Gary Tinterow

Gary Tinterow OAL (born 1953 in Louisville) is an American art historian and curator. A specialist on 19th-century French art, Tinterow is currently Director and Margaret Alkek Williams Chair of the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston.

Born in Louisville, but raised in Houston, Tinterow graduated from Bellaire High School in 1972. He then received a Bachelor of Arts in American Studies from Brandeis University in 1976.^[1] His senior honors thesis was on Jewish architecture and was titled "Post-World War II Synagogue Architecture in America."^[2] Tinterow then proceeded to receive a Master of Arts in Art History from Harvard University in 1983.^[3]

After graduating from Harvard, Tinterow was hired at Metropolitan Museum of Art, where he would remain until 2012. There, he served as the Engelhard Chairman of the Department of Nineteenth-Century, Modern, and Contemporary Art. During that tenure, Tinterow was part of a group of curators to help formalize the Association of Art Museum Curators.

In 2012, Tinterow returned to his native Texas and was named Director and Margaret Alkek Williams Chair the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, following the death of the preceding director, Peter Marzio.^[4]

In 2000, Tinterow was made a Chevalier of the French Legion of Honor. In 2003 and 2012, respectively, Tinterow was named Chevalier and Officier of the Ordre des Arts et des Lettres by the Government of France.^[5] In 1986, King Juan Carlos I of Spain named Tinterow an Oficial of the Orden del Merito Civill; and in 2015 King Felipe VI made Tinterow an Oficial of the Orden de Isabel la Catolica.

Tinterow is married to Christopher Gardner, an antiquarian. Tinterow is also a first cousin once removed of Ann Richards, former Governor of Texas, through his mother's side.

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