Robert Montgomery Scott, a longtime president of the Philadelphia Museum of Art who was for decades a prominent figure in the city's civic and cultural landscape, died on Thursday [Oct. 13, 2005] in Bryn Mawr, Pa. He was 76 and lived in Villanova, Pa.

The cause was liver failure, his daughter Janny said.

The son of an established Main Line family, Mr. Scott was the museum's president and chief executive from 1982 until his retirement in 1996. Under his stewardship, the museum's endowment increased from $19.3 million to more than $100 million, the museum said yesterday.

Mr. Scott had previously been president of the Academy of Music in Philadelphia.

Robert Montgomery Scott was born on May 22, 1929, in Bryn Mawr. His father, Edgar, was an investment banker and heir to a railroad fortune. His mother, the former Helen Hope Montgomery, was said to be the model for Tracy Lord, Katharine Hepburn's character in "The Philadelphia Story," which opened on Broadway in 1939 and was made into a film the next year.

Robert Scott earned a bachelor's degree from Harvard in 1951 and a law degree from the University of Pennsylvania in 1954. In 1955, he joined the Philadelphia law firm of Montgomery McCracken Walker & Rhoads, later becoming a partner there.

From 1969 to 1973, Mr. Scott was the special assistant to Walter H. Annenberg, the United States ambassador to Britain. Returning to Philadelphia, he became president of the Academy of Music, a post he held until 1980. That year, Mr. Scott became the art museum's president, a nonsalaried position responsible for overseeing the board of directors. In 1982, the board elected him the museum's first full-time president and chief executive.

During Mr. Scott's tenure, annual attendance increased from 400,000 to 950,000. Hours were extended from five days a week to six, as well as one evening. Notable exhibitions included a major show of French paintings from the Barnes Foundation in 1995, and a Cézanne exhibition the next year. The museum's European and medieval galleries were also completely renovated.

Mr. Scott's marriage to the former Gay Elliot ended in divorce. Besides his daughter, a reporter for The New York Times, he is survived by his companion, Margaret Anne Everitt; a brother, Edgar Jr., of Unionville, Pa.; another daughter, Hope Rogers of Manhattan; a son, Elliot, of Yonkers; and seven grandchildren.

Though part of Mr. Scott's mandate at the Philadelphia Museum was to help its collections grow, one of his signal contributions to the city's cultural life was to take something away. In 1982, the museum had paid $12,000 to remove an 800-pound statue of Sylvester Stallone, left on its steps after "Rocky III" was shot there.

Like a great bronze albatross, the statue returned in 1990 for "Rocky V." Mr. Scott, who publicly if diplomatically deplored the sculpture, helped make sure the producers came to collect it immediately after the filming.