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SIR JOSEPH HOTUNG BECOMES TRUSTEE OF THE METROPOLITAN MUSEUM OF ART
Monday, May 8, 2000, 4:00 a.m.
(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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FIREWORKS! FOUR CENTURIES OF PYROTECHNICS IN PRINTS AND DRAWINGS
Sunday, May 7, 2000, 4:00 a.m.
In celebration of the new millennium, The Metropolitan Museum of Art will present Fireworks! Four Centuries of Pyrotechnics in Prints and Drawings, on view June 6 through September 17, 2000. Drawn primarily from the Museum's collection, the exhibition will feature more than 100 prints and drawings depicting fireworks displays from the 16th to the early 20th century. Artists represented will include Antonio Tempesta, Jacques Callot, Claude Lorrain, Jean-Michel Moreau le Jeune, Jean-Louis Desprez, Francesco Piranesi, Winslow Homer, Edgar Degas, and the lithographers Currier and Ives, among others.
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OTHER PICTURES: VERNACULAR PHOTOGRAPHS FROM THE THOMAS WALTHER COLLECTION
Saturday, May 6, 2000, 4:00 a.m.
Photographs by anonymous amateurs whose "happy accidents" and "successful failures" resulted in surprising and tantalizing works of art are the subject of Other Pictures: Vernacular Photographs from the Thomas Walther Collection, opening at The Metropolitan Museum of Art on June 6, 2000. Dating from the 1910s through the 1960s — a period that saw the camera's emergence as a nearly ubiquitous and easy-to-use accessory of modern life — these photographs reflect the spirit of their time in refreshingly honest and often unexpected ways. Although never intended for public display — most of the approximately 90 photographs on view were discovered at flea markets, in shoeboxes, or in family albums — these found images often bring to mind the work of such master photographers as Walker Evans, Man Ray, Henri Cartier-Bresson, and Diane Arbus.
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ANNENBERG COLLECTION OF IMPRESSIONIST AND POST-IMPRESSIONIST MASTERWORKS
Thursday, April 27, 2000, 4:00 a.m.
Fifty-three paintings, watercolors, and drawings by 18 of the greatest artists who worked in France in the 19th and early 20th century comprise the Annenberg collection, which will return to The Metropolitan Museum of Art for six months beginning June 6, 2000. This annual event, now in its sixth year, provides an exceptional opportunity for visitors to experience this renowned private collection. The works are shown in the Museum's Nineteenth-Century European Paintings and Sculpture Galleries, hung together in three central rooms, surrounded by the Met's own collection of 19th-century European paintings.
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AFTER NICOLAS POUSSIN: NEW ETCHINGS BY LEON KOSSOFF
Wednesday, April 26, 2000, 4:00 a.m.
A series of 14 recent etchings by London painter Leon Kossoff (b. 1926) will be on view at The Metropolitan Museum of Art beginning March 28. Based on paintings by the 17th-century French artist Nicolas Poussin (1594-1665), the etchings are the result of a period of intense, first-hand study of the Baroque master's canvases during the 1995 Poussin exhibition at London's Royal Academy. After Nicolas Poussin: New Etchings by Leon Kossoff, which will be installed in the North Mezzanine Gallery of the Museum's Lila Acheson Wallace Wing, runs through August 13.
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CHARDIN
Tuesday, April 25, 2000, 4:00 a.m.
In celebration of the 300th anniversary of the birth of the 18th-century French artist Jean-Siméon Chardin (1699-1779), The Metropolitan Museum of Art will present a major loan exhibition of 66 works that will survey the artist's distinguished career as a still-life and genre painter. On view from June 27 through September 3, 2000, Chardin will be the first exhibition in New York devoted to the artist and the first in the United States in more than 20 years.
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VÉLEZ BLANCO PATIO REOPENS MAY 12 AT METROPOLITAN MUSEUM AFTER THREE-YEAR RENOVATION
Wednesday, April 12, 2000, 4:00 a.m.
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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STATEMENT BY PHILIPPE DE MONTEBELLO, DIRECTOR, THE METROPOLITAN MUSEUM OF ART, AT A HEARING OF THE PRESIDENTIAL ADVISORY COMMISSION ON HOLOCAUST ASSETS IN THE UNITED STATES, WEDNESDAY, APRIL 12, 2000, THE ASSOCIATION OF THE BAR OF THE CITY OF NEW YORK
Tuesday, April 11, 2000, 4:00 a.m.
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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A CENTURY OF DESIGN, PART II: 1925-1950
Monday, April 10, 2000, 4:00 a.m.
A Century of Design, Part II: 1925-1950 — the second in a four-part series of exhibitions at The Metropolitan Museum of Art surveying design in the 20th century — will display more than 50 objects from the Museum's collection to demonstrate the dynamic rise of Modernism and its influence on public perception of everyday objects, such as furniture, housewares, and decorative objects. On view in the Museum's Gallery for Modern Design and Architecture from May 9 through October 29, 2000, the exhibition will follow the advancement of design in Europe during the second quarter of the 20th century — from Art Deco through the influences of the Bauhaus school, Functionalism, Russian Constructivism, and organic Scandinavian design.
