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  • The Armored Horse in Europe, ca. 1475 to 1625

    Monday, August 2, 2004, 4:00 a.m.

    Forty rare examples of European horse armor – varying in style, construction, and decoration – will go on view at The Metropolitan Museum of Art on December 14, 2004. The exhibition, The Armored Horse in Europe, ca. 1475 to 1625 – drawn exclusively from the Museum's own collection – will cover the peak period of the use of horse armor from around 1500 through its eventual obsolescence in the early 17th century. Established in 1912, the Metropolitan's Department of Arms and Armor houses the most extensive collection of European horse armor in the United States and one of the most comprehensive in the world.

  • China: Dawn of a Golden Age, 200-750 AD

    Monday, August 2, 2004, 4:00 a.m.

    The Metropolitan Museum of Art will present a landmark exhibition of ancient Chinese art – one of the largest ever to be organized with loans from across Mainland China – beginning October 12, 2004. Bringing together more than 300 works of extreme rarity and art historical importance, many of which have never before been exhibited outside China, China: Dawn of a Golden Age, 200-750 AD will tell the story of Chinese art and culture from the Han to the Tang dynasty, a period of major transformation for Chinese civilization due to massive immigrations from northern Asia into China and extensive trade contacts with all parts of Asia. The exhibition will feature objects in an astounding variety of media – including objects in jade, bronze, gold, silver, metal, stone, and wood, as well as textiles, works on paper, and wall paintings – ranging in size from an enormous sculpture of a fantastic animal to a small gold coin.

  • Successful "Holiday Monday" Program Enters Second Year at Metropolitan Museum

    Monday, August 2, 2004, 4:00 a.m.

    (New York, August 3, 2004) -- The Metropolitan Museum of Art announced today that, in response to enthusiastic public support of the "Holiday Mondays" program inaugurated in 2003, it will continue to offer these special viewing days – which take place on the Mondays of major holiday weekends – for a second year. The Metropolitan Museum's main building will be open to the public on the following Monday holidays: September 6 (Labor Day), October 11 (Columbus Day), December 27, 2004 (the Monday between Christmas and New Year's Day), January 17 (Martin Luther King Jr. Day), February 21 (Presidents' Day), and May 30, 2005 (Memorial Day). The Museum had previously been closed to the public on Mondays for some 30 years.

  • The Games in Ancient Athens: A Special Presentation to Celebrate the 2004 Olympics

    Monday, July 26, 2004, 4:00 a.m.

    In honor of the modern Olympics that will take place in Athens this summer, The Metropolitan Museum of Art will display a special selection of ancient Greek vases, bronzes, and additional works showcasing aspects of the games that were held in Athens in antiquity. Opening on June 29, The Games in Ancient Athens: A Special Presentation to Celebrate the 2004 Olympics will feature some 50 works of art created between the sixth and the fourth century B.C. depicting chariot races, foot races, wrestling, and discus throwing, among other athletic activities. This presentation, which is drawn entirely from the Museum's extensive collection of Greek art, will be located within the Mary and Michael Jaharis Gallery, as well as in adjacent areas of the New Greek Galleries, where examples of athletic art already on view will be highlighted.

  • Hidden Jewels: Korean Art from the Mary Griggs Burke Collection

    Monday, July 26, 2004, 4:00 a.m.

    An exhibition of 36 Korean paintings, ceramics, and sculpture from the collection of Mary Griggs Burke will go on view at The Metropolitan Museum of Art beginning July 3. Many of these pieces – which date primarily to the Choson dynasty (1392-1910) – will make their public debut in this exhibition. Mrs. Burke, renowned for her collection of Japanese art, has since the late 1970s also assembled a small but splendid selection of Korean art. This exhibition, Hidden Jewels: Korean Art from the Mary Griggs Burke Collection, provides a rare opportunity to glimpse a lesser-known side of her collection and to learn more about the diversity and beauty of Korean art.

  • SCHEDULE OF EXHIBITIONS MAY–AUGUST 2004

    Monday, July 26, 2004, 4:00 a.m.

    New Exhibitions
    Upcoming Exhibitions
    Continuing Exhibitions
    New and Recently Opened Installations

  • Peter Paul Rubens (1577–1640): The Drawings

    Monday, July 26, 2004, 4:00 a.m.

    The first major retrospective ever to be devoted to the drawings of Peter Paul Rubens in the United States will open at The Metropolitan Museum of Art on January 15, 2005. Peter Paul Rubens (1577–1640): The Drawings will bring together 115 of the versatile Baroque master's finest and most representative drawings, including 12 recently discovered works that have never before been exhibited. Court painter, diplomat, and international celebrity, Rubens was one of the most influential artists of northern Europe in the 17th century. Best known for his paintings, this universal genius is among the most imaginative of draftsmen. His topics vary from engaging biblical scenes to alluring nudes, from animated and stately portraits to poignant animal studies, and from landscapes sketched from nature to complex allegories.

