As an undergraduate he majored in art and archaeology and supplemented his studies with regular trips to New York City to draw at the
Art Students League. He went to work for the Met in 1959, serving on the staff of the medieval department at
The Cloisters until 1965, when he became curator of the department. He left the Met in 1966 to become New York mayor
John V. Lindsay's parks commissioner, but in 1967 returned to the Met as director after the incumbent,
James J. Rorimer, died suddenly on May 11, 1966. He assumed the directorship on March 17, 1967, and presided over a massive expansion and renovation of the museum, adding many important collections to its holdings. The expansion of the Met during Hoving's directorship was not confined to its collections. Hoving also spearheaded a number of building projects and renovations of the Met itself, from a controversial expansion of its galleries into Central Park to the construction of its underground parking garage. Hoving was the director of the controversial "
Harlem On My Mind" exhibit, curated by
Allon Schoener, which garnered significant protests from local activists and artists for its exclusion of black artists, as well as for the inclusion of an anti-Semitic essay in the catalogue. Hoving apologized and included disclaimers before the essay in the catalogue, but did not remove it. In his memoirs,
Artful Tom (2009), he claimed that
Leonardo da Vinci's masterpiece
Mona Lisa, when it was on loan to the Met, was sprinkled with water for several hours inside the Metropolitan Museum. This claim was not corroborated
Later career He resigned from the Met on June 30, 1977. Hoving planned to direct a new private education center within the Met to be funded by the Annenberg family, but "rising controversy" caused the proposal to be abandoned. He instead started an independent consulting firm for museums, called Hoving Associates. In 1978, he published
Tutankhamun. The Untold Story, a non-fiction book about the discovery of the Egyptian tomb, with particular attention to its discoverer, Howard Carter. He was the Arts and Entertainment correspondent for the
ABC newsmagazine 20/20 from 1978 to 1983. His debut in its second-ever installment on June 13, 1978 was a feature about the making of
Jaws 2. Another of his early features was one from 1979 about the
J. Paul Getty Museum's controversial purchase of
Victorious Youth. Most of what he did at
20/20 was celebrity profiles. ==Personal life==