A Curious Mind

PIERRE TERJANIAN credits a museum guard with helping him discover his calling, by literally pointing him in the right direction.

“There are moments when the road forks before you,” he observes. “I believe chance encounters can change your life.”

Call it luck, timing or fate, Terjanian has a knack for being in the right place at the right time, with the right attitude. In 1990, the Strasbourg native was 21, earning dual degrees in law and business in Paris, with every intention of becoming a lawyer. He was also cultivating a growing fascination with historical arms and armor, particularly the elegant productions of the Renaissance era. The Tower of London’s Royal Armories, a magnificent museum housed in William the Conqueror’s forbidding, atmospheric White Tower, was a magnet for the young Frenchman. Over summers and holidays, whenever possible, he’d hop the cheapest flight to London and immerse himself in the collection. Taking photos wasn’t allowed, so he sketched the objects he admired. Every day, all day.

“I stayed from opening to close. After a while, the guards really started paying attention to me. I asked a lot of questions. You could tell they were thinking, what’s up with this guy?” recalls Terjanian.

Finally, a guard advised him to walk down the hall and speak directly with the museum’s curators. Impressed by his enthusiasm and knowledge, the curators encouraged him to keep researching, even suggesting they might publish his work. The conversation stuck in his mind, and it wasn’t long after that Terjanian found a footing in the museum world, a choice that has paid off. On July 1, he became the Ann and Graham Gund Director and CEO for the Museum of Fine Arts (MFA), Boston’s premier art museum, and one of the country’s most distinguished and cherished cultural institutions.

THINKING ON THE MOVE

Terjanian’s office features several floor-to-ceiling windows that frame the Fenway’s lush treescape, a view that might have tempted Monet or the American impressionist Frederick Hassam to pick up a brush. It’s an ideal place to sit and reflect. But Terjanian prefers to think and plan on his feet while strolling the museum, particularly the Asian art galleries. Movement suits his personal style: energetic, receptive to the new, and ever curious.

It’s an exciting role, with lots at stake. MFA makes most lists of the country’s best art museums; it’s a source of pride for residents and a destination for international tourists. Its collection, which boasts numerous masterworks, contains 500,000 objects representing artistic traditions from nearly every corner of the globe. In its last fiscal year, which ended June 30, 2025, the MFA had over a million visitors. Major exhibitions, such as this year’s intimate and moving “Van Gogh: Roulin Family Portraits” and 2021’s blockbuster “Writing the Future: Basquiat and the Hip-Hop Generation” drew scores of younger, first-time visitors. Everyone is eying Terjanian, eager to see where he’ll take things.

Terjanian already knows the players at the MFA, having served as its chief of curatorial affairs and conservation for the last year and a half, working under Matthew Teitelbaum, who ran the museum for the last decade. But now that Terjanian is in the key role, he’s on a six-month listening tour busy absorbing feedback and advice from the museum’s many constituents.

While he says it’s early days for a plan, he is very adamant that the museum’s existing collections get fair play.

“We will continue to do bold exhibitions, but the permanent collection draws a local audience and is not to be thought of as a backdrop for exhibitions. That’s important,” he adds.

The MFA is celebrated for its extensive and impressive permanent collections, especially its European and American paintings, which include masterworks such as Renoir’s charming “Dance at Bougival,” (1867) and Monet’s serene “Waterlilies” (1907). But as is often the case with museums (how many visitors to the Louvre only see the Mona Lisa?), the famous and familiar can overshadow fine gems. There’s so much to see that even regular visitors often miss, and Terjanian wants to make sure other objects get their due.

“Today, I just noticed for the first time a large stone figure,” he says with delight. “It’s ancient Egyptian, and it has the face of a lioness and the torso of a woman. It’s one of more than 730 figures commissioned by Amenhotep III to guard his temple day and night.”

Several of the MFA’s major galleries have reopened after being closed during the pandemic, which gave curators time to reimagine and recreate them. With Terjanian’s input, many of the galleries have added flocked wallpaper or have been painted in deep, saturated colors. Objects and paintings stand out vividly against the cerulean blue, eggplant, and grassy green walls. On a rainy Sunday in early September, the halls are packed with visitors from the U.S. and overseas, animatedly discussing the works.

“There’s so much to see,” says Terjanian. “For example, we have the largest and most important collections of ancient Nubian art anywhere, with about 25,000 objects representing 5,000 years of history.. And we’ll be expanding those galleries soon.”

EARLY INFLUENCES

Terjanian was born and raised in Strasbourg, a French city that teeters on the western border of Germany. It’s where Gutenberg invented the printing press in the mid 1400s, and Europe’s major events either happened or reverberated here. Terjanian absorbed history from a young age, just by walking around town. Art had a place at home, too, thanks to his father, a seller of antique carpets.

