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• AngloMania: Tradition and Transgression in British Fashion

  Tuesday, April 25, 2006, 4:00 a.m.

  AngloMania: Tradition and Transgression in British Fashion, opening on May 3, 2006, will present a wide range of works by British designers in The Metropolitan Museum's English Period Rooms – The Annie Laurie Aitken Galleries. A pendant to the acclaimed 2004 Costume Institute exhibition Dangerous Liaisons: Fashion and Furniture in the 18th Century, AngloMania will examine ideals, stereotypes, and representations of Englishness by juxtaposing historical costume with late 20th- and early 21st-century fashions.

• Rehabilitating Historic Cairo to be Theme of April 23 Lecture at Metropolitan Museum

  Sunday, March 26, 2006, 5:00 a.m.

  The historic development of Cairo and its growing, shifting, and transforming urban fabric will be the focus of a lecture by Swiss architect/urban designer Dr. Stefano Bianca at 2:00 p.m. on April 23 in the Grace Rainey Rogers Auditorium of The Metropolitan Museum of Art. It is free with Museum admission.

• Renowned Chinese-born Artist Cai Guo-Qiang to Create 2006 Installation for Metropolitan Museum's Roof Garden

  Thursday, March 23, 2006, 5:00 a.m.

  Cai Guo-Qiang, the acclaimed Chinese-born artist known internationally for his elaborate sculpture installations and gunpowder projects, has been invited to create a site-specific exhibition for the 2006 season of The Iris and B. Gerald Cantor Roof Garden at The Metropolitan Museum of Art. The four works comprising Cai Guo-Qiang on the Roof: Transparent Monument were inspired by the dramatic setting of the Roof Garden, an open-air space atop the Lila Acheson Wallace Wing that offers spectacular views of Central Park and the Manhattan skyline, and by the artist's reactions to issues of present-day concern.

• Survey Shows Van Gogh Drawings Exhibition at Metropolitan Museum Generated $251 Million Economic Impact for New York

  Monday, March 20, 2006, 5:00 a.m.

  (New York, March 21, 2006)—The acclaimed and widely attended fall/winter special exhibition Vincent van Gogh: The Drawings generated $251 million in spending by regional, national, and foreign tourists to New York, according to a Metropolitan Museum of Art visitor survey released today. Using the standard ratio for calculating tax revenue impact, the study found that the direct tax benefit to the City and State from visitors who declared that seeing the exhibition was a deciding factor in their decision to visit New York totaled some $25 million.

• Kara Walker Exhibition at Metropolitan – Inspired by Hurricane Katrina - Explores Theme of "After the Deluge" through Works by Artists through the Ages

  Sunday, March 19, 2006, 5:00 a.m.

  In the wake of Hurricane Katrina, contemporary American artist Kara Walker (b. 1969) – widely recognized for her explorations of issues of race, gender, and sexuality through the 18th-century medium of cut-paper silhouettes – has selected a variety of objects from the Museum's collection and from her own work in order to explore, in her words, "the banality of everyday life, water, and its impact." The exhibition, entitled Kara Walker at the Met: After the Deluge, will be on view from March 21 through July 30.

• Sight Unseen: Photographs from the Gilman Collection

  Tuesday, March 7, 2006, 5:00 a.m.

  The Metropolitan Museum of Art is now presenting Sight Unseen: Photographs from the Gilman Collection as part of its continuing series of installations of works from its recent landmark acquisition of 8,500 photographs spanning the first hundred years of the medium. The photographs in the exhibition have never been shown publicly at the Metropolitan and will remain on view through May 21, 2006.

• A Taste for Opulence: Sèvres Porcelain from the Collection

  Thursday, February 16, 2006, 5:00 a.m.

  A Taste for Opulence: Sèvres Porcelain from the Collection presents a selection of objects such as vases, dinner and tea services, furniture decorated with porcelain plaques, and other luxurious wares produced in the 18th century by the Sèvres porcelain factory. Established in the Château of Vincennes just outside Paris in 1740, the factory quickly became the preeminent producer of porcelain in Europe. Supported in its early years by the patronage of Louis XV, the factory was named the manufacture du roi in 1753 and was purchased by the king in 1759. Catering in large part to the tastes of the court, the factory strove for constant innovation and originality throughout the 18th century, frequently employing the leading artists and designers of the day to provide models and inspiration for the factory's artisans. A Taste for Opulence, which focuses on the diversity of the factory's production, will include approximately 90 objects drawn entirely from the Museum's superb holdings of Sèvres porcelain and from its unparalleled collection of 18th-century French furniture decorated with Sèvres plaques. The exhibition will be on view from February 21 through August 13, 2006.

• Works by French Romantic Painter Displayed in Girodet: Romantic Rebel at Metropolitan Museum

  Thursday, February 16, 2006, 5:00 a.m.

  Girodet: Romantic Rebel is the first retrospective in the United States devoted to this celebrated French artist, Anne-Louis Girodet-Trioson, a favored but rebellious student of Jacques-Louis David. Girodet's idiosyncratic style fuses David's Neoclassical ideal with his own prescient Romantic vision. The exhibition brings together approximately 110 paintings and works on paper that reflect the artist's originality and the diversity of his works, from mythological subjects to portraits and representations of Napoleon's military triumphs.Girodet will be on view at The Metropolitan Museum of Art from May 24 through August 27, 2006.

• The Fabric of Life: Ikat Textiles of Indonesia

  Thursday, February 2, 2006, 5:00 a.m.

  The first exhibition to examine ikat textile traditions across the breadth of Indonesia will open at The Metropolitan Museum of Art on February 28, 2006. Featuring more than 25 outstanding ikat textiles, most never before exhibited, The Fabric of Life: Ikat Textiles of Indonesia explores the imagery, forms, and roles of what is perhaps the single most important, widespread, and technically sophisticated of all Indonesian textile traditions. They are drawn primarily from the Metropolitan's extensive collection of Indonesian textiles.

• Warriors of the Himalayas: Rediscovering the Arms and Armor of Tibet

  Thursday, February 2, 2006, 5:00 a.m.

  Warriors of the Himalayas: Rediscovering the Arms and Armor of Tibet is the first comprehensive study of armor, weapons, and equestrian equipment from Tibet, a subject that has remained virtually unexplored until now. Many rare or previously unknown objects will be exhibited and published for the first time. Presenting more than 130 works, the exhibition will examine various types of unique arms and armor used in Tibet, the world's highest plateau, between the 13th and the 20th century. The objects are drawn mostly from the permanent collection of The Metropolitan Museum of Art and include many key loans from the Royal Armouries Museum, Victoria and Albert Museum, Royal Museum of Scotland, the National Museums Liverpool, Pitt Rivers Museum, British Museum, University of Aberdeen, Smithsonian Institution, Yale University, and Newark Museum. The accompanying catalogue will include the first Tibetan-English arms and armor glossary of terms and a selection of excerpts from some of the few surviving Tibetan texts relating to the subject.

