William M. Griswold, a veteran art museum administrator who earned glowing praise as director of the Morgan Library & Museum in New York over the past six years, has been appointed as the new director of the Cleveland Museum of Art.

Trustees on the museum's 31-member board voted unanimously Tuesday morning in favor of Griswold, a specialist in Italian Renaissance art and Old Master drawings with strong interests in modern and contemporary art and the art of Asia.

Days before the vote, trustees who served on the search committee that recommended Griswold said he quickly emerged as the favorite candidate during a seven-month international search among 30 to 40 contenders.

"Was he clearly the best choice? Absolutely, yes," said Cleveland museum trustee Peter Raskind, who led the nine-member search committee.

"I'm thrilled," Griswold said on Sunday in an interview in New York, speaking of his expected appointment in Cleveland. "I'm really excited about it. I can't wait to get started."

With Griswold's appointment, the museum can move on from the transition period following the sudden and shocking resignation of David Franklin in October after three years as director.

Franklin, who served as chief curator and deputy director of the National Gallery of Canada in Ottawa before coming to Cleveland, oversaw the final stages of the Cleveland museum's eight-year, $320 million expansion and renovation, completed in December.

He raised tens of millions of dollars for the museum's capital campaign and endowment.

But Franklin left the institution and the community rattled following the revelation that he resigned after trustees presented him with proof that he had lied for 10 months to cover up an extramarital affair with an employee who left the museum in November 2012 and who later committed suicide.

The Morgan Library & Museum.

"I have followed your travails," said Lawrence Ricciardi, president of the board of the Morgan, speaking of the turmoil surrounding Franklin's departure. "Those things are never easy. But Bill will stabilize things. He will."

Ricciardi added that the Morgan would very much miss Griswold.

"He's done a great job," he said. "He's taken us to a whole new level as an institution."

Under an accord with the Cleveland museum and the Morgan, The Plain Dealer agreed Thursday not to publish news about Griswold's impending appointment until 10 a.m. Tuesday -- after the Cleveland board of trustees voted to accept the search committee's recommendation.

The museums said that The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal agreed to the same conditions.

During a conversation at a Dean & Deluca coffee shop on West 48th Street in Manhattan on Sunday, Griswold, 53, said that leading the Cleveland museum "is a huge, huge privilege. It's a tremendous opportunity.

"I've always loved that museum and admired its collection, and with the completion of the [Rafael] Vinoly expansion and the reinstallation of the galleries, the opportunities for programming and for community engagement and educational offerings are just enormous, and that's what I'm really excited about pursuing."

Slim and energetic, with a full head of chestnut hair graying at the temples, Griswold projected enthusiasm, warmth and confidence.

His move to Cleveland means that he'll leave a midsized New York institution that specializes in books, manuscripts, prints and drawings to return to leadership of a large, encyclopedic art museum in the Midwest.

Griswold led the Minneapolis Institute of Arts from 2005 to 2007 after holding administrative positions at the J. Paul Getty Museum in Los Angeles from 2001 to 2005.

Griswold served as acting director at the Getty in 2004-05 after the departure of Deborah Gribbon, who left over differences with Barry Munitz, then chief executive of the J. Paul Getty Trust, the museum's parent organization.

Gribbon served as interim director of the Cleveland museum in 2009-10, and has been interim chief curator at the museum since Franklin's resignation.

Griswold said he withdrew his name from a list of candidates to become director of the Getty in 2004-05 after he was recruited to Minneapolis.

He said he wanted to lead what he called a fully independent art museum at which the director reported to a board of trustees, rather than continue under the Getty's multilayered governance structure.

Before joining the Getty, Griswold worked from 1995 to 2001 as a curator and head of the Department of Drawings and Prints at the Morgan, and from 1988 to 1995 as an assistant and then associate curator at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York.

William Griswold spoke on Sunday in New York about his career and his decision to accept the directorship of the Cleveland Museum of Art.

A native of Camp Hill, Pennsylvania, he earned a doctorate in art history at the Courtauld Institute in London before embarking on his museum career.

Raskind described Griswold as an arts leader with a "complete package" of skills, including a deep scholarly background; the ability to raise money; and a proven track record as a manager of large, complex cultural institutions.

Moreover, he said Griswold has demonstrated a high degree of comfort with the civic nature of being a museum director, a post that requires a busy social calendar and frequent speaking engagements.

Griswold lives with his partner of 23 years, Christopher Malstead, a project manager for Wells Fargo.

Griswold said that in Minneapolis, in particular, Malstead "was a full participant in the life of the museum and in our life with the community," and that he expects he will play a similar role in Cleveland.

"He joined the board of just about every grassroots cultural organization in Minneapolis, and he loved it, and I know he looks forward to the same kind of relationship with Cleveland," Griswold said.

Located at 225 Madison Ave. at East 36th Street in Manhattan, the Morgan comprises the home and library of J.P. Morgan, the famous New York banker and Gilded Age symbol of wealth.

Morgan's son, J.P. Morgan Jr., turned the library into a public institution in 1924, in accordance with his father's wishes.

The Morgan Library & Museum exhibited its Gutenberg bibles in 2008.

In 2006, the Morgan completed a light and glassy expansion and renovation designed by Italian architect Renzo Piano that includes a new lobby, a skylighted atrium and cafe, and new exhibition areas.

The Morgan originally focused on its founder's enthusiasms, which did not include modern art. But under Griswold, who sought to expand the institution's range to make it more relevant to younger audiences, the Morgan added new departments in modern and contemporary drawing, and photography.

Griswold also led a highly acclaimed restoration of the Morgan's 1906 McKim Building, the institution's historic heart, which includes a three-level, Renaissance-style reading room.

The 2011 federal tax return for the Morgan, the most recent year available, showed that the institution had $27.9 million in revenues and $23.2 million in expenses. Griswold's total compensation that year was $509,000.

The institution has an endowment worth roughly $190 million, Griswold said.

During the same year, the Cleveland museum had expenses of $37.9 million and revenues of $39.2 million. Franklin earned $416,475 that year. The museum's endowment is worth roughly $750 million.

At the Morgan, Griswold earned high praise for overseeing what Ricciardi called "a drumroll" of outstanding and popular exhibitions that included diverse offerings such as drawings by Leonardo da Vinci and by contemporary artist Matthew Barney.

Griswold also helped raise $50 million for the Morgan's endowment, along with roughly $7.5 million a year to support exhibitions and programs.

Fred Bidwell, a retired advertising executive and a trustee and donor at the Cleveland museum, has been the institution's interim director since Franklin's departure in October.

He'll step down as soon as Griswold arrives, which the incoming director said would be no later than Sept. 15, or sooner if he can manage it.

Raskind and Bidwell said that Griswold's willingness to make a long-term commitment to Cleveland was a big factor in his favor.

The Cleveland museum has endured 15 years in which it has had three directors and four interim regimes – an unusually long period of high turnover among top executives at a major American art museum.

When asked how long he planned to stay in Cleveland, Griswold responded: "You won't believe me when I say this, but I'm staying until I retire or until I get carried out in a box. I don't love jumping around from museum to museum."

Griswold did make a sudden career move in late 2007, when he accepted the job of heading the Morgan after only two years in Minneapolis.

He said he leapt at the chance because he loved the Morgan, having previously served there as a curator.

Now, however, he said he's ready for a new challenge – and he said he wants to return to an institution with a broader focus, like the Minneapolis Institute.

"Cleveland has particular appeal because it is a great civic institution and it has an encyclopedic collection," he said.

He said that while he has loved his years at the Morgan, "I missed, frankly, leading an encyclopedic museum embedded in a community like Cleveland."