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Philippe de Montebello, Director Emeritus of The Metropolitan Museum of Art, and currently the Fiske Kimball Professor in the History of Culture and Museums, Institute of Fine Arts, New York University, returns to the Museum for his first public appearance there since last fall, to offer "Watteau and Words: A Reading of French Poetry" on Thursday, November 19, 2009, at 6:00 p.m. The event will take place in the Museum's Grace Rainey Rogers Auditorium in conjunction with Watteau, Music, and Theater, an exhibition presented in honor of Mr. de Montebello, who stepped down from his 31-year directorship of the Museum on December 31, 2008.
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The public's first opportunity to visit the landmark exhibition American Stories: Paintings of Everyday Life 1765-1915 at The Metropolitan Museum of Art will be October 12 (Columbus Day), the next "Met Holiday Monday." Met Holiday Mondays are extra public viewing days that take place on the Mondays of major holiday weekends, when historically the Museum has been closed.
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Salman Rushdie's latest novel, The Enchantress of Florence, brings together Florentine Italy and Mughal India, and the cultures that lie between them, in a tale that has been described as a "sumptuous mixture of history and fable." On Tuesday, October 6, 2009, at 6:00 p.m., the Metropolitan Museum of Art Concerts & Lectures series will present a conversation with the author and three art historians – Carmen Bambach, Curator of Drawings and Prints, and Navina Haidar Haykel, Associate Curator of Islamic Art, both of the Museum; and David Roxburgh, Prince Alwaleed Bin Talal Professor of Islamic Art History at Harvard University – to explore major themes and visual imagery in his novel.
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(New York, September 9, 2009)—Thomas P. Campbell, Director of The Metropolitan Museum of Art, announced today that a technical examination and cleaning of one of its paintings, formerly ascribed to the workshop of Velázquez, has revealed an autograph work by the great 17th-century Spanish master himself. Velázquez is among the most admired Old Master painters, and his work rarely enters the market. The rehabilitation of this picture thus represents a major "new" acquisition for the Museum, which possesses the finest collection of works by the master in America.
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(New York, September 8, 2009)—Keith Christiansen, the Jayne Wrightsman Curator of European Paintings at The Metropolitan Museum of Art since 1989 and a member of the Museum's curatorial staff since 1977, has been elected John Pope-Hennessy Chairman of European Paintings, it was announced today by the Metropolitan Museum's Director, Thomas P. Campbell. He will replace Everett Fahy, who retired in June, effective immediately. The election took place at the September 8 meeting of the Board of Trustees.
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(New York, September 8, 2009)—Thomas P. Campbell, Director of The Metropolitan Museum of Art, today announced four major senior staff appointments:
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(New York, September 1, 2009)—Thomas P. Campbell, Director of The Metropolitan Museum of Art, announced today that he has named Carrie Rebora Barratt to the position of Associate Director for Collections and Administration, effective immediately. She was formally elected by the Board of Trustees at their September 8 meeting. Most recently, she has been a Curator in the Metropolitan Museum's Department of American Paintings and Sculpture, and Manager of The Henry R. Luce Center for the Study of American Art.
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(New York, September 8, 2009)—Thomas P. Campbell, Director of The Metropolitan Museum of Art, announced today that Peggy Fogelman will join the Museum as the Frederick P. and Sandra P. Rose Chairman of Education on October 26, 2009. Ms. Fogelman is currently Director of Education and Interpretation at the Peabody Essex Museum in Salem, Massachusetts. She will succeed Kent Lydecker, who retired from the Museum in December. Ms. Fogelman was elected at the September 8 meeting of the Board of Trustees.
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New York, September 8, 2009)—Thomas P. Campbell, Director of The Metropolitan Museum of Art, announced today that Sheila R. Canby will become the Patti Cadby Birch Curator in Charge of the Museum's Department of Islamic Art, effective October 26, 2009. Her election took place at the September 8 meeting of the Board of Trustees.
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(New York, September 8, 2009)—Alejandro Santo Domingo 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. Mr. Santo Domingo's election took place at the September 8 meeting of the Board.
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The Metropolitan Museum of Art will host a group of 51 fellows, which consists of graduate students and scholars from the United States and around the world. The fellows will undertake study and research projects, either at the Museum or abroad, for periods ranging from three months to one year, most of them beginning in September 2009.
