William M Griswold

William M. Griswold has led the Morgan Library & Museum for nearly seven years and will start his new job in the fall of 2014. David Franklin, in the top job for three years, resigned in October 2013. Museum officials later confirmed that Mr. Franklin’s relationship with a museum employee, Christina Gaston, who committed suicide in April 2013, had led to the resignation. According to Cleveland news reports, the board said that Mr. Franklin had lied to it about the relationship. A specialist in Italian master drawings, Mr. Griswold received a doctorate from the Courtauld Institute of Art in London, then went straight to the Metropolitan Museum of Art in 1988, working as an assistant, and later associate, curator of drawings. He later moved to the Morgan, leaving there in 2001 to become the associate director for collections at the J. Paul Getty Museum in Los Angeles and served briefly as its acting director. Dr. Griswold earned his bachelor’s degree at Trinity College, Hartford, Connecticut. He became the director and president of the Minneapolis Institute for two years, starting in July 2005. Mr. Griswold will be overseeing an institution with an endowment of $750 million and a collection of more than 45,000 objects that spans 6,000 years, from ancient to contemporary art.