious 2019 showcase “The Last Knight: The Art, Armour, and Ambition of Maximilian I,” which featured 180 objects borrowed from institutions worldwide.
Pierre Terjanian’s new role
He also co-chaired the Met’s reopening task force during the Covid-19 pandemic and helped raise $100 million in funds and works of art for the museum. Terjanian also served as a curator and acting head of the department of European sculpture and decorative arts before 1700 at the Philadelphia Museum of Art. In recognition of his contributions to art history, he won the 2024 Marica Vilcek Prize in Art History and was named a Chevalier de l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres by the French government earlier this year.
Emi M. Winterer, the president of the board of trustees at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, noted that Terjanian was a standout candidate during the search process. “He quickly earned the trust and respect of his colleagues,” Winterer said.
“We live in a time when cultural institutions have a prime opportunity to demonstrate the positive difference they can make in the lives of individuals—and in society,” Terjanian said. “I am excited to take on this work, and I believe even greater impact will come in the form of partnerships in and beyond Boston.”
The MFA is the 83rd-most-visited art museum in the world and the ninth-most-visited in the US. One of the largest ongoing projects at the museum, announced in October, is supported by the Wyss Foundation to reinvent the presentation of its 20th-century art collection.
The funds are slated to support a renovation project that will create four new gallery spaces, with 5,665 square feet of additional exhibition space, as well as updates to lighting, windows, and climate control. They are set to open next fall, with three of the spaces dedicated to modern art and the fourth gallery to modern sculpture.
