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The collection of some 35 Impressionist pictures that graced the walls of Janice H. Levin's Fifth Avenue apartment will be on view at The Metropolitan Museum of Art from November 19, 2002, through February 9, 2003. The intimately scaled exhibition, A Very Private Collection: Janice H. Levin's Impressionist Pictures will include exceptional works by many of the great masters of 19th-century French painting – Bonnard, Degas, Monet, Pissarro, Renoir, and Vuillard, among others.
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A remarkable collection of Japanese calligraphy and painting assembled by two American collectors over the past 40 years is the subject of the special exhibition The Written Image: Japanese Calligraphy and Painting from the Sylvan Barnet and William Burto Collection, opening at The Metropolitan Museum of Art on October 1. Featuring 60 works, the exhibition traces the evolution of Japanese calligraphy from the Nara (710-784) through the Edo (1615-1868) period, including examples of both Chinese script (kanji) and Japanese kana script. These expressive calligraphic masterworks, including Buddhist holy texts, Zen aphorisms, secular poems, and intimate personal letters, embody diverse expressive goals as well as convey something of the writers' cultivation and character. The works from the Barnet and Burto Collection—among which are notable gifts and promised gifts to the Metropolitan Museum—will be complemented by a selection of Japanese paintings and calligraphy from the museum's holdings.
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A major exhibition tracing the evolution of Chinese landscape painting over the last 1,000 years will open at The Metropolitan Museum of Art on September 10. Featuring more than 75 works drawn largely from the Museum's permanent collection, Cultivated Landscapes: Reflections of Nature in Chinese Painting with Selections from the Collection of Marie-Hélène and Guy Weill will explore the manifold uses of natural imagery in Chinese painting as reflections of human beliefs and emotions. Encompassing landscapes and garden scenes dating from the Five Dynasties period (907-960) to the late 20th century, the exhibition will present examples in all pictorial formats: hanging scrolls, handscrolls, album leaves, and fans. A dozen important works by leading masters of the Ming (1368-1644) and Qing (1644-1911) dynasties from the Weill Collection – given or promised to the Museum – will be highlighted in the Frances Young Tang Gallery.
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More than 100 works in pencil, pen and ink, chalk, pastel, and watercolor by some of this country's most renowned early artists will be featured in American Drawings and Watercolors in The Metropolitan Museum of Art: Highlights from the Collection, 1710-1890, opening to the public on September 3, 2002. On view will be examples of portraiture by academic and folk artists, figure drawing, historical and literary narrative, landscape – including several early views of New York City – and scientific illustration. Drawn entirely from the Museum's exceptional holdings of this material, the exhibition celebrates the publication of Volume I of American Drawings and Watercolors in The Metropolitan Museum of Art, which includes works by artists born before 1835.
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For the first time in more than 40 years, 19th–century French artist Paul Gauguin is the subject of a major monographic show in New York City. On view at The Metropolitan Museum of Art from June 18 through October 20, 2002, Gauguin in New York Collections: The Lure of the Exotic features approximately 120 works drawn from museums and private collections in New York City and State, many of which are rarely exhibited publicly. The exhibition also marks the first time that the Metropolitan will display its own extensive holdings of the artist's work, numbering some 60 objects.
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More than 80 works—drawn extensively from 200 prints donated to the Museum in 1999 by Reba and Dave Williams—will be on view at The Metropolitan Museum of Art from January 14 through May 4, 2003. African-American Artists, 1929-1945: Prints, Drawings, and Paintings from The Metropolitan Museum of Art will feature a variety of print media including intaglio, lithography, woodcut and wood engraving, and serigraph (screen printing), as well as a selection of paintings and watercolors. The exhibition focuses on aspects of daily life for African Americans during the latter period of the Harlem Renaissance, the Depression, and World War II.
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The Christmas tree and Neapolitan Baroque crèche at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, a long-established yuletide tradition in New York, will be on view for the holiday season beginning in late November. The brightly lit, 20-foot blue spruce – with a collection of 18th-century Neapolitan angels and cherubs among its boughs and groups of realistic crèche figures flanking the Nativity scene at its base – will once again delight holiday visitors in the Museum's Medieval Sculpture Hall. Set in front of the 18th-century Spanish choir screen from the Cathedral of Valladolid, with recorded Christmas music in the background, the installation reflects the spirit of the holiday season. There will be a spectacular lighting ceremony every Friday and Saturday evening at 7:00 p.m.
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Eighty–four paintings — including landmark works of Impressionism and Post-Impressionism, as well as masterpieces from the Golden Age of Danish painting — all from the Ordrupgaard Collection in Copenhagen, Denmark, are featured in this exhibition at The Metropolitan Museum of Art. On view June 18 through September 8, 2002,
The Age of Impressionism: European Painting from the Ordrupgaard Collection, Copenhagen offers a dazzling survey of this remarkable collection, including works by Cézanne, Corot, Courbet, Degas, Delacroix, Eckersberg, Gauguin, Købke, Manet, Monet, Pissarro, Renoir, and Sisley, among others. Assembled by the Danish insurance magnate Wilhelm Hansen (1868-1936), both the collection and the country house from which it derives its name were bequeathed to the Danish State upon the death of Hansen's wife, Henny, in 1951.
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An exhibition focusing on the extraordinary art of the Eastern Eurasian steppes from the first millennium BC will open at The Metropolitan Museum of Art on October 1. Featuring more than 200 objects, Nomadic Art from the Eastern Eurasian Steppes: The Eugene V. Thaw and Other New York Collections will explore the dynamic art of the nomads who left an indelible impression on the arts of all nomadic societies in Eurasia through subsequent periods and inspired the art of the sedentary cultures that came in contact with them.
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Forty masterworks of photographic portraiture will be on view at The Metropolitan Museum of Art from September 10, 2002, through January 12, 2003. Drawn from the collections of the Metropolitan and the Gilman Paper Company, the installation will accompany the landmark exhibition Richard Avedon: Portraits and will highlight classic images of artists and writers, actors and composers by Nadar, Edward Steichen, and Berenice Abbott, among others.