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Even as the Metropolitan Museum continues working to open on May 8 its long-scheduled, and now providential international loan exhibition "Art of the First Cities," featuring so many masterpieces of art from ancient Iraq, we join the greater museum community in mourning the horrifying plunder of the Baghdad Museum. And we stand prepared to join our fellow institutions to begin restoring the Baghdad Museum at the earliest possible opportunity.
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(New York, March 25, 2003)—In response to the record-breaking attendance at The Metropolitan Museum of Art's special exhibition Leonardo da Vinci, Master Draftsman, the Museum announced today that it will extend its visiting hours on the exhibition's final weekend until 10:00 p.m. on both Saturday, March 29, and Sunday, March 30.
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Three works of art of exceptional importance have been acquired by The Metropolitan Museum of Art, it was announced today by the Museum's Director, Philippe de Montebello. In making the announcement, Mr. de Montebello stressed the high quality of the works, which come from different centuries and cultures, and reinforce the Museum's ongoing commitment to continually refining and augmenting its encyclopedic collections with what he termed "the best of kind." The new acquisitions are: a 14th-century Crucifixion scene in tempera and gold leaf on wood by the Italian master Pietro Lorenzetti; a bust of the mythological figure Marsyas by the late-Baroque sculptor Balthazar Permoser; and a set of three late-14th-century handscrolls from Japan illustrating the Tale of Aki-no-yonaga (Tale for the Long Autumn Night).
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The Metropolitan Museum of Art will participate in International AIDS Awareness Day for the 14th consecutive year by observing Day Without Art on Tuesday, December 3. In recognition of the devastating losses suffered by the cultural community as a result of AIDS, the Metropolitan will remove from view or shroud at least one object in each of its 18 curatorial departments. In addition, the Museum will lower the flags on its plaza to half-mast to symbolize the losses due to AIDS-related deaths in the art community.
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Barrie A. Wigmore has been elected to the Board of Trustees of The Metropolitan Museum of Art, it was announced today by James R. Houghton, the Museum's Chairman. The election took place at the November 12 meeting of the Board.
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(New York, Tuesday, October 8, 2002)-Sometime between closing time (5:30 p.m.) and 9:00 p.m. on Sunday, October 6, a 15th-century Venetian marble Adam by Tullio Lombardo fell with its pedestal in the Vélez Blanco Patio at The Metropolitan Museum of Art.
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Eugene Victor Thaw has been elected an Honorary Trustee of The Metropolitan Museum of Art, it was announced today by James R. Houghton, the Museum's Chairman. The election took place at the September 10 meeting of the Board of Trustees. Mr. Thaw, a dealer of Old Master drawings and prints, has presided over the New York firm that bears his name since 1950. Known also as a collector and a scholar, he has written numerous articles, essays, reviews, and catalogues. He is a contributing editor to The New Republic.
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(New York, September 6, 2002)—The Metropolitan Museum of Art announced today that it will donate all of the admissions revenues it receives at the main building and The Cloisters on Wednesday, September 11, to the Engine 22 and Ladder 13 Family Fund—a charity established by the neighborhood firehouse that lost nine men at the World Trade Center one year ago.
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(NEW YORK, September 6, 2002)—The Metropolitan Museum of Art has announced plans to observe the first anniversary of the attacks on the World Trade Center with the exhibition of a recently restored 9/11 relic, a series of musical performances, poetry readings, and publication of a specially prepared list of curators' choices of works of art that express the myriad of emotions evoked by both the tragedy and the city's recovery.
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Some 60 of the most important examples of armor, weapons, firearms, and martial accoutrements acquired by The Metropolitan Museum of Art in the last decade will be shown this fall. Opening to the public on September 4, Arms and Armor: Notable Acquisitions 1991-2002 will be the inaugural exhibition in the newly named Arthur Ochs Sulzberger Gallery.
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(November 14, 2001) – Daniel Brodsky has been elected a Trustee of The Metropolitan Museum of Art, it was announced today by James R. Houghton, Chairman of the Museum's Board of Trustees. The election took place at the November 13 meeting of the Board.
