Griswold, William

William M. Griswold (born September 19, 1960) is an American museum director and curator who is director of the Cleveland Museum of Art. After earning a PhD on the drawings of Piero di Cosimo in 1988, Griswold held positions as a drawings curator at the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Morgan Library & Museum. Moving into museum administration, he became associate director of the J. Paul Getty Museum in 2001 and served as its interim director from 2004 to 2005. He then served as director of the Minneapolis Institute of Art from 2005 to 2007 and director of the Morgan from 2007 to 2014. Griswold assumed his position at the Cleveland Museum of Art in 2014, succeeding David Franklin as the ninth director of the museum. In his tenure, he has overseen initiatives to grow and diversify the museum's audience and address barriers present for members of underrepresented groups within its operations. In the two instances that museum staff discovered the questionable provenance of one of its objects, he has personally led negotiations resulting in their return to their respective countries of origin.