Peter Cort Marzio

Peter C. Marzio, director of the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston (MFAH), for more than two decades, died at the age of 67. Throughout his career he developed a reputation for developing resources that favored the democratization of art and the promotion of cultural diversity. Marzio began his career at the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C., as a curator of drawings and prints. There he organized exhibitions and publications that revealed his democratic spirit and broad appeal. In 1978 he was appointed director of the Corcoran Gallery of Art, and then, in 1982, he was hired by the trustees of the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, as the new director of that institution. From the beginning the city of Houston embraced his entrepreneurial qualities and his openness to the city¿s pre-existing diversity. As Director, he spearheaded major expansion and construction projects, among these, the Cullen Sculpture Garden designed by prominent artist Isamu Noguchi. In 2001 he became a member of the Wallace Foundation Board, based in New York. Together with that institution, Marzio developed public programs, such as one that offered free access to the Museum every Thursday, or the Wallace Gateway to Art/De Puertas al Arte 2004-2008 program for the Latin American communities. During Marzio's 28-year tenure as director of the MFAH, the museum¿s collections grew from 13,000 artworks to 62,172. Attendance grew from 380,000 to over 2 million a year. He created the departments of Renaissance and Baroque, Film and Video, Modern and Contemporary art, the Glassell Collection and the department of Latin American Art, among others. Exhibitions grew from 26 in 1983 to 41 in 2009. Among this was the exhibition Inverted Utopias: Avant-Garde Art in Latin America, one of the most important Latin American art exhibitions of recent times. According to Cornelia Long, Chairman of the Board of Trustees: "Peter was a visionary leader. He believed the museum was a place for all people and worked tirelessly to make the collection accessible and the educational and exhibition schedules exciting. He embraced diversity and the public. The trustees of the MFAH will continue to do so as well."