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AMERICAN MODERN, 1925 — 1940: DESIGN FOR A NEW AGE
Monday, April 10, 2000, 4:00 a.m.
American Modern, 1925 — 1940: Design for a New Age, an exhibition tracing the rise of a distinctively American modern design aesthetic through the efforts of approximately 50 of its creative pioneers, will be on view at The Metropolitan Museum of Art from May 16, 2000 through January 7, 2001. Drawn exclusively from the Museum's collection and from the John C. Waddell Collection, a major promised gift to the Metropolitan, this landmark exhibition features more than 150 objects — including furniture, clocks, appliances, posters, textiles, radios, tableware, and even a bathroom sink — by such leading designers as Norman Bel Geddes, Donald Deskey, Paul Frankl, Raymond Loewy, Isamu Noguchi, Eliel Saarinen, Walter Dorwin Teague, Walter von Nessen, and Russel Wright.
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WEN C. FONG TO RETIRE FROM METROPOLITAN MUSEUM AFTER THREE DECADES OF PIONEERING LEADERSHIP IN THE FIELD OF ASIAN ART
Thursday, April 6, 2000, 4:00 a.m.
(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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KLEE'S LINE
Tuesday, April 4, 2000, 4:00 a.m.
The Metropolitan Museum's series of thematic installations devoted to the art of Paul Klee (1879 — 1940) continues with Klee's Line, on view March 17 through July 9, 2000. The selection of 21 works explores Klee's varied use of line, which evolved over the years from exact naturalism to spidery playfulness to thick contours. In addition, Klee used different types of line for different subjects.
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SANDRA PRIEST ROSE ELECTED HONORARY TRUSTEE OF THE METROPOLITAN MUSEUM OF ART
Tuesday, April 4, 2000, 4:00 a.m.
(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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MICHAEL BELKIN NAMED CHIEF TECHNOLOGY OFFICER AT THE METROPOLITAN MUSEUM OF ART
Sunday, March 26, 2000, 5:00 a.m.
(March 27, 2000) — The Metropolitan Museum of Art today named Michael Belkin to the post of Chief Technology Officer, effective April 24.
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MASTERPIECES OF JAPANESE ART FROM THE MARY GRIGGS BURKE COLLECTION
Tuesday, March 21, 2000, 5:00 a.m.
This press kit for Masterpieces of Japnaese Art from the Mary Griggs Burke Collection includes a general release about the exhibition, immediately following, as well as these four releases, to which you can link by clicking on their titles:
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ART AND ORACLE: SPIRIT VOICES OF AFRICA
Monday, March 20, 2000, 5:00 a.m.
A figure sculpted in central Africa's rainforest to determine guilt or innocence, a maternity image made by an Igbo potter to enable a woman to conceive children, and a set of dice carved to decide the destiny of a Shona chief will be among the works featured in Art and Oracle: Spirit Voices of Africa, on view at The Metropolitan Museum of Art from April 26 through July 30, 2000. Throughout history and around the world, peoples have sought the intervention of divine powers to understand their fate, and this exhibition will demonstrate the dynamic relationship between ritual practice and creative expression through some 200 artifacts from more than 50 African cultures.
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RIDING ACROSS CENTRAL ASIA: IMAGES OF THE MONGOLIAN HORSE IN ISLAMIC ART
Monday, March 20, 2000, 5:00 a.m.
The Mongolian horse — a small, tireless, and agile animal that was instrumental to the movement of the Mongol armies across Central Asia — has also come to symbolize the introduction of new cultures and traditions to the eastern Islamic world. The depiction of horses in Islamic art — both realistic and symbolic — will be examined in the exhibition Riding across Central Asia: Images of the Mongolian Horse in Islamic Art, which will open at The Metropolitan Museum of Art on April 26.
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SUBJECTS AND SYMBOLS IN AMERICAN SCULPTURE: SELECTIONS FROM THE PERMANENT COLLECTION
Monday, March 20, 2000, 5:00 a.m.
Nineteenth–century American artists regarded "ideal themes" — those inspired by mythology, history, and literature — as the most challenging and venerable in the hierarchy of genres. Such subjects provided an opportunity for sculptors to demonstrate their familiarity with allegorical, historical, and literary topics, their skill at incorporating identifying attributes into their compositions, and frequently also their expertise in rendering the nude.
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SALLY PEARSON NAMED GENERAL MANAGER OF MERCHANDISING AND RETAIL AT THE METROPOLITAN MUSEUM OF ART
Tuesday, March 14, 2000, 5:00 a.m.
(New York, March 15, 2000) — The Metropolitan Museum of Art today named Sally Pearson to the post of General Manager of Merchandise and Retail, effective April 3. She will be recommended for election to the additional post of Museum Vice President at the next meeting of the Executive Committee of the Board of Trustees in April. Ms. Pearson will assume responsibility for the management and marketing of the Museum shops, mail order, and wholesale businesses, and will also concentrate on building the sale of Museum merchandise on the Metropolitan's Web site (www.metmuseum.org).
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STATEMENT BY THE METROPOLITAN MUSEUM OF ART ON THE PROVENANCE OF RUBENS'PORTRAIT OF A MAN
Monday, March 13, 2000, 5:00 a.m.
(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.