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(NEW YORK, FEBRUARY 24, 2004)—The Metropolitan Museum of Art today announced plans to launch—and fund—a series of milestone 21st-Century Met interior construction projects aimed at dramatically enhancing the Museum's displays of Hellenistic and Roman art, Etruscan art, Islamic art, 19th-century art, modern art, and modern photography. Additionally, the major new "building-from-within" program will substantially upgrade the Museum's Ruth and Harold D. Uris Center for Education, the traditional welcoming point of entry for some 125,000 school visitors each year. To finance the projects, the Museum announced a new plan to complete private funding for the construction and rehabilitation work.
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(New York, February 17, 2004)--An important group of photographs by Diane Arbus, one of the most original and influential photographers of the last half-century, will join the collections of The Metropolitan Museum of Art as the promised gift of collectors Danielle and David Ganek. The 13 rare, vintage prints represent one of the most significant acquisitions of 20th-century photography in the history of the Metropolitan and more than double the Museum's holdings of works by the artist.
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(New York, February 17, 2004) – National, regional, and foreign tourists visiting The Metropolitan Museum of Art's acclaimed fall 2003 exhibition, El Greco, spent a combined $345 million during their visits to New York City, according to a Museum audience survey released today. Using the standard ratios for calculating tax revenue impact, the direct tax benefit to New York City and New York State from visitors who said that seeing the exhibition was important to their decision to visit the City is estimated at $14.5 million.
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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 13, 2004) – In the latest of its recently inaugurated and highly popular new series of "Holiday Mondays," The Metropolitan Museum of Art will mark Martin Luther King Jr. Day by opening its galleries and exhibitions to the public on Monday, January 19.
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The Metropolitan Museum of Art offers a variety of weekend programs for children and families – featuring special greeters, family Audio Guide tours, free printed guides for independent activities within the Museum, and an extensive range of age-specific art programs conducted by Museum instructors.
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The following programs for children up to age 12 and their adult companions will be offered by The Metropolitan Museum of Art during November and December 2003. These drop-in programs are free with Museum admission, and all materials are provided.
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The reconstructed 12th-century cloister from the French monastery of St.-Guilhem-le-Désert will return to view this fall – under a new skylight that will protect its fragile limestone carvings from the elements – at The Cloisters, The Metropolitan Museum of Art's branch museum for medieval art in northern Manhattan. The enclosed courtyard gallery from St.-Guilhem will reopen to the public on October 7 after nearly two years of construction, cleaning, and reinstallation. Also returning to view in this space will be the Museum's collection of Italian Romanesque architectural sculpture.
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(New York, September 9, 2003) – Tourists visiting The Metropolitan Museum of Art's acclaimed Spring 2003 exhibition, Manet/Velázquez: The French Taste for Spanish Painting, spent a combined $368 million during their visits to New York City, according to a Museum audience survey released today.
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(New York, September 10, 2003) -- Philippe de Montebello, Director of The Metropolitan Museum of Art, announced today that, for the first time in three decades, the Museum will open its doors to the public this fall, winter, and spring on major Monday holidays: October 13 (Columbus Day), December 29 (the Monday between Christmas and New Year's Day), January 19 (Martin Luther King Jr. Day), February 16 (Presidents' Day), and May 31 (Memorial Day). The Museum has been closed to the public on Mondays for some 30 years.
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(New York, June 18, 2003) – National, regional, and foreign tourists spent a combined $220 million in New York City during their visits to see The Metropolitan Museum of Art's acclaimed winter exhibition Leonardo da Vinci, Master Draftsman, according to a Museum audience survey released today. The visitor spending generated an estimated $12 million in direct tax revenues for the City and State.
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New York, June 4, 2003 – A spacious, attractively informal new public cafeteria for visitors to The Metropolitan Museum of Art will open on Tuesday, June 17. Located at the very center of the Museum, on the ground floor beneath the Medieval Sculpture Hall, this handsome cafeteria—which comfortably seats 440—replaces the long-time first-floor restaurant adjacent to the Mary and Michael Jaharis Gallery for Greek and Roman art. At the same time, the existing Petrie Court Café—located along the glass wall facing west into Central Park from the Carroll and Milton Petrie European Sculpture Court—will reopen concurrently as a full-service restaurant for Museum visitors, featuring café cuisine accompanied by breathtaking views of the park.
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(New York, June 2, 2003)—Due to the exceptionally strong public response to The Metropolitan Museum of Art's acclaimed international loan exhibition Manet/Velázquez: The French Taste for Spanish Painting, the Museum announced today that it will extend the run of the show through June 29. It was originally scheduled to close on June 8.
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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.