Huntingdon borough

The Museum Director Who Found Art at Juniata

Did you know? The man who ran the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston for 28 years found art in a freshman class at Juniata College.

In his own words, Peter Marzio was on a football scholarship at Juniata and struggling academically when a professor showed his "World Epochs" class a slide of Goya's painting The Forge and asked for comments. Marzio raised his hand. It was a first for him, he wrote, because he was very conscious of his severe stutter. After class the professor offered him extra credit to visit the Frick in New York and write a paper about the painting. He went over Thanksgiving vacation, his first visit to any museum. "I found the painting and felt transformed instantaneously," he wrote. And, he added, the stutter went away.

He was born on Governors Island in New York and was the first in his family to finish high school. He graduated from Juniata in 1965, then earned a master's in 1966 and a doctorate in 1969 at the University of Chicago. He became director of the Corcoran Gallery of Art in Washington in 1978 and of the Houston museum in 1982, after William Agee, and he led it until his death on December 9, 2010, at 67.

About the scholarship: those are his own words. The rule that bars athletic scholarships belongs to NCAA Division III, which was created in 1973, after his time. What Juniata itself called his aid in the early 1960s, we have not found in the college's own record.

Checked against the record. CORRECTED 2026-10-04. A version of this story that circulated said Marzio took over the Houston museum from Philippe de Montebello. He did not: the Handbook of Texas records de Montebello as director from 1969 to 1974, then 'He was succeeded by William Agee', who left in 1982, the year 'Peter Marzio became director'. The likely source of the error is a biography site that says de Montebello's move to the Metropolitan Museum opened the job in 1982. The football scholarship is Marzio's own phrase, in the Houston Chronicle of 19 March 2006. A reader who coached at a Division III school pointed out that Division III schools may not award athletic scholarships. Division III was created in 1973, after Marzio's time, and no record from Juniata itself saying what his aid was called has been found, so the page gives the scholarship in his words rather than as the college's record. The Goya story is told from his own 2006 account; the Boston Globe obituary independently confirms the projected image in a lecture, the Frick visit, and his poor academic record in high school. A collection figure was left out because two sources disagree on the starting number (14,000 against 13,000 works).

Sources

Checked 2026-10-04 · Obituaries and the subject's own account, read in full; correction prompted by a reader

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