MFA Director Matthew Teitelbaum announces plans to retire 

After leading the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston for nearly a decade, CEO and Director Matthew Teitelbaum has announced he’ll retire in August 2025.

“It has been a great honor to serve as the Ann and Graham Gund Director of the MFA, leading the museum and working with one of the most remarkable collections in the world, alongside a staff without parallel,” he said in the announcement. “Together, we have held and acted upon the belief that art can change perceptions of the world, create strong belief in the power of community and center artists as advocates for creative change.”

Teitelbaum shared similar views after Boston’s largest museum hired him in 2015. He left the Art Gallery of Toronto, where he’d been for 22 years, to become the 11th director of the MFA. Teitelbaum succeeded Malcolm Rogers, who directed the museum for more than two decades.

In a statement, trustees chair Cathy E. Minehan said, “Matthew has shared one of the world’s greatest collections of art, loved by many, with the community and with undeterred commitment to standards of excellence. He has done so in some of the most challenging times in the institution's history, leading with compassion and fairness, and steering the MFA toward a more stable future. We are grateful to Matthew for his steady, values-based leadership over the past decade and appreciative that we will benefit from his leadership for an additional year.”

Throughout his tenure, Teitelbaum oversaw a slew of evolutionary changes at the MFA. In 2017, leadership rolled out an ambitious strategic plan titled "MFA 2020." It was designed to ensure the museum's survival and relevancy in a century defined by shifting attitudes about diversity, transparency and demographics. As Teitelbaum explained it back then, the museum's mission needed to prioritize a broader, more intentional focus on the visitors so that everyone would feel like they belong.

According to the museum, Teitelbaum implemented 64 new initiatives, including programs for college students and teens, commissions for outdoor artworks, and a division dedicated to learning and community engagement. The MFA’s Late Nites debuted, the museum added movie screenings on its lawn and hosted more community celebrations.

Teitelbaum also garnered major additions to the MFA's vast holdings, including the Rose-Marie and Eijk van Otterloo and Susan and Matthew Weatherbie collections of Dutch and Flemish art in 2017. It represented the largest gift of European paintings in the MFA’s history. The following year the museum won the stewardship of the also massive Wan-go H.C. Weng Collection of Chinese paintings and calligraphy.

Teitelbaum has also managed plenty of challenges, including in 2019 when a group of students alleged they were racially profiled by guards and other visitors. He navigated unprecedented dilemmas for a museum director brought on by the MFA’s six-month pandemic closure. Without ticket sales and other revenue sources, leadership laid off 57 of its more than 600 employees and 56 took voluntary retirement. Teitelbaum cut his salary by 30%. Later that year, the remaining employees voted to unionize.

As the MFA worked towards recovering from the pandemic, Teitelbaum’s oversight bolstered a litany of accomplishments for the museum, including the 2022 debut of its 22,000-square-foot Conservation Center for the institution’s encyclopedic collection. The year before, the MFA’s flagship Center for Netherlandish Art opened. Teitelbaum secured funds to endow positions that steward the MFA’s media and contemporary art collections. He also established the MFA's provenance department and supported major exhibitions like "Writing the Future: Basquiat and the Hip-Hop Generation."

As for the search for Teitelbaum's successor, the news about the director's departure is still fresh and a museum spokesperson said there's no additional information at this time.