  • The Bishop Jades

    Monday, July 26, 2004, 4:00 a.m.

    An exhibition of some 100 precious Chinese and Mughal jade carvings from the Heber R. Bishop collection will open at The Metropolitan Museum of Art this spring. Featuring the objects from practical vessels and pendants to ornaments intended for the emperor's desk, The Bishop Jades will illustrate the full range of the lapidary's repertoire. An industrialist and entrepreneur, Mr. Bishop was an active patron of the arts and a trustee of the Metropolitan Museum. In the late 19th century, he assembled a collection of more than one thousand pieces of jade and other hardstones from China and elsewhere, and in 1902, he bequeathed the collection to the Museum.

  • George Washington: Man, Myth, Monument

    Monday, July 26, 2004, 4:00 a.m.

    Beginning October 19, more than four dozen works in all media depicting George Washington, the Revolutionary War hero who became the first president of the United States, will be presented at The Metropolitan Museum of Art in George Washington: Man, Myth, Monument—Images from the Metropolitan. The exhibition is drawn entirely from the extensive holdings of the Museum's American Wing and includes paintings, sculpture, drawings, and prints, as well as works in glass, ceramics, silver, textiles, and wood that were created in the late 18th and the 19th century.

  • THE METROPOLITAN MUSEUM OF ART ANNOUNCES 2004-2005 SEASON OF CONCERTS, THE 51ST SEASON

    Friday, July 2, 2004, 4:00 a.m.

    The Metropolitan Museum of Art launches its second half-century of presenting concerts in the 2004-2005 season with a diverse selection of world-renowned artists and young talent, upholding the Concerts & Lectures 50-year tradition.
    "The success of the Museum's 50th anniversary concert season has renewed our dedication to excellence, continuity, and innovation in programming," said the Metropolitan's Director, Philippe de Montebello. "That these qualities are carried forward is evidenced by the dynamic combination of hand-picked artists and programs in our 51st season. The year's pianists, following the 50th anniversary's impressive piano roster, range from a festival of young competition winners to The Art of André Watts, while notable early-music events are complemented by a series devoted to contemporary composer Steve Reich."
    Highlights of the 62 concerts comprising the 2004-2005 season, the 36th programmed by Hilde Limondjian, Concerts & Lectures General Manager since 1969, include two spring festivals – Celebrating Jordi Savall, three concerts in April presenting the viola da gamba artist and early music leader with his three acclaimed ensembles, and A Festival of International Competition Winners, also in April, of six young pianists, first-prize winners of major competitions, many in their U.S. debuts. The U.S. premiere of Steve Reich's 2003 work Dance Patterns highlights The Music of Steve Reich, a three-concert series performed by Steve Reich and Musicians. Continuing an initiative from the 50th anniversary season celebrating the multifaceted artistry of one musician, The Art of André Watts showcases the pianist in a recital, a chamber program, and an illustrated talk. Three major ensembles – Orpheus, New York Collegium, and Chanticleer – offer early-music programs in gallery spaces, and two singers make their Metropolitan Museum debuts at The Temple of Dendur in The Sackler Wing: soprano Olga Borodina and tenor Rolando Villazón, whose performance will also be his U.S. recital debut.
    The Beaux Arts Trio, which celebrates its own 50th anniversary in 2004-2005, will begin a three-year Beethoven project that will present all of the composer's piano trios, sonatas for violin and piano, and sonatas for cello and piano. Complementing this is a series of six concerts, Surrounding Beethoven, of music that anticipated, mirrored, or followed this core repertoire, performed by a diverse roster of artists: Frederic Chiu and Windscape, Jonathan Biss and Miriam Fried, the Juilliard String Quartet with Heinz Holliger, the Prague Symphony Orchestra with Navah Perlman, the Borromeo String Quartet, and the Salzburger Kammerphilharmonie with Kate Dillingham. The chamber music of Dvorák is the anchor for the Guarneri String Quartet's five concerts, which feature eminent guest artists including Peter Serkin, Ida Kavafian, Anton Kuerti, and former member David Soyer. Paula Robison continues her exploration of The Great Vivaldi with two programs. And the artist roster of the season's Musicians from Marlboro series includes Kim Kashkashian and Samuel Rhodes.
    In addition to the Festival of International Competition Winners, two series showcase some of today's finest young talent. The Accolades young artist series features four violinists: Stefan Jackiw, Giora Schmidt, Corey Cerovsek, and Jennifer Koh. Also, in its second season, the newest of the Museum's resident ensembles and the first to bear its name, Metropolitan Museum Artists in Concert, presents three programs of classic repertoire mirroring the new, which will be broadcast live on 96.3 FM WQXR.