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An expanded version of The Metropolitan Museum of Art's Timeline of Art History – which can be found on the Museum's Web site (www.metmuseum.org) – is now offered online, as of October 1, 2001. The Timeline of Art History features works of art from the Metropolitan's encyclopedic collections, presenting them in a chronological and geographical format that gives browsers and scholars alike instant access to the art created at any given time in different cultures across the globe. The premiere segment of the Timeline, which was launched in October 2000, featured art of the ancient world, including works dating from 20,000 B.C. through 500 A.D. The newly expanded version – the result of extensive research and writing by a team of curators, editors, and scholars over the past year – carries the Timeline forward to 1400 A.D.
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Lulu C. Wang has been elected to the Board of Trustees of The Metropolitan Museum of Art, it was announced today by James R. Houghton, the Museum's Chairman. Mrs. Wang's election took place at the October 9 meeting of the Board.
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(New York, October 9, 2001)—Erving Wolf, a longtime supporter of The American Wing at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, has been elected an Honorary Trustee, it was announced last night by the Museum's Chairman, James R. Houghton. Mr. Wolf's election took place at today's meeting of the Board.
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(New York, September 13, 2001)—A landmark grant of $20 million has been awarded to The Metropolitan Museum of Art by The Annenberg Foundation for the acquisition of works of art in the areas of European paintings, drawings and prints, and European sculpture and decorative arts.
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A private collection studded with 20th-century masterpieces by Matisse, Picasso, Braque, Balthus, Modigliani, and more than two dozen other artists, and bequeathed to The Metropolitan Museum of Art in 1998, goes on display at the Metropolitan with the inauguration of the Jacques and Natasha Gelman Galleries on June 1. The collection – which was first shown publicly in 1989 at the Metropolitan – was amassed over a period of more than 40 years by the Gelmans. The initial selection of 47 paintings and 3 bronzes by artists of the School of Paris will include such icons as Matisse's The Young Sailor (1906), a 1906 self-portrait of Picasso that once hung in Gertrude Stein's home, Braque's The Billiard Table (1944 and 1952), Bonnard's The Dining Room at Vernonnet (1916), Vlaminck's 1906 portrait of André Derain, Dalí's Accommodations of Desire (1929), Balthus's Thérèse Dreaming (1938), and a cluster of Mirós including The Potato (1928).
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The exhibition catalogue for Art and the Empire City: New York, 1825-1861 has been chosen as one of the prestigious Books to Remember for 2000—the first time the catalogue for an art exhibition has been so honored. Each year, 25 books receive the award by the New York Public Library.
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(NEW YORK, May 31, 2001)—The Metropolitan Museum of Art today announced the appointment of Philip T. Venturino as Vice President for Facilities Management. Mr. Venturino was formally elected by the Board of Trustees at its May 8 meeting. He will assume his new post in mid-July.
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(New York, May 31, 2001)--The Metropolitan Museum of Art today announced a series of organizational changes for its Communications Department, designed to reflect and encourage the department's broadened responsibilities in the area of museum-wide marketing. The changes take effect immediately.
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COMMISSIONS AND PREMIERES
INTERPRETING EXHIBITIONS
CONCERT SERIES
CONCERTS AND RECITALS
CHRISTMAS CONCERTS
MUSIC LECTURES
The Metropolitan Museum of Art announces its 2001-2002 season of Concerts & Lectures music events, consisting of 51 concerts and 12 music-related lectures.
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In celebration of the exhibition William Blake, The Metropolitan Museum of Art's Concerts & Lectures series will present three programs in June featuring, respectively, the distinguished poets Stanley Kunitz, Galway Kinnell, and Nancy Willard; poet, songwriter, and rock singer Patti Smith accompanied by guitarist Oliver Ray; and New York University professor of fine arts Robert Rosenblum.
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This May, two new visitor amenities—an Audio Guide and a café—are being introduced for the first time at The Cloisters, the branch of The Metropolitan Museum of Art located in northern Manhattan and dedicated to the art and architecture of the Middle Ages.
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On Monday, May 7, at 8:00 p.m., the Concerts & Lectures program of The Metropolitan Museum of Art will present Aida: The Making of a Musical – a behind-the-scenes discussion about the Museum's Egyptian art collection and the inspiration for Elton John and Tim Rice's Tony® Award winning musical Aida. The discussion will be followed by a concert of songs led by the show's stars, Tony® Award winner Heather Headley, Adam Pascal, and Taylor Dayne.