• Barcelona and Modernity: Gaudí to Dalí

  Wednesday, February 1, 2006, 5:00 a.m.

  Barcelona and Modernity: Gaudí to Dalí — the first comprehensive exhibition of its type ever mounted in America — explores the diverse and innovative work of Barcelona's artists, architects, and designers in the years between the Barcelona Universal Exposition of 1888 and the imposition of the Fascist regime of Francisco Franco in 1939. Barcelona and Modernity offers new insights into the art movements that advanced the city's quest for modernity and confirmed it as the primary center of radical intellectual, political, and cultural activities in Spain. Pablo Picasso, Joan Miró, Salvador Dalí, and Antoni Gaudí are among the internationally renowned artists who contributed to the creative vitality of Barcelona and the flourishing of Catalan culture. On view at the Metropolitan Museum from March 7 through June 3, 2007, the exhibition will feature some 300 remarkable works in a range of media: painting, sculpture, drawings, prints, posters, decorative objects, furniture, architectural models, and design. La Vie and Blindman's Meal, two of the greatest paintings from Picasso's Blue Period; portraits by Ramon Casas; Isidre Nonell's depictions of gypsies; Miró's The Farm; Dalí's surrealist paintings, as well as furniture designed by Gaudí and an original BKF ("butterfly") chair are among the masterworks gathered from museums and private collections around the world for this major exhibition.

• Pearls of the Parrot of India: The Emperor Akbar's Illustrated "Khamsa," 1597-98

  Thursday, January 12, 2006, 5:00 a.m.

  In India in the late 16th century, the Mughal emperor Akbar – a great patron of the arts – amassed an extensive library of some 20,000 beautifully illustrated and illuminated manuscripts. One of them, a lavishly ornamented copy of the Khamsa (Quintet of Tales) by Amir Khusrau Dihlavi (1253-1325), will be on view at the Metropolitan Museum beginning October 14, 2005, in the exhibition Pearls of the Parrot of India: The Emperor Akbar's Illustrated "Khamsa," 1597-98.

• SCHEDULE OF EXHIBITIONS JANUARY - APRIL 2006

  Thursday, January 12, 2006, 5:00 a.m.

  EDITORS PLEASE NOTE: Information provided below is subject to change. To confirm scheduling and dates, call the Communications Department at (212) 570-3951. CONTACT NUMBER FOR USE IN TEXT IS (212) 535-7710.

• Robert Rauschenberg's Combines Focus of New Exhibition at Metropolitan

  Tuesday, December 20, 2005, 5:00 a.m.

  Some of the most daring and influential works by one of America's great modern artists – Robert Rauschenberg – will go on view at The Metropolitan Museum of Art on December 20. Robert Rauschenberg: Combines, takes a rare and comprehensive look at the objects that Robert Rauschenberg (b. 1925) terms Combines. The exhibition, which will include 67 works created between 1954 and 1964, is the first to focus exclusively on this significant material. Robert Rauschenberg: Combines remains on view through April 2, 2006, before continuing on an international tour through 2007.

• AngloMania

  Sunday, December 11, 2005, 5:00 a.m.

  AngloMania, opening on May 4, 2006, will present an unprecedented selection of works by British designers in The Metropolitan Museum of Art's English Period Rooms – The Annie Laurie Aitken Galleries. A pendant to the acclaimed 2004 Costume Institute exhibition Dangerous Liaisons: Fashion and Furniture in the 18th Century, AngloMania will focus on British fashion from 1976 to 2006, a period of astounding creativity and experimentation.

• Girodet: Romantic Rebel

  Tuesday, November 15, 2005, 5:00 a.m.

  Girodet: Romantic Rebel is the first retrospective in the United States devoted to this celebrated French artist, Anne-Louis Girodet-Trioson, a favored but rebellious student of Jacques-Louis David. Girodet's idiosyncratic style fuses David's Neoclassical ideal with his own prescient Romantic vision. The exhibition brings together approximately 110 paintings and works on paper that reflect the artist's originality and the diversity of his works, from mythological subjects to portraits and representations of Napoleon's military triumphs. Girodet will be on view at The Metropolitan Museum of Art from May 24 through August 27, 2006.

• Samuel Palmer (1805–1881): Vision and Landscape

  Monday, November 14, 2005, 5:00 a.m.

  Samuel Palmer ranks among the most important British landscape painters of the Romantic era. Marking the 200th anniversary of the artist's birth, Samuel Palmer (1805–1881): Vision and Landscape is the first major retrospective of his work in nearly 80 years, uniting some 100 of his finest watercolors, drawings, etchings, and oils from public and private collections in the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, the Netherlands, and the United States. The exhibition highlights the artist's celebrated early work, executed in a visionary style inspired by William Blake, and re-examines Palmer's vibrant middle-period Italian studies and masterful late watercolors and etchings. It also includes a selection of works by artists in Palmer's circle. Samuel Palmer will be on view at The Metropolitan Museum of Art from March 7 through May 29.

• Metropolitan Museum Celebrates the Holidays by Opening on "Holiday Monday" December 26

  Monday, November 14, 2005, 5:00 a.m.

  (New York, November 14, 2005) – The Metropolitan Museum of Art will be open to the public on Monday, December 26 (the Monday between Christmas and New Year's Day), as part of the Museum's popular "Holiday Mondays" program. The Museum, which has been closed to the public on Mondays for some 30 years, will open the doors of its main building this winter and spring on three additional major Monday holidays: January 16 (Martin Luther King Jr. Day), February 20 (Presidents' Day), and May 29 (Memorial Day).

• Antonello da Messina: Sicily's Renaissance Master

  Tuesday, November 8, 2005, 5:00 a.m.

  Three masterpieces by Sicily's greatest Renaissance painter, Antonello da Messina, will be on view at The Metropolitan Museum of Art from December 13, 2005, through March 5, 2006, in the exhibition Antonello da Messina: Sicily's Renaissance Master. This will be the first time any of these works will be on public view in the United States.

• In Line with Van Gogh

  Thursday, November 3, 2005, 5:00 a.m.