  • METROPOLITAN MUSEUM CREATES NEW AND EXPANDED CURATORIAL DEPARTMENT: NINETEENTH-CENTURY, MODERN, AND CONTEMPORARY ART

    Monday, June 14, 2004, 4:00 a.m.

    (NEW YORK, JUNE 15, 2004)—The Metropolitan Museum of Art today announced a major restructuring and redefinition of curatorial responsibilities at the Museum with the creation of a new and expanded department: Nineteenth-Century, Modern, and Contemporary Art, embracing European paintings from 1800 to the present, as well as international 20th-century sculpture, drawings, prints, decorative arts, and design. The integrated and broadened new department will enjoy the mandate—and, within several years, additional new gallery space as well—to bring to the public the full and dynamic story of modern art, in all media, from its beginnings to the present day.

  • Metropolitan Museum Extends Landmark Exhibition Byzantium: Faith and Power (1261-1557) through Holiday Monday, July 5

    Thursday, June 10, 2004, 4:00 a.m.

    (New York-June 4, 2004)—Due to the exceptional public response to The Metropolitan Museum of Art's acclaimed international loan exhibition Byzantium: Faith and Power (1261-1557), the Museum announced today that it will extend the run of the show through Monday, July 5, which is a special "Holiday Monday" viewing day at the Museum. The exhibition was originally scheduled to close on Sunday, July 4.

  • Metropolitan Museum Announces Retirement of President David E. McKinney in January 2005; Trustees Launch Process to Choose Successor

    Thursday, June 10, 2004, 4:00 a.m.

    (New York, June 11, 2004)—The Metropolitan Museum of Art today announced that the Museum's President, David E. McKinney, would retire in January 2005, soon after he reaches the age of 70.

  • All That Glitters Is Not Gold: The Art, Form, and Function of Gilt Bronze in the French Interior

    Tuesday, May 11, 2004, 4:00 a.m.

    Many of the gold objects adorning sumptuous French interiors—from the Palace of Versailles to grand residences in Paris—are generally not made of gold at all but of gilt bronze. Both functional and highly decorative, gilt-bronze mounts and bronzes d'ameublement, such as light fixtures, fireplace fittings, and clocks, played a very important role in the French interior from the late 17th to the early 19th century. Always in keeping with the latest stylistic changes, gilt-bronze pieces were often designed by well-known artists and sculptors, such as Juste-Aurèle Meissonnier and Augustin Pajou, and manufactured by highly specialized craftsmen. A rigid guild system maintained the high standards of craftsmanship and regulated the process of gilt bronze manufacture. The exhibition All That Glitters Is Not Gold: The Art, Form, and Function of Gilt Bronze in the French Interior focuses on the use of gilt bronze in the interior décor, as well as on the designs and techniques involved in the casting, chasing, and gilding of gilt bronze objects. Drawn from the collections of The Metropolitan Museum of Art, the exhibition will include some 80 objects.

  • Metropolitan Museum of Art Unveils Great Modern Gift: The Pierre and Maria-Gaetana Matisse Collection

    Tuesday, May 11, 2004, 4:00 a.m.

    The recent gift of more than 100 works from the Pierre and Maria-Gaetana Matisse Foundation will be celebrated in a major exhibition opening on May 18, 2004. Collected by New York art dealer Pierre Matisse (1900-1989), the younger son of French painter Henri Matisse, the selection includes paintings, sculpture, and drawings by such icons of 20th-century art as Matisse, Balthus, Chagall, Derain, Dubuffet, Giacometti, Magritte, Miró, and Tanguy. The Pierre and Maria-Gaetana Matisse Collection, on view through June 26, 2005, will feature highlights from the Foundation's gifts together with works previously donated by Mr. and Mrs. Matisse.

  • August Sander: People of the Twentieth Century. A Photographic Portrait of Germany

    Tuesday, April 20, 2004, 4:00 a.m.

    Approximately 150 images by the pioneering German photographer August Sander (1876-1964) will be on view at The Metropolitan Museum of Art beginning May 25, 2004. The photographs are drawn from the artist's most famous project, People of the Twentieth Century (Menschen des 20. Jahrhunderts), which was envisioned as a comprehensive visual record of the German populace.

  • Andy Goldsworthy on the Roof

    Tuesday, April 20, 2004, 4:00 a.m.