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(New York, April 9, 2001)—The Metropolitan Museum of Art announced today, at a Museum luncheon for the Northeast Chapter of the Society of American Travel Writers, that the newly built Sea Cloud II, flagship of the Metropolitan's educational travel program, sails with a full compliment of Met friends on its inaugural cruise from Lisbon to Dartmouth, May 17 to 31, 2001.
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The Web site of The Metropolitan Museum of Art — www.metmuseum.org — now offers unprecedented access to six of the Museum's historic American period rooms, through state-of-the-art Virtual Reality technology that allows online visitors to "tour" the rooms through all-inclusive, three dimensional views. The six rooms — which are on permanent view in the Metropolitan Museum's American Wing, installed with some of the finest American decorative art objects in the collection — date from the 17th to the 20th century, from the living hall of a pre-1674 home from Ipswich, Massachusetts, to a Frank Lloyd Wright living room from Wayzata, Minnesota (1912–14). The online presentation of the rooms offers views of the rooms as well as extensive historical and contextual information about the architecture, furniture and decorative objects, and interior decoration of each, provided by The American Wing's curatorial staff.
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Four of the world's foremost educational and cultural leaders will discuss the impact and implications of the technological advances of our time in a roundtable discussion — Culture and Technology: Present and Future — to take place in The Metropolitan Museum of Art's Grace Rainey Rogers Auditorium on Monday, April 30, at 6:00 p.m.
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(New York, February 13, 2001)—Ashton Hawkins, who served The Metropolitan Museum of Art for 19 years as Secretary and Counsel, and then for 13 years more as Executive Vice President and Counsel to the Trustees, will retire from the
Museum at the end of this month after a career in which he was a pioneer in the field of art law.
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(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.
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(New York, January 9, 2001) — Morrison H. Heckscher, who has served for more than 30 years in key curatorial positions in The American Wing of The Metropolitan Museum of Art, was today named Lawrence A. Fleischman Chairman of The American Wing, it was announced by Philippe de Montebello, Director of the Metropolitan.
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(December 12, 2000)—John K. Howat, the longtime Lawrence A. Fleischman Chairman of the Departments of American Art at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, has announced his plans to retire from the Museum effective March 1, it was reported today by Philippe de Montebello, Director of the Metropolitan.
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Leon D. Black has been elected to the Board of Trustees of The Metropolitan Museum of Art, it was announced today by the Museum's Chairman, James R. Houghton. Mr. Black's election took place at the November 14 meeting of the Board.
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(New York, June 14, 2000) — Harold Koda, who served for four years during the 1990s as Associate Curator of The Costume Institute of The Metropolitan Museum of Art, will rejoin the Museum as Curator-in-Charge of the Costume Institute effective November 6, it was announced today by Philippe de Montebello, Director of the Metropolitan.
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(New York, June 14, 2000) — James C. Y. Watt, the longtime Brooke Russell Astor Senior Curator at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, and one of the world's most respected authorities on Chinese art, has been named Brooke Russell Astor Chairman of the Museum's Department of Asian Art, effective July 1.
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(New York, NY, June 5, 2001)— The Metropolitan Museum of Art Store – renowned for its gifts and reproductions – debuted in Las Vegas June 4 in a new location at Desert Passage at the Aladdin Resort & Casino.
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(May 30, 2000) — Yungman F. Lee, President and Chief Executive Officer of the United Orient Bank, has been elected a Trustee of The Metropolitan Museum of Art. His election took place at the May 9 meeting of the Board of Trustees. Mr. Lee will serve as the Queens borough representative on the Museum's Board.
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(New York City, April 14, 2000)-The Metropolitan Museum of Art and Fleet today announced an innovative "student pass" program that will provide free admission to the Metropolitan for schoolchildren and their families from all five boroughs of New York City this fall. Expected to reach the 1.5 million kindergarten through high-school students in public, private, and parochial schools, this is the broadest school pass program yet undertaken by the Metropolitan Museum. This outreach program will coincide with the Museum's presentation of Art and the Empire City: New York, 1825-1861 - a landmark exhibition of the visual arts in America between the opening of the Erie Canal and the start of the Civil War - that will be on view from September 19, 2000, through January 7, 2001. The announcement was made at a news conference today at which the Museum unveiled plans for the exhibition.
