Michael P. Mezzatesta

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Michael P. Mezzatesta is an American art historian, curator, and museum director who specializes in Renaissance art. He earned a BA from Columbia University in 1970 and a PhD from the NYU Institute of Fine Arts. He began his museum career as a curator of European art at the Kimbell Art Museum in Fort Worth, Texas. In 1987 he became director of the Walters Art Museum, where he organized exhibitions ranging from Bernini to Matisse and from Maya art to the works of Pollock and Louis Kahn. In 1993 he was named director of the Walters, but the appointment was withdrawn a few months later. Mezzatesta later returned to Duke University, serving as the Mary D.B.T. and James H. Semans Director of the Nasher Museum of Art from 1987 to 2003 and overseeing the construction of its new building. He was named director emeritus in 2003 and continued as an adjunct professor in Duke's art history department. He received the Rome Prize in 1979 and was a visiting fellow at the Institute for Advanced Study in 1986.