  The Metropolitan Museum of Art presents the exhibition In Line with Van Gogh in conjunction with the landmark exhibition Vincent van Gogh: The Drawings. The ancillary exhibition, also curated by Colta Ives and Susan Stein, demonstrates that Van Gogh's achievement, neither solely intuitive nor accidental, was remarkably well informed. The 59 drawings and prints selected from the collections of the Metropolitan Museum will include works by Rembrandt, Daumier, Millet, Degas, Hokusai, Hiroshige, and other artists whose work influenced Van Gogh, as well as works by his contemporaries and followers such as Gauguin, Signac, Seurat, Matisse, and Munch. In Line with Van Gogh will be on view from October 4, 2005 to January 8, 2006.

• Santiago Calatrava's Art and Architecture in New Exhibition at Metropolitan Museum

  Thursday, November 3, 2005, 5:00 a.m.

  Santiago Calatrava, the world-renowned architect who has designed some of the most beautiful structures of our epoch, is the subject of a new exhibition, Santiago Calatrava: Sculpture into Architecture, opening at The Metropolitan Museum of Art on October 18, 2005. This exhibition, on view through March 5, 2006, will demonstrate that many of the forms of his celebrated buildings originated in his independent works of art.

• Rara Avis: Selections from the Iris Barrel Apfel Collection

  Thursday, November 3, 2005, 5:00 a.m.

  The Costume Institute will celebrate one of America's quintessential stylemakers this fall with an exhibition of accessories and fashion from Iris Apfel. On view at The Metropolitan Museum of Art from September 13, 2005, to January 22, 2006, Rara Avis: Selections from the Iris Barrel Apfel Collection will spotlight 60 objects, exploring the affinity between fashion and accessory designs and examining the power of dress and accessories to assert style above fashion, the individual above the collective.

• David Milne Watercolors "Painting Toward the Light"

  Thursday, November 3, 2005, 5:00 a.m.

  David Milne Watercolors: "Painting Toward the Light," on view at The Metropolitan Museum of Art from November 8, 2005 to January 29, 2006, will reintroduce the work of one of Canada's finest painters to American audiences. Milne (1882-1953), whose career spanned the first half of the 20th century, lived and worked in the United States (1903-29) during the heyday of American modernism before returning to Ontario (1929-53), where he had a quiet career out of the spotlight. This exhibition of 45 works from Canadian and American collections follows Milne's experimentation with modernism in New York City, his years as a Canadian War Memorials artist in Europe after World War I, his subsequent retreat into the landscape of upstate New York, and his final years in Canada, which inspired a dramatic departure from his depictions of the natural world to the realm of the spiritual.

• Vincent van Gogh: The Drawings

  Thursday, November 3, 2005, 5:00 a.m.

  The first major exhibition in the United States ever to focus on Vincent van Gogh's extraordinary drawings will open at The Metropolitan Museum of Art on October 18. Vincent van Gogh: The Drawings — comprising 113 works selected from public and private collections worldwide, including an exceptional number of loans from the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam — will reveal the range and brilliance of the artist's draftsmanship as it evolved over the course of his decade-long career. Generally over-shadowed by the fame and familiarity of his paintings, Van Gogh's more than 1,100 drawings remain comparatively unknown although they are among his most ingenious and striking creations. Van Gogh engaged drawing and painting in a rich dialogue, which enabled him to fully realize the creative potential of both means of expression. A group of paintings will be exhibited alongside the related drawings. The exhibition will remain on view through December 31.

• Clouet to Seurat: French Drawings from The British Museum

  Thursday, November 3, 2005, 5:00 a.m.

  Four centuries of French draftsmanship will be on view in Clouet to Seurat: French Drawings from The British Museum, opening November 8, 2005, at The Metropolitan Museum of Art. The exhibition features nearly 100 masterpieces, ranging from rare Renaissance portraits by Jean and François Clouet to selections from The British Museum's incomparable holdings of Claude Lorrain and Antoine Watteau, through stellar works of the 19th century, from Ingres and Delacroix to Degas, Cézanne, and Seurat. A majority of these works have never before been exhibited in the United States. Clouet to Seurat will remain on view at the Metropolitan through January 29, 2006.

• Metropolitan Museum's Restaurants to Offer Van Gogh-Inspired Dining and Afternoon Tea

  Wednesday, October 19, 2005, 4:00 a.m.

  Inspired by the exhibition Vincent van Gogh: The Drawings– which will be on view at The Metropolitan Museum of Art from October 18 through December 31, 2005 – the Museum's restaurants will offer visitors a variety of special dining experiences, including afternoon tea, guest chefs from around New York City, and prix-fixe dinner options.

• Robert Rauschenberg: Combines

  Thursday, August 4, 2005, 4:00 a.m.

  Some of the most daring and influential works by one of America's great modern artists – Robert Rauschenberg – will go on view at The Metropolitan Museum of Art on December 20. Robert Rauschenberg: Combines takes a rare and comprehensive look at the three-dimensional works that Robert Rauschenberg (b. 1925) terms combines. The exhibition, which will include approximately 65 objects created between 1954 and 1964, is the first to focus exclusively on this significant body of work. Robert Rauschenberg: Combines remains on view through April 2, 2006, before continuing on an international tour through 2007.

• SCHEDULE OF EXHIBITIONS SEPTEMBER–DECEMBER 2005

  Wednesday, August 3, 2005, 4:00 a.m.

  EDITORS PLEASE NOTE: Information provided below is subject to change. To confirm scheduling and dates, call the Communications Department at (212) 570-3951. CONTACT NUMBER FOR USE IN TEXT IS (212) 535-7710.

• Major Retrospective of Vincent van Gogh's Drawings to Open at Metropolitan Museum in October 2005

  Wednesday, July 20, 2005, 4:00 a.m.

  The first major exhibition in the United States ever to focus on Vincent van Gogh's extraordinary drawings will open at The Metropolitan Museum of Art on October 18. Vincent van Gogh: The Drawings — comprising 113 works selected from public and private collections worldwide, including an exceptional number of loans from the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam — will reveal the range and brilliance of the artist's draftsmanship as it evolved over the course of his decade-long career. Generally over-shadowed by the fame and familiarity of his paintings, Van Gogh's more than 1,100 drawings remain comparatively unknown although they are among his most ingenious and striking creations. Van Gogh engaged drawing and painting in a rich dialogue, which enabled him to fully realize the creative potential of both means of expression. A group of paintings will be exhibited alongside the related drawings. The exhibition will remain on view through December 31.

• The Perfect Medium: Photography and the Occult

  Wednesday, July 20, 2005, 4:00 a.m.