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(New York, May 9, 2000) — Sir Joseph Hotung has been elected a Trustee of The Metropolitan Museum of Art, it was announced today by James R. Houghton, the Museum's Chairman, following the May meeting of the Board of Trustees.
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Two special exhibitions celebrate the reopening:
The Forgotten Friezes from the Castle of Vélez Blanco
Sculpture and Decorative Arts of the Spanish Renaissance
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Mr. Chairman, I am grateful to the Presidential Commission for the invitation to testify this morning. I appreciate this opportunity to update you, and through you, the public, on the efforts that The Metropolitan Museum has undertaken to re-examine its collections in order to ascertain whether any of its works were unlawfully confiscated by the Nazis and never restituted.
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(April 7, 2000) — The Metropolitan Museum of Art announced today the retirement of Wen C. Fong, its first and longtime Consultative Chairman of the Department of Asian Art, and the Museum's Douglas Dillon Curator of Chinese Painting and Calligraphy. Dr. Fong's retirement will take effect at the close of the Museum's fiscal year on June 30.
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(April 5, 2000) — Sandra Priest Rose has been elected an Honorary Trustee of The Metropolitan Museum of Art, it was announced this week by Museum Chairman James R. Houghton. Mrs. Rose's election took place at the March 14 meeting of the Board of Trustees.
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(New York, March 14, 2000) — Last Friday, in a news story reported by the Associated Press and subsequently printed in the New York Times (March 12), the executive director of the World Jewish Congress, Elan Steinberg, suggested — apparently relying on a brief provenance listing in an 18-year-old-catalogue published by The Metropolitan Museum of Art — that a painting in the Museum's collection "may have been stolen from Jews" during the Nazi-World War II era: Portrait of a Man, a 1597 work by Peter Paul Rubens.
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The Metropolitan Museum of Art will participate in World AIDS Day for the 11th consecutive year by observing "A Day Without Art" on Wednesday, December 1, 1999. This year's theme is AIDS — End the Silence. Listen, Learn, Live! and is designed to open communication about HIV/AIDS, especially among those under age 25. It also aims to increase awareness of prevention strategies, encourage caring attitudes toward people with AIDS, and help dispel the stigma of HIV/AIDS.
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THE CESNOLA COLLECTION
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In a significant effort to enrich teachers' skills and to develop classroom resources, The Metropolitan Museum of Art has published 20th-Century Art: A Resource for Educators. The large boxed set of comprehensive written, visual, and high-tech materials provides essential tools for educators, featuring a 173-page publication — fully illustrated in color — with essays, strategies for classroom lessons, and background information that includes artists' writings and extensive bibliographic material. Also included in the packet are a set of forty slides, a full-sized, three-part poster set, a video, and a CD-ROM version of the book.
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(June 30,1999) — The Metropolitan Museum of Art today announced a number of senior administrative promotions, all to become effective with the start of its new fiscal year on July 1.
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(June 30, 1999)—Philippe de Montebello, Director of The Metropolitan Museum of Art, announced today four promotions and two new appointments to the Museum's curatorial staff, all effective July 1 with the start of the next fiscal year.
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Of the many damages suffered by the Basilica of San Francesco in Assisi in the disastrous earthquake of September 26, 1997, certainly the most devastating was the collapse of two sections of the vaulting in the Upper Church, decorated with frescoes by the two greatest Italian artists of their day, Cimabue (1240-1302) and Giotto (1267-1337). In an instant, more than 2000 square feet of fresco from the dawn of Italian painting were transformed into colored dust and more than 50,000 fragments.
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A new membership group designed specifically for individuals ages 21-39 has been formed by The Metropolitan Museum of Art. The Apollo Circle, Young Friends of The Metropolitan Museum of Art, a successor to the Museum's Junior Committee, will offer its members a variety of education and social activities and exclusive insights into the Museum's collections. Named after the Greek god of youth, the arts, culture, and music, the group is chaired by Nicholas A. Polsky, Eve Yohalem, and Jill Swid.