Tampa Museum of Art director to retire

After a decade at the helm, the Penny and Jeff Vinik executive director of the Tampa Museum of Art announced his retirement Thursday. 

Michael Tomor, 63, announced his decision to retire effective March 31. He’s led the Tampa Museum of Art since 2015 and spent 40 years working in various leadership positions at art museums across the country. 

“This last decade has been one of great advancements for the institution, and I’m proud of the incredible work we have accomplished as a team and as a community,” Tomor says in a release. 

Under Tomor’s leadership, the Tampa Museum of Art has amassed 1,500 new objects for its permanent collection, the release says. Tomor’s tenure is also lauded for the museum’s reinvigorated efforts at student and community outreach, as well as the completion of a large-scale renovation that added 32,000 square feet of exhibition space in four promenades of the museum, holding 12 new galleries. 

Courtesy image

First announced in November 2021, those expansion efforts are still underway, as is the museum’s $100 million capital campaign to fund the renovation. The Tampa Museum of Art is looking to more than triple its existing space with a nearly 78,000-square-foot expansion designed by New York-based architects Weiss/Manfredi that is envisioned to mimic a crystalline pier extending from the body of the museum to the edge of the Hillsborough River.

While renovations to the existing museum structure are now complete, construction on the iconic riverfront expansion, managed by The Beck Group, is expected to take two more years to complete. 

Tomor has been in the museum business for 40 years, and worked as a director for the last 25, the release says.

While Tomor and his husband will remain in Tampa, they plan to spend additional time with family in Texas and Pennsylvania.

“Michael leaves a tremendous legacy behind here at the Tampa Museum of Art, with a staggering list of accomplishments in this past decade,” Ron Christaldi, Chair of the Tampa Museum of Art Board of Trustees says in the release. 

The museum’s board is gathering a search committee to conduct a national search for TMA’s next executive director.