  Ghosts, spirit séances, levitation, auras, ectoplasm … extraordinary photographs of these and other paranormal phenomena will be on display at The Metropolitan Museum of Art in The Perfect Medium: Photography and the Occult, an exhibition devoted to the historical intersections between photography and the once wildly popular interest in spiritualism, on view from September 27 to December 31, 2005.

• Pearls of the Parrot of India: The Emperor Akbar's Illustrated Khamsa, 1597-98

  Monday, June 27, 2005, 4:00 a.m.

  In India in the late 16th century, the Mughal emperor Akbar – a great patron of the arts – amassed an extensive library of some 20,000 beautifully illustrated and illuminated manuscripts. One of them, a lavishly ornamented copy of the Khamsa (Quintet of Tales) by Amir Khusrau Dihlavi (1253-1325), will be on view at the Metropolitan Museum beginning October 14, 2005, in the exhibition Pearls of the Parrot of India: The Emperor Akbar's Illustrated Khamsa, 1597-98.

• Santiago Calatrava: Sculpture into Architecture

  Monday, June 20, 2005, 4:00 a.m.

  Santiago Calatrava, the world-renowned architect who has designed some of the most beautiful structures of our epoch, is the subject of a new exhibition, Santiago Calatrava: Sculpture into Architecture, opening at The Metropolitan Museum of Art on October 18, 2005. This exhibition, on view through January 22, 2006, will demonstrate that many of the forms of his celebrated buildings originated in his independent works of art.

• Rara Avis: Selections from the Iris Apfel Collection

  Monday, June 20, 2005, 4:00 a.m.

  The Costume Institute will celebrate one of America's quintessential stylemakers this fall with an exhibition of accessories and fashion from Iris Apfel. On view at The Metropolitan Museum of Art from September 13, 2005, to January 22, 2006, Rara Avis: Selections from the Iris Apfel Collection will spotlight 40 objects, exploring the affinity between fashion and accessory designs and examining the power of dress and accessories to assert style above fashion, the individual above the collective.

• Photographs from Recently Acquired Gilman Collection on View at Metropolitan Museum

  Monday, June 20, 2005, 4:00 a.m.

  A rotating selection of pivotal, iconic works from The Metropolitan Museum of Art's recent landmark acquisition of the Gilman Paper Company Collection, entitled Master Photographs from the Gilman Collection: A Landmark Acquisition, will be on view this summer in The Howard Gilman Gallery and, in two installments through April 2006, in the Robert Wood Johnson, Jr. Gallery.

• SCHEDULE OF EXHIBITIONS MAY - AUGUST 2005

  Monday, June 6, 2005, 4:00 a.m.

  EDITORS PLEASE NOTE: Information provided below is subject to change. To confirm scheduling and dates, call the Communications Department at (212) 570-3951. CONTACT NUMBER FOR USE IN TEXT IS (212) 535-7710.

• Matisse: The Fabric of Dreams

  Wednesday, June 1, 2005, 4:00 a.m.

  The first exhibition to explore Henri Matisse's (1869–1954) lifelong fascination with textiles and its profound impact on his art will open at The Metropolitan Museum of Art on June 23, 2005. Matisse: The Fabric of Dreams – His Art and His Textiles features 45 painted works and 31 drawings and prints displayed alongside examples from Matisse's personal collection of fabrics, costumes, and carpets. The exhibition marks the first public showing of Matisse's textile collection – referred to by the artist as his "working library" – which has been packed away in family trunks since Matisse's death in 1954. The exhibition remains on view at the Metropolitan through September 25, 2005.

• Tony Oursler at the Met: "Studio" and "Climaxed"

  Wednesday, May 18, 2005, 4:00 a.m.

  Tony Oursler at the Met: "Studio" and "Climaxed," at The Metropolitan Museum of Art from May 17 to September 18, 2005, presents two installations by the internationally renowned artist Tony Oursler (American, b. 1954) that have never before been on view in the United States.

• Defining Yongle: Imperial Art in Early Fifteenth-Century China

  Wednesday, March 23, 2005, 5:00 a.m.

  Featuring some 50 extraordinary works of art, Defining Yongle: Imperial Art in Early Fifteenth-Century China will explore a crucial moment in the development of imperial Chinese art, and its relationship to later traditions. On view will be sculptures, paintings, lacquers, metalwork, ceramics, textiles, and ivories created in the imperial workshops during the reign of the Yongle Emperor (r. 1403-1424). Important recent acquisitions – such as a gilt-bronze sculpture, Manjushri, the Bodhisattva of Wisdom, and a rare lacquer sutra box with incised gold decoration (qiangjin) – will be presented along with 12 works (embroidered silks and works in cloisonné, ivory, and lacquer) acquired since 1990. Fifteen loans, many from New York collections, will supplement 33 objects drawn from the Metropolitan Museum's permanent collection.

• Max Ernst: A Retrospective

  Wednesday, March 9, 2005, 5:00 a.m.

  The much-anticipated exhibition Max Ernst: A Retrospective, the first major U.S. survey of the artist's work in 30 years, will be on view at The Metropolitan Museum of Art beginning April 7, 2005. Ernst (1891-1976) was a founding member of the Dada and Surrealist movements in Europe and was one of the most ingenious artists of the 20th century. The exhibition will remain on view through July 10, 2005.

• John Townsend: Newport Cabinetmaker

  Monday, March 7, 2005, 5:00 a.m.

  During the second half of the 18th century, the New England seaport of Newport, Rhode Island, became a leading center of American furniture-making, with members of the Townsend and Goddard families dominating the trade. Preeminent among these stellar cabinetmakers was John Townsend (1733-1809), whose meticulous craftsmanship and elegant designs set a standard that was seldom matched. The Metropolitan Museum of Art will celebrate his pivotal role in the history of American furniture this spring with John Townsend: Newport Cabinetmaker.

• Matisse: The Fabric of Dreams--His Art and His Textiles

  Monday, March 7, 2005, 5:00 a.m.

  The first exhibition to explore Henri Matisse's (1869–1954) lifelong fascination with textiles and its profound impact on his art will open at The Metropolitan Museum of Art on June 23, 2005. Matisse: The Fabric of Dreams – His Art and His Textiles features approximately 30 paintings and 35 works on paper displayed alongside examples from Matisse's personal collection of fabrics, costumes, and carpets. The exhibition marks the first public showing of Matisse's textile collection – referred to by the artist as his "working library" – which has been packed away in family trunks since Matisse's death in 1954. The exhibition remains on view at the Metropolitan through September 25, 2005.

• Metropolitan Museum Exhibition Catalogue Wins Prestigious Award

  Tuesday, February 15, 2005, 5:00 a.m.

