Richard Armstrong, Guggenheim (top); Thomas P. Campbell, Metropolitan Museum of Art (above).
Photo © David M. Heald/Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation (top); © Don Pollard/courtesy The Metropolitan Museum of Art (above).

The appointment last Tuesday of Richard Armstrong as the Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation’s fifth director not only capped a momentous week for the institution—which also celebrated the completion of a three-year restoration project of its famous Frank Lloyd Wright building—but brought to a close what turned out to be an eventful month for several leading art museums. Earlier in September, the Guggenheim’s neighbor on New York’s Museum Mile, the Metropolitan Museum of Art (Met), selected Thomas P. Campbell as its new director. The next day, the Philadelphia Museum of Art announced the formation of a search committee charged with selecting a successor to Anne d’Harnoncourt, its director who died on June 1, 2008.