The forecast for the Fogg Art Museum is hazy.

A year ago, Harvard’s art museum officials expected that by now they’d have a new art museum under construction. Instead, without a permanent director at their helm, they struggle to manage an ailing building that hasn’t seen major repairs since 1927.

In December, long-time director James Cuno left the Harvard University Art Museums (HUAM). His decision to leave came just weeks before University planners scrapped plans to build a new modern art museum along the Charles River.

Museum officials say they desperately need space for exhibitions, storage and restoration. The vast majority of their collection cannot be displayed because of inadequate space.

Construction efforts are now focused on renovations of the Fogg Art Museum. The dilapidated building needs a climate-controlled environment, new facilities and mechanics to adequately protect its collections.

But acting Director Marjorie B. Cohn says the much-needed renovations can’t begin until a new director is chosen.

A search committee composed of art museum and University officials has whittled the list of candidates to five and expect a decision by mid-summer.

After Cuno’s golden era of financial growth and international prestige, HUAM’s next move is temporarily stalemated.

Crossing the Atlantic

Citing “both professional and personal factors,” Cuno left in January to lead the Courtald Institute of Art at the University of London. Cohn, who is Weyerhaeuser curator of prints and a 42-year veteran of the museums, was named acting director by University Provost Steven E. Hyman. Cohn also served that role during HUAM’s last director transition.

Cuno, a former president of the Association of Art Museum Directors and an internationally regarded scholar and curator, was appointed Cabot director of the museums 11 years ago. During his tenure, the art museums established a center for the study of prints, drawings and photographs and a department of modern art.

Cuno doubled the staff to 220 employees, adding many new fellowships and curators, and increased the annual budget from $10 million to $18 million, according to a museum spokesperson. He presided over the most successful capital campaign in the museums’ history, and brought over 13,000 new works of art into the collection.

“In 10 years time, I would like to see the art museums housed in better and larger facilities to advance their mission,” Cuno wrote in an e-mail. “And I would like to see the art museums even further engaged in and valued as crucial to the institutional life of the University.”

Though now absent from Cambridge, Cuno keeps in close contact with his former colleagues, and in March returned to Harvard to deliver a lecture on the state of art museums in Europe.

Cuno says he enjoys his new job.