  (New York, February 16, 2005) – The catalogue for Byzantium: Faith and Power (1261-1557), The Metropolitan Museum of Art's landmark exhibition of spring 2004, received the College Art Association's (CAA) prestigious Alfred H. Barr, Jr., Award, it was announced today. The award was accepted in Atlanta, Georgia, at the annual meeting of the CAA by the Museum's curator of Byzantine art, Dr. Helen C. Evans, who edited the book and organized the exhibition.

• Matisse: The Fabric of Dreams His Art and His Textiles

  Wednesday, February 2, 2005, 5:00 a.m.

  The first exhibition to explore Henri Matisse's (1869-1954) lifelong fascination with textiles and its profound impact on his art will open at The Metropolitan Museum of Art on June 23, 2005. Matisse: The Fabric of Dreams – His Art and His Textiles features approximately 30 paintings and 35 works on paper displayed alongside examples from Matisse's personal collection of fabrics, costumes, and carpets. The exhibition marks the first public showing of Matisse's textile collection – referred to by the artist as his "working library" – which has been packed away in family trunks since Matisse's death in 1954. The exhibition remains on view at the Metropolitan through September 25, 2005.

• METROPOLITAN MUSEUM ANNOUNCES SCHEDULE OF CLASSES FOR SPANISH-SPEAKING FAMILIES

  Monday, January 17, 2005, 5:00 a.m.

  (New York, January 18, 2005)–The Metropolitan Museum of Art today announced two special programs in its weekly series for Spanish-speaking families, El Primer Contacto con el Arte. Classes in the series – which focuses on a different theme and area of the Museum each month – meet on Saturdays, 11:30 a.m. to 1:00 p.m., and feature discussion and sketching activities for ages six through 12.

• First Major Retrospective of Rubens Drawings in the U. S. Opens at Metropolitan Museum

  Friday, January 14, 2005, 5:00 a.m.

  The first major retrospective ever to be devoted to the drawings of Peter Paul Rubens in the United States will open at The Metropolitan Museum of Art on January 15, 2005. Peter Paul Rubens (1577–1640): The Drawings will bring together 115 of the versatile Baroque master's finest and most representative drawings, including dozens that have never before been on view in the United States. Court painter, diplomat, and international celebrity, Rubens was one of the most influential artists of northern Europe in the 17th century. Best known for his paintings, this universal genius is among the most imaginative of draftsmen. His topics vary from engaging biblical scenes to alluring nudes, from animated and stately portraits to poignant animal studies, and from landscapes sketched from nature to complex allegories.

• METROPOLITAN MUSEUM NAMES TWO NEW VICE PRESIDENTS IN AREAS OF DEVELOPMENT AND FINANCE

  Monday, November 8, 2004, 5:00 a.m.

  (New York, November 9, 2004)—The Metropolitan Museum of Art announced today the promotion of two new officers: Nina Diefenbach to the post of Vice President for Development and Membership, and Jeffrey Russian as Vice President for Finance and Planning. They were both elected at today's meeting of the Museum's Board of Trustees.

• Renaissance Splendors of Dresden Court on View at The Metropolitan Museum of Art

  Sunday, October 24, 2004, 4:00 a.m.

  Visitors to the Electoral-princely collections in Renaissance Dresden encountered room after room of treasures proclaiming the refined splendor of the court—exquisite gold and silver objects embellished with precious and semi-precious stones and exotic materials, ivory turnings, ebony furniture, clocks, automatons, and decorated tools. In the first exhibition on Dresden to be held at The Metropolitan Museum of Art in 25 years, Princely Splendor: The Dresden Court, 1580-1620, nearly 250 of these major works of art and precious objects—on loan from the Dresden State Art Collections (Staatliche Kunstsammlungen Dresden), and in particular the fabled Green Vault—will be on view. This exhibition will illustrate the richness of one of the most spectacular princely collections of Europe—the Dresden Kunstkammer—as it existed around 1600. Reflecting the broad range of the collections amassed by the Electors of Saxony during this period of unusual prosperity, the exhibition will also include rare arms and armor, paintings, and sculptures, including several bronzes by Giambologna.

• The 20th Century Photography Monograph Celebrated in Metropolitan Museum Exhibition

  Sunday, October 24, 2004, 4:00 a.m.

  From November 5, 2004, through March 6, 2005, The Metropolitan Museum of Art will present Few Are Chosen: Street Photography and the Book, 1936-1966. Drawn from the collections of the Metropolitan and the Gilman Paper Company, the exhibition spotlights 35 photographs related to six influential 20th-century publications by the photographers Bill Brandt, Henri Cartier-Bresson, Walker Evans, Robert Frank, William Klein, and Helen Levitt. Few Are Chosen also includes copies of each book, sometimes represented in multiple editions to show how the meaning of images changed with their presentation.

• Metropolitan Museum Offers Preview of Landmark Chinese Art Exhibition for Columbus Day "Holiday Monday"

  Tuesday, October 5, 2004, 4:00 a.m.

  (New York, October 1, 2004) – Visitors to The Metropolitan Museum of Art during its next "Holiday Monday" – Columbus Day, October 11 – will enjoy a special opportunity to view the landmark exhibition China: Dawn of A Golden Age, 200-750 AD on the day before it officially opens to the public. The exhibition brings together more than 300 works of extreme rarity and cultural importance, most of them recently excavated, and many never seen outside China.

• Landmark Exhibition of Ancient Chinese Art— Featuring Recently Excavated Treasures Never Seen in U.S.— Opens at Metropolitan Museum

  Wednesday, September 29, 2004, 4:00 a.m.

  The Metropolitan Museum of Art will present a landmark exhibition of ancient Chinese art – the largest ever to be organized with loans from across Mainland China – beginning October 12, 2004. Bringing together more than 300 works of extreme rarity and art historical importance, many of which have never before been exhibited outside China, China: Dawn of a Golden Age, 200-750 AD will tell the story of Chinese art and culture from the Han to the Tang dynasty, a period of major transformation for Chinese civilization due to massive immigrations from northern Asia into China and extensive trade contacts with all parts of Asia. The exhibition will feature objects in an astounding variety of media – including objects in jade, bronze, gold, silver, metal, stone, and wood, as well as textiles, works on paper, and wall paintings – ranging in size from an enormous sculpture of a fantastic animal to a small gold coin.

• Heritage of Power: Ancient Sculpture from West Mexico The Andrall E. Pearson Family Collection

  Monday, September 27, 2004, 4:00 a.m.