    British sculptor Andy Goldsworthy (born 1956), known for working in, and with, the natural landscape, has been invited by The Metropolitan Museum of Art to create the sculpture installation for The Iris and B. Gerald Cantor Roof Garden, opening to the public on May 4, 2004. Andy Goldsworthy on the Roof will consist of two monumental, organic domes of wood and stone, inspired by the immediate surroundings of Central Park and its architectural setting. This special project will be exhibited in the 10,000-square-foot open-air space that offers spectacular views across Central Park to the Manhattan skyline. This is one in a series of solo-artist installations presented on the Cantor Roof Garden, and the first to be constructed on site by the artist.

  • American Impressions, 1865-1925: Prints, Drawings, and Watercolors from the Collection

    Wednesday, April 14, 2004, 4:00 a.m.

    More than 50 works on paper by some of the best-known and most highly regarded late 19th-century American artists will be displayed at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, beginning on June 8, in American Impressions, 1865-1925: Prints, Drawings, and Watercolors from the Collection. Among the artists featured will be such luminaries as Winslow Homer, James McNeill Whistler, Mary Cassatt, and Maurice Prendergast. The exhibition was organized to complement and coincide with the Museum's retrospective Childe Hassam, American Impressionist, opening to the public on June 10, and will situate Hassam within a broader context of artists of the same period who treated the same images and used the same media.

  • METROPOLITAN MUSEUM ANNOUNCES SUMMER 2004 WEEKDAY & WEEKEND DROP-IN PROGRAMS FOR CHILDREN AND THEIR FAMILIES

    Wednesday, April 14, 2004, 4:00 a.m.

    The following English- and Spanish-language weekday and weekend programs for children up to age 12 and their adult companions will be offered by The Metropolitan Museum of Art from Tuesday, July 6, through Sunday, August 8, 2004. These drop-in programs are free with Museum admission, and all materials are provided.

  • Christo and Jeanne-Claude: The Gates, Central Park, New York

    Thursday, April 1, 2004, 5:00 a.m.

    The evolution of the widely anticipated outdoor work of art for New York City initiated in 1979 by the husband-and-wife collaborators Christo and Jeanne-Claude will be the subject of the exhibition Christo and Jeanne-Claude: The Gates, Central Park, New York, on view at The Metropolitan Museum of Art from April 6 through July 25, 2004. Fifty-one preparatory drawings and collages by Christo, 64 photographs, and 11 maps and technical diagrams will document the soon-to-be-realized work of art, which when completed will consist of 7,500 saffron-colored gates placed at 12-foot intervals throughout 23 miles of pedestrian walkways lacing Central Park from 59th Street to 110th Street and from Central Park West to Fifth Avenue.

  • Metropolitan Museum Announces Promotions in Department of Photographs

    Sunday, March 28, 2004, 5:00 a.m.

    The Metropolitan Museum of Art announced today that Malcolm Daniel, Acting Curator in Charge of the Department of Photographs for the past seven months, would assume the post of Curator in Charge, effective immediately. The appointment – ratified February 10 by the Executive Committee of the Museum's Board of Trustees – will allow Maria Morris Hambourg, founding curator of the department and its head for the past 12 years, to assume the post of Consulting Curator. In this new role, Ms. Hambourg will continue to work closely with the department on special projects, exhibitions, and acquisitions, free of day-to-day administrative duties.

  • Dazzling Byzantine Treasures Displayed in Major International Exhibition at Metropolitan Museum, Opening March 23

    Thursday, March 11, 2004, 5:00 a.m.

    As the triumphant Byzantine general Michael VIII Palaiologos entered Constantinople on August 15, 1261, carrying aloft the famed icon of the Virgin Hodegetria, the city's eternal protector, he initiated an artistic and intellectual flowering in Byzantium, and among its East Christian rivals, that would endure for nearly 300 years. The restoration of the "Empire of the Romans" – the basileia ton Rhomaion – just 57 years after the fall of Constantinople to the knights of the Fourth Crusade in 1204, encouraged faith-inspired art of astonishing beauty and widespread influence.

  • Public Lecture by His All Holiness Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew, Spiritual Head of Worldwide Orthodox Christian Church, Presented in Conjunction with Upcoming Byzantium Exhibition at Metropolitan Museum

    Thursday, March 11, 2004, 5:00 a.m.

    His All Holiness Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew, spiritual head of the worldwide Orthodox Christian Church, will deliver the lecture "Byzantine Icons: A Legacy for Humanism" at The Metropolitan Museum of Art on Thursday, March 18. Presented in conjunction with the upcoming international loan exhibition Byzantium: Faith and Power (1261-1557), the lecture will take place at 2 p.m. in the Museum's Grace Rainey Rogers Auditorium. Reservations, which are required, may be obtained on a first-come, first-served basis by calling (212) 570-3792. The event is free to the public with Museum admission.

