By Mary Whitfill, editor-in-chief

Thomas “Tom” W. Lentz announced his intention to resign as director of the Harvard Art Museums on Thursday. He is set to leave his post in July. Just two months ago, Lentz oversaw the reopening of a new museum complex on Quincy Street.

In 2003, Lentz arrived at Harvard University and became the head of one of the nation’s biggest and most extensive art collections. In the last 12 years he transformed the old Fogg Art Museum, with its original 1927 electrical wiring, into the long-awaited new complex.

Lentz is a historian and curator from California with degrees from Claremont Men’s College, Harvard University and the University of California, Berkley. In the past, he has served as assistant director of the Freer Gallery of Art and Arthur M. Sackler Gallery, and in 2000 he became the director of the International Art Museums at the Smithsonian.

He has written three books: “Architecture in Islamic Painting: Permanent and Impermanent Worlds,” “Timur and the Princely Vision: Persian Art and Culture in the Fifteenth Century” and “Beyond the Legacy: Anniversary Acquisitions for the Freer Gallery of Art and the Arthur M. Sackler Gallery.”

“He leaves a legacy that will benefit us all for decades to come,” Harvard President Drew Faust told the Harvard Gazette on Thursday. “He has earned both our profound gratitude and deepest admiration.”

Harvard is beginning the search for Lentz’s replacement immediately.

Photo courtesy bill_comstock, Creative Commons.