  An exhibition of more than 40 ceramic sculptures made in the western region of Mexico two thousand years ago will open at The Metropolitan Museum of Art on October 19, 2004. The volcanic highland areas of the contemporary Mexican states of Colima, Jalisco, and Nayarit are the source of the three-dimensional sculptures that portray ancestors, warriors, ballplayers, dancers, and musicians, among other depictions of life and ritual. Ranging in size from a few inches to about two-and-a-half feet in height, the sculptures in Heritage of Power: Ancient Sculpture from West Mexico – The Andrall E. Pearson Family Collection are drawn from holdings that emphasize the human figure, and its activities and concerns.

• Princely Splendor: The Dresden Court, 1580–1620

  Sunday, August 29, 2004, 4:00 a.m.

  Visitors to the Electoral-princely collections in Renaissance Dresden encountered room after room of treasures proclaiming the refined splendor of the court—exquisite gold and silver objects embellished with precious and semi-precious stones and exotic materials, ivory turnings, ebony furniture, clocks, automatons, and decorated tools. In the first exhibition on Dresden to be held at The Metropolitan Museum of Art in 25 years, Princely Splendor: The Dresden Court, 1580-1620, nearly 250 of these major works of art and precious objects—on loan from the Dresden State Art Collections (Staatliche Kunstsammlungen Dresden), and in particular the fabled Green Vault—will be on view. This exhibition will illustrate the richness of one of the most spectacular princely collections of Europe—the Dresden Kunstkammer—as it existed around 1600. Reflecting the broad range of the collections amassed by the Electors of Saxony during this period of unusual prosperity, the exhibition will also include rare arms and armor, paintings, and sculptures, including several bronzes by Giambologna.

• The Colonial Andes: Tapestries and Silverwork, 1530–1830

  Tuesday, August 3, 2004, 4:00 a.m.

  The arrival of the Spanish in South America in 1532 dramatically transformed the Andean cultural landscape, changing societies that had evolved over thousands of years within less than one generation. The arts, however, continued to thrive amid the upheavals, and an unspoken dialogue evolved between Andean and European artistic traditions. A major exhibition of more than 175 works of art focusing on two uniquely rich and inherently Andean art forms that flourished during the Colonial period – tapestry and silverwork – will open at The Metropolitan Museum of Art on September 29, 2004. The Colonial Andes: Tapestries and Silverwork, 1530–1830 will present the finest examples of Inca and colonial garments and tapestries, as well as ritual and domestic silverwork, drawn from museums, churches, and private collections in South America, Europe, and the United States.

• China: Dawn of a Golden Age, 200-750 AD

  Monday, August 2, 2004, 4:00 a.m.

  The Metropolitan Museum of Art will present a landmark exhibition of ancient Chinese art – one of the largest ever to be organized with loans from across Mainland China – beginning October 12, 2004. Bringing together more than 300 works of extreme rarity and art historical importance, many of which have never before been exhibited outside China, China: Dawn of a Golden Age, 200-750 AD will tell the story of Chinese art and culture from the Han to the Tang dynasty, a period of major transformation for Chinese civilization due to massive immigrations from northern Asia into China and extensive trade contacts with all parts of Asia. The exhibition will feature objects in an astounding variety of media – including objects in jade, bronze, gold, silver, metal, stone, and wood, as well as textiles, works on paper, and wall paintings – ranging in size from an enormous sculpture of a fantastic animal to a small gold coin.

• Successful "Holiday Monday" Program Enters Second Year at Metropolitan Museum

  Monday, August 2, 2004, 4:00 a.m.

  (New York, August 3, 2004) -- The Metropolitan Museum of Art announced today that, in response to enthusiastic public support of the "Holiday Mondays" program inaugurated in 2003, it will continue to offer these special viewing days – which take place on the Mondays of major holiday weekends – for a second year. The Metropolitan Museum's main building will be open to the public on the following Monday holidays: September 6 (Labor Day), October 11 (Columbus Day), December 27, 2004 (the Monday between Christmas and New Year's Day), January 17 (Martin Luther King Jr. Day), February 21 (Presidents' Day), and May 30, 2005 (Memorial Day). The Museum had previously been closed to the public on Mondays for some 30 years.

• The Games in Ancient Athens: A Special Presentation to Celebrate the 2004 Olympics

  Monday, July 26, 2004, 4:00 a.m.

  In honor of the modern Olympics that will take place in Athens this summer, The Metropolitan Museum of Art will display a special selection of ancient Greek vases, bronzes, and additional works showcasing aspects of the games that were held in Athens in antiquity. Opening on June 29, The Games in Ancient Athens: A Special Presentation to Celebrate the 2004 Olympics will feature some 50 works of art created between the sixth and the fourth century B.C. depicting chariot races, foot races, wrestling, and discus throwing, among other athletic activities. This presentation, which is drawn entirely from the Museum's extensive collection of Greek art, will be located within the Mary and Michael Jaharis Gallery, as well as in adjacent areas of the New Greek Galleries, where examples of athletic art already on view will be highlighted.

• Hidden Jewels: Korean Art from the Mary Griggs Burke Collection

  Monday, July 26, 2004, 4:00 a.m.

  An exhibition of 36 Korean paintings, ceramics, and sculpture from the collection of Mary Griggs Burke will go on view at The Metropolitan Museum of Art beginning July 3. Many of these pieces – which date primarily to the Choson dynasty (1392-1910) – will make their public debut in this exhibition. Mrs. Burke, renowned for her collection of Japanese art, has since the late 1970s also assembled a small but splendid selection of Korean art. This exhibition, Hidden Jewels: Korean Art from the Mary Griggs Burke Collection, provides a rare opportunity to glimpse a lesser-known side of her collection and to learn more about the diversity and beauty of Korean art.

• Peter Paul Rubens (1577–1640): The Drawings

  Monday, July 26, 2004, 4:00 a.m.

  The first major retrospective ever to be devoted to the drawings of Peter Paul Rubens in the United States will open at The Metropolitan Museum of Art on January 15, 2005. Peter Paul Rubens (1577–1640): The Drawings will bring together 115 of the versatile Baroque master's finest and most representative drawings, including 12 recently discovered works that have never before been exhibited. Court painter, diplomat, and international celebrity, Rubens was one of the most influential artists of northern Europe in the 17th century. Best known for his paintings, this universal genius is among the most imaginative of draftsmen. His topics vary from engaging biblical scenes to alluring nudes, from animated and stately portraits to poignant animal studies, and from landscapes sketched from nature to complex allegories.

• George Washington: Man, Myth, Monument

  Monday, July 26, 2004, 4:00 a.m.