  • METROPOLITAN MUSEUM LAUNCHES '21st-CENTURY MET': INTERIOR CONSTRUCTION PLAN TO RETURN ROMAN AND HELLENISTIC ART TO PUBLIC VIEW IN MAJESTIC NEW SETTING, RENOVATE AND REINSTALL GALLERIES FOR ISLAMIC ART, 19th-CENTURY ART, MODERN ART, AND MODERN PHOTOGRAPHY,

    Monday, February 23, 2004, 5:00 a.m.

    (NEW YORK, FEBRUARY 24, 2004)—The Metropolitan Museum of Art today announced plans to launch—and fund—a series of milestone 21st-Century Met interior construction projects aimed at dramatically enhancing the Museum's displays of Hellenistic and Roman art, Etruscan art, Islamic art, 19th-century art, modern art, and modern photography. Additionally, the major new "building-from-within" program will substantially upgrade the Museum's Ruth and Harold D. Uris Center for Education, the traditional welcoming point of entry for some 125,000 school visitors each year. To finance the projects, the Museum announced a new plan to complete private funding for the construction and rehabilitation work.

  • Major Gift of Diane Arbus Photographs Promised to The Metropolitan Museum of Art

    Thursday, February 19, 2004, 5:00 a.m.

    (New York, February 17, 2004)--An important group of photographs by Diane Arbus, one of the most original and influential photographers of the last half-century, will join the collections of The Metropolitan Museum of Art as the promised gift of collectors Danielle and David Ganek. The 13 rare, vintage prints represent one of the most significant acquisitions of 20th-century photography in the history of the Metropolitan and more than double the Museum's holdings of works by the artist.

  • $345 MILLION ECONOMIC IMPACT ON NEW YORK CITY AND NEW YORK STATE GENERATED BY METROPOLITAN MUSEUM'S SPECIAL EXHIBITION EL GRECO

    Wednesday, February 18, 2004, 5:00 a.m.

    (New York, February 17, 2004) – National, regional, and foreign tourists visiting The Metropolitan Museum of Art's acclaimed fall 2003 exhibition, El Greco, spent a combined $345 million during their visits to New York City, according to a Museum audience survey released today. Using the standard ratios for calculating tax revenue impact, the direct tax benefit to New York City and New York State from visitors who said that seeing the exhibition was important to their decision to visit the City is estimated at $14.5 million.

  • Selected Masterpieces from Metropolitan Museum's Collection of Islamic Art on View During Gallery Renovation

    Tuesday, February 17, 2004, 5:00 a.m.

    A key milestone in the final phase of The Metropolitan Museum of Art's 1993 master plan for construction in the southern part of its main building will be initiated this month, with the temporary closing of the galleries for Islamic art for enlargement, renovation, and restoration beginning June 2. Over the next several years, the 30-year-old galleries will be expanded to include additional display space and updated to reflect the most recent scholarship and museological practices.

  • Poets, Lovers and Heroes in Italian Mythological Prints

    Tuesday, February 3, 2004, 5:00 a.m.

    Printmaking revolutionized artistic production in the 15th century by allowing artists to create numerous impressions from a single matrix and distribute their work to a wider audience then ever before. Italian artists from Mantegna to Canova embraced the medium, focusing their efforts largely on depictions of scenes from Greek and Roman mythology. A new exhibition exploring the Italian passion for mythological prints that started in the Renaissance and lasted into the early decades of the 19th century opens on February 3, 2004, at The Metropolitan Museum of Art. Drawn from the Metropolitan Museum's collections, Poets, Lovers, and Heroes in Italian Mythological Prints showcases more than 100 woodcuts, engravings, and etchings, as well as illustrated books, by such artists as Jacopo de' Barbari, Marcantonio Raimondi, Ugo da Carpi, Agostino and Annibale Carracci, Salvator Rosa, Giovanni Benedetto Castiglione, and Giambattista and Domenico Tiepolo among others.

  • Playing with Fire: European Terracotta Models, 1740-1840

    Tuesday, February 3, 2004, 5:00 a.m.

    Playing with Fire: European Terracotta Models, 1740-1840, the first major museum exhibition devoted to Neoclassical terracotta sculptures, will open at The Metropolitan Museum of Art on January 28, 2004. Unprecedented in scale and range, the exhibition unites approximately 135 works from collections throughout Europe and the U.S. Ranging from quick preliminary sketches to completely finished models, the sculptures demonstrate the dash and erudition of modelers across Europe during the Neoclassical age. The international character of the exhibition reflects the broad scope of this rich tradition and includes works by such great modelers as Antonio Canova, Augustin Pajou, Johann Heinrich Dannecker, Philippe-Laurent Roland, and Johan Tobias Sergel. The exhibition also examines the work of sculptors little known outside their home countries, such as the Russian Mikhail Ivanovich Kozlovsky and the Swiss Valentin Sonnenschein, as well as several anonymous modelers.

