Associate director will bridge the gap at Getty

William Griswold, the J. Paul Getty Museum’s second-in-command for the last three years, has been thrust into the spotlight with the resignation of museum director Deborah Gribbon.

Griswold will become the museum’s acting director and chief curator upon Gribbon’s departure at the end of the month. She announced her resignation Monday, citing differences on “critical issues” with Barry Munitz, president and chief executive of the Getty Trust.

An official search for Gribbon’s successor has yet to be launched, Griswold said in a telephone interview Tuesday, but the transition is already underway. “We’ve got a great staff, a great slate of exhibitions,” he said. “I’m committed to facilitating that and ensuring that we continue to offer a terrific range of programs and continue to make a great collection accessible to a very broad public.”

Griswold, 44, joined the Getty Museum in 2001 as associate director. A specialist in Florentine drawings of the early Renaissance, he was born and raised in central Pennsylvania and educated at Trinity College in Hartford, Conn., and the Courtauld Institute of Art in London.

He got his professional start as a curator of drawings and prints at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York from 1988 to 1995. While there he was the coauthor with Jacob Bean of “18th Century Italian Drawings in the Metropolitan Museum of Art.” His next move took him to the Pierpont Morgan Library, where he was the Charles W. Engelhard curator and head of the drawings and prints department from 1995 to 2001. He oversaw the design and creation of the Morgan’s Drawing Study Center and co-curated “New York Collects,” the Morgan’s first major exhibition of 20th century art.

Three years ago, when Gribbon announced Griswold’s appointment at the Getty, she praised him as an impressive scholar whose extensive experience would be an asset to the museum and the Getty Trust’s other programs. Charged with a broad range of responsibilities, he has overseen the museum’s exhibitions and its conservation and education departments.

“I came here with a curatorial background, in large part because of the extraordinary team that had been assembled at the museum under John Walsh and Debbie,” Griswold said, reflecting on his years with the previous museum director and Gribbon. “That has been an extraordinarily rewarding experience. I don’t think there is a better team. The past few years have been exciting in terms of building the collection, exhibitions and the education department. I’m now looking forward to the future, to what I anticipate will be a bright future for the museum.”