  Beginning October 19, more than four dozen works in all media depicting George Washington, the Revolutionary War hero who became the first president of the United States, will be presented at The Metropolitan Museum of Art in George Washington: Man, Myth, Monument—Images from the Metropolitan. The exhibition is drawn entirely from the extensive holdings of the Museum's American Wing and includes paintings, sculpture, drawings, and prints, as well as works in glass, ceramics, silver, textiles, and wood that were created in the late 18th and the 19th century.

• THE METROPOLITAN MUSEUM OF ART ANNOUNCES 2004-2005 SEASON OF CONCERTS, THE 51ST SEASON

  Friday, July 2, 2004, 4:00 a.m.

  The Metropolitan Museum of Art launches its second half-century of presenting concerts in the 2004-2005 season with a diverse selection of world-renowned artists and young talent, upholding the Concerts & Lectures 50-year tradition.
  "The success of the Museum's 50th anniversary concert season has renewed our dedication to excellence, continuity, and innovation in programming," said the Metropolitan's Director, Philippe de Montebello. "That these qualities are carried forward is evidenced by the dynamic combination of hand-picked artists and programs in our 51st season. The year's pianists, following the 50th anniversary's impressive piano roster, range from a festival of young competition winners to The Art of André Watts, while notable early-music events are complemented by a series devoted to contemporary composer Steve Reich."
  Highlights of the 62 concerts comprising the 2004-2005 season, the 36th programmed by Hilde Limondjian, Concerts & Lectures General Manager since 1969, include two spring festivals – Celebrating Jordi Savall, three concerts in April presenting the viola da gamba artist and early music leader with his three acclaimed ensembles, and A Festival of International Competition Winners, also in April, of six young pianists, first-prize winners of major competitions, many in their U.S. debuts. The U.S. premiere of Steve Reich's 2003 work Dance Patterns highlights The Music of Steve Reich, a three-concert series performed by Steve Reich and Musicians. Continuing an initiative from the 50th anniversary season celebrating the multifaceted artistry of one musician, The Art of André Watts showcases the pianist in a recital, a chamber program, and an illustrated talk. Three major ensembles – Orpheus, New York Collegium, and Chanticleer – offer early-music programs in gallery spaces, and two singers make their Metropolitan Museum debuts at The Temple of Dendur in The Sackler Wing: soprano Olga Borodina and tenor Rolando Villazón, whose performance will also be his U.S. recital debut.
  The Beaux Arts Trio, which celebrates its own 50th anniversary in 2004-2005, will begin a three-year Beethoven project that will present all of the composer's piano trios, sonatas for violin and piano, and sonatas for cello and piano. Complementing this is a series of six concerts, Surrounding Beethoven, of music that anticipated, mirrored, or followed this core repertoire, performed by a diverse roster of artists: Frederic Chiu and Windscape, Jonathan Biss and Miriam Fried, the Juilliard String Quartet with Heinz Holliger, the Prague Symphony Orchestra with Navah Perlman, the Borromeo String Quartet, and the Salzburger Kammerphilharmonie with Kate Dillingham. The chamber music of Dvorák is the anchor for the Guarneri String Quartet's five concerts, which feature eminent guest artists including Peter Serkin, Ida Kavafian, Anton Kuerti, and former member David Soyer. Paula Robison continues her exploration of The Great Vivaldi with two programs. And the artist roster of the season's Musicians from Marlboro series includes Kim Kashkashian and Samuel Rhodes.
  In addition to the Festival of International Competition Winners, two series showcase some of today's finest young talent. The Accolades young artist series features four violinists: Stefan Jackiw, Giora Schmidt, Corey Cerovsek, and Jennifer Koh. Also, in its second season, the newest of the Museum's resident ensembles and the first to bear its name, Metropolitan Museum Artists in Concert, presents three programs of classic repertoire mirroring the new, which will be broadcast live on 96.3 FM WQXR.

• METROPOLITAN MUSEUM CREATES NEW AND EXPANDED CURATORIAL DEPARTMENT: NINETEENTH-CENTURY, MODERN, AND CONTEMPORARY ART

  Monday, June 14, 2004, 4:00 a.m.

  (NEW YORK, JUNE 15, 2004)—The Metropolitan Museum of Art today announced a major restructuring and redefinition of curatorial responsibilities at the Museum with the creation of a new and expanded department: Nineteenth-Century, Modern, and Contemporary Art, embracing European paintings from 1800 to the present, as well as international 20th-century sculpture, drawings, prints, decorative arts, and design. The integrated and broadened new department will enjoy the mandate—and, within several years, additional new gallery space as well—to bring to the public the full and dynamic story of modern art, in all media, from its beginnings to the present day.

• Metropolitan Museum Extends Landmark Exhibition Byzantium: Faith and Power (1261-1557) through Holiday Monday, July 5

  Thursday, June 10, 2004, 4:00 a.m.

  (New York-June 4, 2004)—Due to the exceptional public response to The Metropolitan Museum of Art's acclaimed international loan exhibition Byzantium: Faith and Power (1261-1557), the Museum announced today that it will extend the run of the show through Monday, July 5, which is a special "Holiday Monday" viewing day at the Museum. The exhibition was originally scheduled to close on Sunday, July 4.

• All That Glitters Is Not Gold: The Art, Form, and Function of Gilt Bronze in the French Interior

  Tuesday, May 11, 2004, 4:00 a.m.

  Many of the gold objects adorning sumptuous French interiors—from the Palace of Versailles to grand residences in Paris—are generally not made of gold at all but of gilt bronze. Both functional and highly decorative, gilt-bronze mounts and bronzes d'ameublement, such as light fixtures, fireplace fittings, and clocks, played a very important role in the French interior from the late 17th to the early 19th century. Always in keeping with the latest stylistic changes, gilt-bronze pieces were often designed by well-known artists and sculptors, such as Juste-Aurèle Meissonnier and Augustin Pajou, and manufactured by highly specialized craftsmen. A rigid guild system maintained the high standards of craftsmanship and regulated the process of gilt bronze manufacture. The exhibition All That Glitters Is Not Gold: The Art, Form, and Function of Gilt Bronze in the French Interior focuses on the use of gilt bronze in the interior décor, as well as on the designs and techniques involved in the casting, chasing, and gilding of gilt bronze objects. Drawn from the collections of The Metropolitan Museum of Art, the exhibition will include some 80 objects.

• American Impressions, 1865-1925: Prints, Drawings, and Watercolors from the Collection

  Wednesday, April 14, 2004, 4:00 a.m.