  • Once-in-a-Lifetime Viewing Opportunity within Old Kingdom Tombs at New Gateway to Metropolitan Museum's Egyptian Collection

    Tuesday, February 3, 2004, 5:00 a.m.

    The Metropolitan Museum of Art announced today the eagerly awaited reopening of the Old Kingdom tombs of Perneb and Raemkai – which will go on temporary view without the glass panels that will be installed later this spring – for a rare six-week viewing by the public.

  • Echoing Images: Couples in African Sculpture

    Tuesday, February 3, 2004, 5:00 a.m.

    Couples in African art and how that theme has been expressed in 28 cultures across the continent are explored in an exhibition at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, beginning February 10, 2004. Featuring some 60 works in wood, bronze, terracotta, and beadwork that were created between the 12th and the 20th centuries, Echoing Images: Couples in African Sculpture will provide for the first time a dynamic range of artistic commentaries on human duality. The works on exhibition draw primarily from important public and private collections in the New York area, including the American Museum of Natural History, the Brooklyn Museum of Art, and the High Museum in Atlanta.

  • Metropolitan Museum Opens Galleries, Exhibitions for Presidents' Day, February 16

    Tuesday, February 3, 2004, 5:00 a.m.

    (New York, February 4, 2004) - The Metropolitan Museum of Art's recently inaugurated and highly popular "Holiday Mondays" program will continue February 16 with the opening of the Museum's galleries and exhibitions to the public on Presidents' Day.

  • Metropolitan Museum Opens Galleries, Exhibitions for Martin Luther King Jr. Day, January 19

    Monday, January 12, 2004, 5:00 a.m.

    (New York, January 13, 2004) – In the latest of its recently inaugurated and highly popular new series of "Holiday Mondays," The Metropolitan Museum of Art will mark Martin Luther King Jr. Day by opening its galleries and exhibitions to the public on Monday, January 19.

  • American Impressions, 1865-1935: Prints, Drawings, and Watercolors from the Collection

    Sunday, December 7, 2003, 5:00 a.m.

    More than 50 works on paper by some of the best-known and most highly regarded late 19th-century American artists will be displayed at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, beginning on June 8, in American Impressions, 1865-1935: Prints, Drawings, and Watercolors from the Collection. Among the artists featured will be such luminaries as Winslow Homer, James McNeill Whistler, Mary Cassatt, and Maurice Prendergast. The exhibition was organized to complement and coincide with the Museum's retrospective Childe Hassam, American Impressionist, opening to the public on June 10, and will situate Hassam within a broader context of artists of the same period who treated the same images and used the same media.

  • Retrospective Celebrates Pioneer American Impressionist Childe Hassam

    Sunday, December 7, 2003, 5:00 a.m.

    Childe Hassam (1859-1935), a pioneer of American Impressionism and perhaps its most devoted, prolific, and successful practitioner, was born in Dorchester, Massachusetts (now part of Boston), into a family descended from settlers of the Massachusetts Bay Colony. Equally adept at capturing the charms of country retreats and the excitement of modern cities, Hassam became the foremost chronicler of New York City at the turn of the century. In our day, he is best known for his depictions of flag-draped Fifth Avenue during World War I.

  • The Douglas Dillon Legacy Chinese Painting for the Metropolitan Museum

    Sunday, December 7, 2003, 5:00 a.m.

    An exhibition of more than 60 Chinese paintings acquired through the generosity of Douglas Dillon (1909-2003) and The Dillon Fund, as well as gifts presented in his honor or memory will go on view at The Metropolitan Museum of Art beginning March 12, 2004. Featuring masterpieces dating from the eighth to the 18th century, The Douglas Dillon Legacy: Chinese Painting for the Metropolitan Museum will highlight his lasting contribution to the field of Chinese art.

  • The Pierre and Maria-Gaetana Matisse Collection

    Sunday, December 7, 2003, 5:00 a.m.