“He had these cabinets with Japanese netsuke, little ceramic sculptures. Some of them scared me, and some intrigued me,” Terjanian recalls.

His imagination was also stirred by propaganda posters in books and magazine reprints. “Looking at them got me thinking. How can an image mobilize people to go to work or build roads? Or enlist in the army? Or take part in a protest? As a teenager, I would give myself assignments and draw my own versions.”

As he grew older, Terjanian continually sought out new horizons. Law school was fine, but there were so many lawyers, and he wanted to stand out, so he enrolled in a business administration degree program. The contrast between the two disciplines opened up new ways of thinking. Still, he had the sense the world was a bigger and more interesting place, with more to offer.

While visiting a friend in Manhattan, Terjanian sought out a curator at the Met, and inquired about how he might enter the museum field. They told him it would be tough, but suggested he try his luck in Philadelphia. It was a good lead, and in 1997, Terjanian joined the Philadelphia Museum of Art on an international fellowship, a new program funded by the Mellon Foundation.

“I was apprenticed into the American museum system from that time on. And it was a very welcoming institution that made sure I was treated like staff. I was embedded in the action from day one.”

KNIGHT IN SHINING ARMOR

After several years learning the ropes, Terjanian was appointed the J. J. Medveckis Associate Curator of Arms and Armor and acting head of the Department of European Sculpture and Decorative Arts before 1700 at the Philadelphia Museum of Art.

He acquired the last complete set of horse armor still in private hands, a coup for the museum, as there are only 40 or so complete European horse armor sets in the world. The teenage Duke Ulrich of Wuerttemberg had it made in 1507 to impress older rulers. He spared no expense, hiring the best artisans and most expensive materials, and the result is lavish. For Terjanian, the process was an education.

“It was a defining experience for me. I had to raise the money to purchase it, I had to persuade the owner to sell it, and I had to determine the year it was made, for whom and why,” he explains.

Ulrich’s horse armor brought in the crowds. Kids were thrilled by the work, as were adults.

“We saw we could bring many different people into the museum, not only art lovers. Horse armor, a spear, a sword can teach people so much. It’s an object anyone can engage with,” he adds.

TO THE MET

From Philadelphia, he went to The Met as the Arthur Ochs Sulzberger Curator in Charge of Arms and Armor. He led one of the museum’s iconic curatorial departments, overseeing a collection of objects from Europe, the Middle East, Asia, and America from the Stone Age to the Middle Ages to the 21st century.

At The Met, he put together another landmark exhibition. “The Last Knight: The Art, Armor and Ambition of Maximillian I,” ran from fall of 2018 to early 2020, and featured more European arms and armor than any North American exhibition had in decades—180 objects loaned from collections in Europe, the Middle East, and the U.S.

Terjanian also raised $100 million in gifts, bequests and pledges of artworks, priming him for top-tier status at any museum. In 2024, he joined the MFA as head of Curatorial and Conservation, overseeing stewardship for all objects and related activities. When Teitelbaum announced he was stepping down and a search ensued, Terjanian, according to Museum authorities, was a popular choice, trusted and respected by colleagues and board members.

Terjanian frequently acknowledges his good fortune and his kind treatment by others who helped mentor him and nurture his career, and vows to do the same for his staff.

“The staff makes the museum experience possible. On my visits to the Tower of London, it was that guard who encouraged me to get more involved. That’s something that I will take pride in fostering at the MFA, you know, making sure that everyone who works here engaging the public fully understands how important they are.”

CULTIVATING A GARDEN

On March 15, 2026, the MFA will open a new exhibit about gardens that will showcase works from across the Museum’s collections—including beloved favorites and unseen masterpieces—to consider how similarities and differences in gardens over time and place speak to our relationship with the natural world.

The exhibit, Terjanian says, will offer visitors a fresh perspective on the world’s most popular hobby through an artistic lens. “It’s interesting to consider a theme like gardening that is virtually universal and explore how it differs across civilizations, cultures and people based on their lived experience. If anything, we have an embarrassment of riches, so it’s a matter of exercising discipline, to carefully curate what’s in the exhibit.”

What does Terjanian hope visitors feel when they come to the museum? The same enchantment he experienced in the Tower of London more than 30 years ago.

“Ideally, something magical happens when you encounter these works,” he says with conviction. “Visitors should be challenged, in a positive way. For me, the best visitor experience is when a person comes in for one reason, and they leave with something new, a thought or feeling they didn’t know they had or didn’t know they wanted.”

BY CLAIRE VAIL