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(New York, June 11, 2009)—The Metropolitan Museum of Art announced today that a new gallery dedicated to Safavid and Later Persian Art (1500-1924) has been designated the Sharmin and Bijan Mossavar-Rahmani Gallery. It is one of a suite of exhibition spaces—the Galleries for the Arts of the Arab Lands, Turkey, Iran, Central Asia, and Later South Asia—that are overseen by the Museum's Department of Islamic Art and are scheduled to open in 2011. In addition to funding the gallery naming, Mr. and Mrs. Mossavar-Rahmani's significant grant will fund the publication of a catalogue on the entire collection of the Department of Islamic Art and an endowment to support educational programming on Iranian art – all part of the overall project of $50 million including capital and endowment.
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When The Charles Engelhard Court—the grand, light-filled pavilion that has long served as the formal entrance to The Metropolitan Museum of Art's American Wing—reopens this spring after two years of construction and renovation, the Museum's unparalleled collections of American ceramics, sculpture, stained glass, architectural elements, silver, pewter, glass, and jewelry will finally be seen in all their glory. So, too, will its early American rooms—12 of the Met's historic interiors, mostly from the colonial period, located on three floors of the wing's historic core—that have been reordered, renovated, and reinterpreted. The popular American Wing Café will also reopen in its previous location on the park side of the court. The opening of the galleries marks the completion of the second part (begun in May 2007) of a project to reconfigure, renovate, or upgrade nearly every section of The American Wing by 2011.
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(February 2009)—A special message from Board of Trustees Chairman James R. Houghton regarding the Museum's continued commitment to its mission during the ongoing global fiscal crisis: Message from James R. Houghton (PDF)
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(New York—April 23, 2009) The Metropolitan Museum of Art announced today a new endowment fund and promised gift of artwork in memory of the great American street photographer Helen Levitt, who died on March 29, 2009, at the age of 95. The Helen Levitt Memorial Fund has been established through a generous planned gift of the artist's sister-in-law, Mrs. Robert O. Levitt, and will support the Museum's acquisition of photographs by Helen Levitt and other mid-20th-century American photographers working in her tradition. Mrs. Robert O. Levitt has also made a promised gift to the Metropolitan Museum of 12 of the artist's photographs.
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For tickets, call the Concerts & Lectures Department at 212-570-3949 or visit
www.metmuseum.org/tickets, where updated schedules and programs (including
additional lectures that are free with Museum admission) are available.
Tickets are also available at the Great Hall Box Office, which is open
Tuesday–Thursday 10–5:00, Friday and Saturday 10–7:00, and Sunday noon–5:00.
Student discount tickets are available for some events; call 212-570-3949.
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The Metropolitan Museum of Art continues its popular "Met Holiday Mondays" program by opening the doors of its main building to the public on Presidents' Day, February 16. (The next Met Holiday Monday will be Memorial Day, May 25.) Before the Met Holiday Mondays were initiated in 2003, the Museum was closed to the public every Monday for 30 years.
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(New York, November 24, 2008) – The Metropolitan Museum's presentation of three acclaimed and widely attended exhibitions in the summer 2008 season—J. M. W. Turner, Jeff Koons on the Roof, and Superheroes: Fashion and Fantasy—generated $610 million in spending by regional, national, and foreign tourists to New York, according to a visitor survey released today by the Museum. Using the industry standard for calculating tax revenue impact, the study found that the direct tax benefit to the City and State from out-of-town visitors to the Museum totaled some $61 million.
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(New York—January 13, 2009) The Metropolitan Museum of Art has accepted the promised gift of 250 exceptional examples of American art pottery from the collector Robert A. Ellison Jr., it was announced at a meeting of the Museum's Board of Trustees today. The collection—which spans the years 1876 through 1956 and represents all regions of the nation—ranks among the foremost of its kind, and will be unveiled on the mezzanine level of the Museum's Charles Engelhard Court when the second phase of the newly renovated American Wing opens on May 19, 2009.
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(New York, January 13, 2009)—Bijan Mossavar-Rahmani 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. Mr. Mossavar-Rahmani's election took place at the January 13 meeting of the board.