    The recent gift of more than 100 works from the Pierre and Maria-Gaetana Matisse Foundation—one of the largest donations made to The Metropolitan Museum of Art's Department of Modern Art—will be celebrated in a major exhibition opening on May 18, 2004. Collected by New York art dealer Pierre Matisse (1900-1989), the younger son of French painter Henri Matisse, the selection includes paintings, sculpture, and drawings by such icons of 20th-century art as Matisse, Balthus, Chagall, Derain, Dubuffet, Giacometti, Magritte, Miró, and Tanguy. The Pierre and Maria-Gaetana Matisse Collection, on view through June 26, 2005, will feature highlights from the Foundation's gifts together with works previously donated by Mr. and Mrs. Matisse.

  • Playing with Fire: European Terracotta Models, 1740-1840

    Sunday, December 7, 2003, 5:00 a.m.

    Playing with Fire: European Terracotta Models, 1740-1840, the first major museum exhibition devoted to Neoclassical terracotta sculptures, will open at The Metropolitan Museum of Art on January 28, 2004. Unprecedented in scale and range, the exhibition unites approximately 135 works from collections throughout Europe and the U.S. Ranging from quick preliminary sketches to completely finished models, the sculptures demonstrate the dash and erudition of modelers across Europe during the Neoclassical age. The international character of the exhibition reflects the broad scope of this rich tradition and includes works by such great modelers as Antonio Canova, Augustin Pajou, Johann Heinrich Dannecker, Philippe-Laurent Roland, and Johan Tobias Sergel. The exhibition also examines the work of sculptors little-known outside their home countries, such as the Russian Mikhail Ivanovich Kozlovsky and the Swiss Valentin Sonnenschein, as well as several anonymous modelers.

  • Ruhlmann: Genius of Art Deco/Art Deco Paris

    Sunday, December 7, 2003, 5:00 a.m.

    The highest achievements of French Art Deco, the style that epitomizes the glamour and sophistication of 1920s Paris, will be explored in two related exhibitions, concurrently on view at the The Metropolitan Museum of Art from June 8 through September 5, 2004.

  • SCHEDULE OF EXHIBITIONS JANUARY - APRIL 2004

    Sunday, December 7, 2003, 5:00 a.m.

    EDITORS PLEASE NOTE: Information provided below is subject to change. To confirm scheduling and dates, call the Communications Department at (212) 570-3951.
    CONTACT NUMBER FOR USE IN TEXT IS (212) 535-7710.

  • Chocolate, Coffee, Tea

    Sunday, December 7, 2003, 5:00 a.m.

    The introduction of chocolate, coffee, and tea into 17th-century Europe resulted from the sustained contacts of seagoing nations — primarily Portugal, Spain, England, and Holland — and direct trade with formerly inaccessible parts of the world, such as Mexico, Arabia, and China. A large variety of furniture and utensils was developed to serve the new drinks, first for the great households and quickly thereafter for the popular market. A new exhibition, Chocolate, Coffee, Tea, will show the amazing response in Europe by the luxury trades — silver, porcelain, glass, and pottery — in providing a new range of utensils for these new beverages. Drawn from the collections of The Metropolitan Museum of Art, the exhibition will be on view from February 3 through July 11, 2004.

  • Chuck Close Prints: Process and Collaboration

    Sunday, December 7, 2003, 5:00 a.m.

    The first comprehensive survey of American artist Chuck Close's (b. 1940) groundbreaking innovations in the field of printmaking will be on view at The Metropolitan Museum of Art from January 13 through April 18, 2004. Chuck Close Prints: Process and Collaboration will feature approximately 100 prints, working proofs, and objects. Together they will document the creative and often highly experimental ways in which Close has re-interpreted the signature subject of his paintings and photographs – monumentally scaled images of the human head – into the artistic language of various print mediums.

  • Echoing Images: Couples in African Sculpture

    Sunday, December 7, 2003, 5:00 a.m.

    Couples in African art and how that theme has been expressed in 30 cultures across the continent are explored in an exhibition at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, beginning February 10, 2004. Featuring some 60 works in wood, bronze, terracotta, and beadwork that were created between the 12th and the 20th centuries, Echoing Images: Couples in African Sculpture will provide for the first time a dynamic range of artistic commentaries on human duality. The works on exhibition draw primarily from important public and private collections in the New York area, including the American Museum of Natural History, the Brooklyn Museum of Art, and the High Museum in Atlanta.

  • Painters of Reality: The Legacy of Leonardo and Caravaggio in Lombardy

    Sunday, December 7, 2003, 5:00 a.m.

