MetPublications

The Walter H. and Leonore Annenberg Collection of Impressionist and Post-Impressionist paintings, watercolors, and drawings constitutes one of the most remarkable gifts ever made to The Metropolitan Museum of Art. A centerpiece of the Museum's world-renowned holdings of nineteenth- and early twentieth-century art, the Annenberg Collection reflects the discriminating taste, generosity, and inspired foresight of two exceptional benefactors. This revised and expanded edition of the original catalogue, published two decades ago, presents more than fifty masterworks by eighteen of the greatest artists of the period. Notable for the astonishing quality of its individual works and for its range, the collection celebrates the many facets of avant-garde art as it unfolded in paintings ranging from Corot's fresh-faced young girl of the early 1860s to Picasso's world-weary harlequin of 1905. The landscape of France is seen in alluring variety: sunlit garden scenes by the Impressionists and iconic vistas of Provence by Van Gogh and Cézanne join seaside views by Seurat and Braque in which Pointillist calculation gives way to riotous Fauve color. The scope of the artists' devotion to still life and flower painting embraces the exquisite harmonics of Fantin-Latour's fine-tuned bouquets as well as the bold grandeur of Monet's late water lilies. Other signature subjects are handsomely represented by works that showcase Degas's dancers and milliners, Renoir's rosy nudes, Gauguin's Tahitians, Lautrec's streetwalkers, Matisse's odalisques, and Vuillard's domestic interiors. Among the numerous highlights are such benchmark pictures as Cézanne's early portrait or his Uncle Dominique. Renoir's Daughters of Catulle Mendes, Monet's Camille Monet on a Garden Bench, Van Gogh's La Berceuse, and Picasso's At the Lapin Agile. This richly illustrated and fully documented volume includes in-depth discussions of each of the works of art, written by leading experts in the field. Their insightful texts, benefiting from the latest scholarly and technical findings, are accompanied by newly updated provenance information, exhibition histories, and references. A comprehensive bibliography and index are provided at the back of the book.

Part of a collection formed over the past five decades by Mr. and Mrs. Charles Wrightsman, the 124 paintings, drawings, and pastels in this catalogue range in date from the early sixteenth to the late nineteenth century; some remain in Mrs. Wrightsman's personal collection, while others have been given to or purchased for the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Among the most notable of these works are masterpieces by Lorenzo Lotto, Guercino, El Greco, Rubens, Georges de la Tour, Van Dyck, Vermeer, Jacques-Louis David, and Caspar David Friedrich, as well as numerous paintings by the eighteenth-century Venetian artists Canaletto, Guardi, and the Tiepolos, father and son, plus a dozen remarkable portrait drawings by Ingres, the largest holding of the artist's drawings currently in private hands. Well-known artists are joined by those who are brought to fresh awareness through the commentary that accompanies each work. About half of the pictures in the catalogue were acquired after the Wrightsman collection was first published in 1973. As a testament to the continuing passion and discernment of Mrs. Wrightsman, this volume celebrates the generosity of a great benefactor.

This groundbreaking book explores the evolving concept of unfinishedness as essential to understanding art movements from the Renaissance to the present day. Unfinished features more than 200 works, created in a variety of media, by artists ranging from Leonardo, Titian, Rembrandt, Turner, and Cézanne to Picasso, Warhol, Twombly, Freud, Richter, and Nauman. What unites these works, across centuries and media, is that each one displays some aspect of being unfinished. Essays and case studies by major contemporary scholars address this key concept from the perspective of both the creator and the viewer, probing the impact that this long artistic trajectory—which can be traced back to the first century—has had on modern and contemporary art. The book investigates the degrees to which instances of incompleteness were accidental or intentional experimental or conceptual. Also included are illuminating interviews with contemporary artists, including Tuymans, Celmins, and Marden, and parallel considerations of the unfinished in literature and film. The result is a multidisciplinary approach and thought-provoking analysis that provide valuable insight into the making, meaning, and critical reception of the unfinished in art.

This volume presents for the first time a comprehensive catalogue of the works by Pablo Picasso (1881–1973) in The Metropolitan Museum of Art. Comprising thirty-four paintings, fifty-eight drawings, a dozen sculptures and ceramic plaques, and almost four hundred prints, the Museum's collection reflects the full breadth of the artist's multisided genius as it asserted itself over the course of his long and influential career. In his introduction, Gary Tinterow describes how the Metropolitan came to possess the particular works by Picasso in its collection, beginning with the arrival of Gertrude Stein's iconic portrait in 1947, the first work by Picasso to enter the Museum. Subsequent additions from the holdings of Alfred Stieglitz, Scofield Thayer, Florene M. Schoenborn, Klaus and Dolly Perls, and Jacques and Natasha Gelman, among many others, helped establish the Metropolitan as one of the worlds most important repositories of Picasso's art. In meticulously researched catalogue entries, the authors place the Metropolitan's Picassos in art historical context and discuss the significance of each work within the artist's constantly evolving oeuvre, from the early Blue and Rose Period masterpieces and revolutionary innovations of Cubism to the elegant neoclassicism of the 1920s and the joyous invention of the late work. Technical notes from Museum conservators describe the results of analyses and treatments that have revealed early states as well as previously lost compositions under the surfaces of many of the paintings. In addition, extensive provenances, exhibition histories, and references expand our understanding of the diffusion of Picasso's work in Europe and America, and its impact on criticism and art history in the twentieth century. Picasso's vast body of graphic work, which ranks in creativity alongside that of Dürer, Rembrandt, and Goya, is examined in an essay by Samantha Rippner and accompanied by checklists of the Museum's prints and ceramic plaques. In all, this important and richly illustrated publication is a fascinating look at one of the most protean artists of the recent past, proof that even an artist as well known as Picasso still has much to reveal.

Every two years the fall issue of the Met's quarterly Bulletin celebrates notable recent acquisitions and gifts to the collection. Highlights of Recent Acquisitions 2012–2014 includes the promised gifts of the Leonard A. Lauder Cubist Collection; the lavishly illustrated manuscript known as the Mishneh Torah, by celebrated medieval philosopher Moses Maimonides; paintings by turn-of-the-century Symbolists Ferdinand Hodler and Vilhelm Hammershøi; a superb viola by Jacob Stainer, whose instruments were favored by the Bach and Mozart families; and a magnificent Roman porphyry vessel that is one of the finest to survive from Classical antiquity. This publication also honors the many generous contributions from donors that make possible the continued growth of the Met's collection.