Metropolitan Museum of Art Press Kits and Press Releases
The Metropolitan Museum of Art Press Kits and Press Releases collection is a searchable set of all Museum press kits issued from 1995-2015 and all press releases issued from 1940-2009. Press releases from 1998 to the present can be found in the Museum website's Press Room.
Press kits are produced and distributed by the Museum to promote exhibitions, gallery openings and other special events. Special exhibitions include those composed of works by a certain artist, such as Calder Jewelry, works on exhibit from a private collector, such as Fabergé from the Matilda Geddings Gray Foundation collection, and works that are part of the permanent collection such as, Masterpieces of Tibetan & Nepalese Art: Recent Acquisitions. An example of a gallery opening press kit is New galleries for the arts of the Arab lands, Turkey, Iran, Central Asia, and Later South Asia. Press kit materials may include press releases, sponsorship letters, exhibition overviews, artist and curatorial biographies, wall texts, object checklists, and education programs. Original copies are available in the Archives by appointment.
Press releases are official statements of the Museum on a variety of topics, including the opening of exhibitions and galleries, creation of new programs, policy changes, hiring and retirement of staff, and other important activities. Examples of early Met press releases include announcements of the Museum's opening to the public in 1941 of the Intarsia Room from the Palace of Duke Federigo da Montefeltro, the 1944 re-opening of the picture galleries to exhibit paintings stored for protection during the war, and the 1949 return to the Museum of a fourteenth-century panel painting stolen in 1944. Later press releases include the announcement of the 1957 opening of galleries for American paintings and sculpture, the extension of Museum viewing hours for the public during the 1963 exhibition of the Mona Lisa, the 1965 opening of the newly completed Thomas J. Watson Library, the 1969 gift of the Robert Lehman Collection to the Museum, and the Museum's 1971 acquisition of Velázquez’s portrait of Juan de Pareja. A 1972 press release announcing the project to film "From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler," starring Ingrid Bergman—the first ever film to be shot at the Museum—is also part of this collection.
At top: Metropolitan Museum's eleventh annual concert series; programs of musical excellence and variety, 1964.