    A major loan exhibition exploring the rich tradition of naturalism in painting of the North Italian region of Lombardy — most famously expressed in the works of Caravaggio — will open at The Metropolitan Museum of Art on May 27, 2004. Painters of Reality: The Legacy of Leonardo and Caravaggio in Lombardy, will feature some 80 paintings and 40 drawings that document the region's distinctive emphasis on observation of the natural world, beginning in the 15th century, with Leonardo da Vinci's stay in Milan, through the 18th century. A central figure in the exhibition is Caravaggio, through whom this naturalist approach came to Rome and became of key importance to Baroque art there and throughout Europe. On view through August 15, 2004, the exhibition will also feature works by such notable exemplars of the Lombard school as Lorenzo Lotto, Giovanni Girolamo Savoldo, Giacomo Ceruti, and the important women artists Sofonisba Anguissola and Fede Galizia. This will be the first time that this great school of Italian painting will be presented in the U.S.A in such depth.

  • Poets, Lovers and Heroes in Italian Mythological Prints

    Sunday, December 7, 2003, 5:00 a.m.

    Printmaking revolutionized artistic production in the 15th century by allowing artists to create numerous impressions from a single matrix and distribute their work to a wider audience then ever before. Italian artists from Mantegna to Canova embraced the medium, focusing their efforts largely on depictions of scenes from Greek and Roman mythology. A new exhibition exploring the Italian passion for mythological prints that started in the Renaissance and lasted into the early decades of the 19th century opens on February 3, 2004, at The Metropolitan Museum of Art. Drawn from the Metropolitan Museum's collections, Poets, Lovers, and Heroes in Italian Mythological Prints showcases more than 100 woodcuts, engravings, and etchings, as well as illustrated books, by such artists as Jacopo de' Barbari, Marcantonio Raimondi, Ugo da Carpi, Agostino and Annibale Carracci, Salvator Rosa, and Giovanni Benedetto Castiglione, among others.

  • "People of the Twentieth Century": August Sander's Photographic Portrait of Germany

    Sunday, December 7, 2003, 5:00 a.m.

    Approximately 150 images by the pioneering German photographer August Sander (1876-1964) will be on view at The Metropolitan Museum of Art beginning May 25, 2004. The photographs are drawn from the artist's most famous project, People of the Twentieth Century (Menschen des 20 Jahrhunderts), which was envisioned as a comprehensive visual record of the German populace.

  • Christo and Jeanne-Claude: The Gates, Central Park, New York

    Sunday, December 7, 2003, 5:00 a.m.

    The evolution of the widely anticipated outdoor work of art for New York City initiated in 1979 by the husband-and-wife collaborators Christo and Jeanne-Claude will be the subject of the exhibition Christo and Jeanne-Claude: The Gates, Central Park, New York, on view at The Metropolitan Museum of Art from April 6 through July 25, 2004. Fifty preparatory drawings and collages by Christo, 40 photographs, and 10 maps and technical diagrams will document the soon-to-be-realized work of art, which when completed will consist of 7,500 saffron-colored gates placed at 12-foot intervals throughout 23 miles of pedestrian walkways lacing Central Park from 59th Street to 110th Street and from Central Park West to Fifth Avenue.

  • Dazzling Byzantine Treasures Displayed in Major International Exhibition at Metropolitan Museum, Opening March 2004

    Sunday, December 7, 2003, 5:00 a.m.

    As the triumphant Byzantine general Michael VIII Palaiologos entered Constantinople on August 15, 1261, carrying aloft the famed icon of the Virgin Hodegetria, the city's eternal protector, he initiated an artistic and intellectual flowering in Byzantium, and among its East Christian rivals, that would endure for nearly 300 years. The restoration of the "Empire of the Romans" – the basilea ton Rhomaion – just 57 years after the fall of Constantinople to the knights of the Fourth Crusade in 1204, encouraged faith-inspired art of astonishing beauty and widespread influence.

  • Metropolitan Museum's Weekend Programs For Children and Their Families

    Sunday, December 7, 2003, 5:00 a.m.

    The Metropolitan Museum of Art offers a variety of weekend programs for children and families – featuring special greeters, family Audio Guide tours, free printed guides for independent activities within the Museum, and an extensive range of age-specific art programs conducted by Museum instructors.

  • Bravehearts: Men in Skirts

    Wednesday, November 5, 2003, 5:00 a.m.

    Throughout the history of Western dress, women have borrowed elements of men's clothing. And yet the reverse has rarely been the case. Nowhere is this asymmetry more apparent than in the taboo surrounding men in skirts. Bravehearts: Men in Skirts, an exhibition opening at The Metropolitan Museum of Art on November 4, looks at designers and individuals who have appropriated the skirt as a means of injecting novelty into male fashion, as a means of transgressing moral and social codes, and as a means of redefining ideal masculinities. In an unprecedented survey of "men in skirts" in historical and cross-cultural contexts, the exhibition will feature more than 100 items drawn from The Costume Institute's permanent collection, augmented by loans from cultural institutions and fashion houses in Europe and America.