He was born in New York City to Walter and Mary (Osgood Field) Hoving. He received a B.A. in 1953, a M.F.A. in 1958, and a Ph.D. in 1959, all from Princeton University. He went to work for the Met in 1959, serving on the staff of the medieval department at The Cloisters until 1965, when he became curator of the department. He left the Met in 1966 to become New York Mayor John V. Lindsay's parks commissioner, but in 1967 returned to the Met as director after the incumbent, James J. Rorimer, dropped dead on March 11, 1966. He assumed the directorship on March 17, 1967 and presided over a massive expansion and renovation of the museum , successfully adding many important collections to its holdings. He left the Met on June 30, 1977 to start an independent consulting firm for museums, Hoving Associates. From 1978 to 1984 he was an arts correspondent for the ABCnewsmagazine20/20. He edited Conoisseur Magazine from 1981 to 1991 and is the author of several books, including Making the Mummies Dance (an account of his directorship at the Met) and Art for Dummies. He also wrote books on Andrew Wyeth, Tutankhamen, and art forgeries.
References
Thomas Hoving. Making the Mummies Dance. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1993.
John A. McPhee. A Roomful of Hovings. New York: Farar, Straus, and Giroux, 1969.
Thomas P.F. Hoving (born January 15, 1931), is an American museum executive and consultant and the former director of the Metropolitan Museum of Art.
Hoving's tenure at the Metropolitan Museum of Art was characterized by his distinctive approach to expanding the Met's collections.
Hoving also spearheaded a number of building projects and renovations of the Met itself, from a controversial expansion of its galleries into Central Park to the construction of its underground parking garage.
Hoving was born to Swedish immigrant father Walter Hoving (1897-), a department store magnate and CEO of Tiffanys and Mary Osgood Field Hoving (d.
Hovings doggedness as a curator resulted in spectacular finds, such as the Romanesque doorway in the Fuentidueña Chapel of The Cloisters which he hunted down to an abandoned lot in France.
Hoving changed the operation of the NYC Parks, for example, creating the building-sized banners for the public to paint in Central Park, known as Hoving's famous "Happenings." When Rorimer died of a heart attack the next year, Hoving was appointed director, largely because of his skill at integrating the public into the Parks System.
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