FORT WORTH, TX.- Philippe de Montebello, director and chief executive officer of The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, will present a special lecture at the Kimbell Art Museum on Sunday, May 13, 2007. Mr. de Montebello is widely regarded as the �senior statesman� of art museums in the United States and one of the most prominent figures in the international art world today. Entitled Collecting the Past and Illuminating the Future, the lecture will take place at 2:00 p.m. in the Darnell Street Auditorium. It is free and open to the public. Members of the media are encouraged to attend; however, photography, filming, and audio recording are not permitted.

In this highly topical lecture, Mr. de Montebello traces the history of collecting antiquities from the moment of their creation to the present day. He examines the various historical trends and shifts in attitude that took us from millennia of trade, plunder, and tribute to the Renaissance and through the 18th century, when major art collections were formed, often by travelers on the Grand Tour. He examines how closely throughout history the growth of knowledge has been linked to the movement of works of ancient art. He describes the birth of antiquarian societies, and later of archaeology, and the concomitant development of the modern museum in the Age of Enlightenment. He traces the movement of antiquities during the 19th-century colonialist era, and discusses the growth of independent states and patrimony laws in the 20th century and the present controversies that have pitted source countries, archaeologists, curators, and collectors against each other. Mr. de Montebello concludes with an analysis of today�s situation and the implications for the future of the Metropolitan�s agreement with the Italian government.

Mr. de Montebello has served for 30 years as director of The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, the largest and most comprehensive art museum in the Western hemisphere. He is the eighth and longest-serving director in the museum�s 135-year history. Mr. de Montebello has been acknowledged throughout the museum world as one of the field�s most influential and articulate champions of integrity, authority, education, and public access. Born in Paris, he attended French schools through the baccalaureate. He graduated magna cum laude from Harvard in 1958, and after serving as a Woodrow Wilson Fellow, received an advanced degree from New York University�s Institute of Fine Arts. He became an American citizen in 1955.

With the exception of four-and-a-half years as director of the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston (1969�1974), Mr. de Montebello has spent his entire career at The Metropolitan Museum of Art. He joined the Met as a curatorial assistant in 1963, rising to associate curator in the department of European paintings. In 1974, he was appointed vice director for curatorial and educational affairs, a post he held until he became director in July 1977.

Mr. de Montebello lectures on museum issues throughout the world, is the author of several influential op-ed pieces in The New York Times and other publications, and is a ubiquitous commentator on art and museological matters in the broadcast media. In March 2003 the President of the United States awarded him the National Medal of Arts, noting that by �promoting wide-reaching programs that bring art to the American people, he has helped to preserve, protect, and present the cultural and artistic heritage of our world.