General Information

Modern Art
Lila Acheson Wallace Wing

Since its founding in 1870 the Metropolitan Museum has been concerned with the art of its own time as well as that of the past. In 1906 and 1911 funds established by George A. Hearn particularly encouraged acquisitions of works by contemporary American painters. During the first decades of the 20th century fewer examples by European artists were acquired, but certain purchases are notable. Among these were Renoir's Mme Georges Charpentier and Her Children (1879) acquired in 1907 and Cézanne's View of the Domain Saint Joseph (1889) acquired from the Armory Show in 1913. Monet died in 1926. In the same year the Museum received its first gift of one of his paintings, and in 1929 the extraordinary bequest of Mrs. H. O. Havemeyer included an additional eight.

A Brief History of the Museum

The Metropolitan Museum of Art was founded in 1870 by a group of American citizens – businessmen and financiers as well as leading arists and thinkers of the day – who wanted to create a museum to bring art and art education to the American people.

Drawings and Prints

In 1880 Cornelius Vanderbilt presented to the Metropolitan Museum 670 drawings by or attributed to European Old Masters. In its early decades, the collection of drawings grew slowly through purchase, gift, and bequest. Among notable acquisitions of this period were major drawings by Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci, and Rembrandt. In 1935, the Museum purchased an album of 50 sheets by Goya, while more than 100 works, mostly by Venetian artists of the 18th century, were acquired from the marquis de Biron in 1937. It was not until 1960 that the Department of Drawings was established as a separate curatorial area of the Museum with Jacob Bean as its first curator. During the next 30 years, the department's holdings nearly doubled in size; the collection is known particularly for its works by Italian and French artists of the 15th through the 19th century.

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