  More than 50 works on paper by some of the best-known and most highly regarded late 19th-century American artists will be displayed at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, beginning on June 8, in American Impressions, 1865-1925: Prints, Drawings, and Watercolors from the Collection. Among the artists featured will be such luminaries as Winslow Homer, James McNeill Whistler, Mary Cassatt, and Maurice Prendergast. The exhibition was organized to complement and coincide with the Museum's retrospective Childe Hassam, American Impressionist, opening to the public on June 10, and will situate Hassam within a broader context of artists of the same period who treated the same images and used the same media.

• Christo and Jeanne-Claude: The Gates, Central Park, New York

  Thursday, April 1, 2004, 5:00 a.m.

  The evolution of the widely anticipated outdoor work of art for New York City initiated in 1979 by the husband-and-wife collaborators Christo and Jeanne-Claude will be the subject of the exhibition Christo and Jeanne-Claude: The Gates, Central Park, New York, on view at The Metropolitan Museum of Art from April 6 through July 25, 2004. Fifty-one preparatory drawings and collages by Christo, 64 photographs, and 11 maps and technical diagrams will document the soon-to-be-realized work of art, which when completed will consist of 7,500 saffron-colored gates placed at 12-foot intervals throughout 23 miles of pedestrian walkways lacing Central Park from 59th Street to 110th Street and from Central Park West to Fifth Avenue.

• Public Lecture by His All Holiness Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew, Spiritual Head of Worldwide Orthodox Christian Church, Presented in Conjunction with Upcoming Byzantium Exhibition at Metropolitan Museum

  Thursday, March 11, 2004, 5:00 a.m.

  His All Holiness Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew, spiritual head of the worldwide Orthodox Christian Church, will deliver the lecture "Byzantine Icons: A Legacy for Humanism" at The Metropolitan Museum of Art on Thursday, March 18. Presented in conjunction with the upcoming international loan exhibition Byzantium: Faith and Power (1261-1557), the lecture will take place at 2 p.m. in the Museum's Grace Rainey Rogers Auditorium. Reservations, which are required, may be obtained on a first-come, first-served basis by calling (212) 570-3792. The event is free to the public with Museum admission.

• Playing with Fire: European Terracotta Models, 1740-1840

  Tuesday, February 3, 2004, 5:00 a.m.

  Playing with Fire: European Terracotta Models, 1740-1840, the first major museum exhibition devoted to Neoclassical terracotta sculptures, will open at The Metropolitan Museum of Art on January 28, 2004. Unprecedented in scale and range, the exhibition unites approximately 135 works from collections throughout Europe and the U.S. Ranging from quick preliminary sketches to completely finished models, the sculptures demonstrate the dash and erudition of modelers across Europe during the Neoclassical age. The international character of the exhibition reflects the broad scope of this rich tradition and includes works by such great modelers as Antonio Canova, Augustin Pajou, Johann Heinrich Dannecker, Philippe-Laurent Roland, and Johan Tobias Sergel. The exhibition also examines the work of sculptors little known outside their home countries, such as the Russian Mikhail Ivanovich Kozlovsky and the Swiss Valentin Sonnenschein, as well as several anonymous modelers.

• Echoing Images: Couples in African Sculpture

  Tuesday, February 3, 2004, 5:00 a.m.

  Couples in African art and how that theme has been expressed in 28 cultures across the continent are explored in an exhibition at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, beginning February 10, 2004. Featuring some 60 works in wood, bronze, terracotta, and beadwork that were created between the 12th and the 20th centuries, Echoing Images: Couples in African Sculpture will provide for the first time a dynamic range of artistic commentaries on human duality. The works on exhibition draw primarily from important public and private collections in the New York area, including the American Museum of Natural History, the Brooklyn Museum of Art, and the High Museum in Atlanta.

• American Impressions, 1865-1935: Prints, Drawings, and Watercolors from the Collection

  Sunday, December 7, 2003, 5:00 a.m.

  More than 50 works on paper by some of the best-known and most highly regarded late 19th-century American artists will be displayed at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, beginning on June 8, in American Impressions, 1865-1935: Prints, Drawings, and Watercolors from the Collection. Among the artists featured will be such luminaries as Winslow Homer, James McNeill Whistler, Mary Cassatt, and Maurice Prendergast. The exhibition was organized to complement and coincide with the Museum's retrospective Childe Hassam, American Impressionist, opening to the public on June 10, and will situate Hassam within a broader context of artists of the same period who treated the same images and used the same media.

• The Douglas Dillon Legacy Chinese Painting for the Metropolitan Museum

  Sunday, December 7, 2003, 5:00 a.m.

  An exhibition of more than 60 Chinese paintings acquired through the generosity of Douglas Dillon (1909-2003) and The Dillon Fund, as well as gifts presented in his honor or memory will go on view at The Metropolitan Museum of Art beginning March 12, 2004. Featuring masterpieces dating from the eighth to the 18th century, The Douglas Dillon Legacy: Chinese Painting for the Metropolitan Museum will highlight his lasting contribution to the field of Chinese art.

• Playing with Fire: European Terracotta Models, 1740-1840

  Sunday, December 7, 2003, 5:00 a.m.

  Playing with Fire: European Terracotta Models, 1740-1840, the first major museum exhibition devoted to Neoclassical terracotta sculptures, will open at The Metropolitan Museum of Art on January 28, 2004. Unprecedented in scale and range, the exhibition unites approximately 135 works from collections throughout Europe and the U.S. Ranging from quick preliminary sketches to completely finished models, the sculptures demonstrate the dash and erudition of modelers across Europe during the Neoclassical age. The international character of the exhibition reflects the broad scope of this rich tradition and includes works by such great modelers as Antonio Canova, Augustin Pajou, Johann Heinrich Dannecker, Philippe-Laurent Roland, and Johan Tobias Sergel. The exhibition also examines the work of sculptors little-known outside their home countries, such as the Russian Mikhail Ivanovich Kozlovsky and the Swiss Valentin Sonnenschein, as well as several anonymous modelers.

• SCHEDULE OF EXHIBITIONS JANUARY - APRIL 2004

  Sunday, December 7, 2003, 5:00 a.m.

  EDITORS PLEASE NOTE: Information provided below is subject to change. To confirm scheduling and dates, call the Communications Department at (212) 570-3951.
  CONTACT NUMBER FOR USE IN TEXT IS (212) 535-7710.

• Chuck Close Prints: Process and Collaboration

  Sunday, December 7, 2003, 5:00 a.m.

  The first comprehensive survey of American artist Chuck Close's (b. 1940) groundbreaking innovations in the field of printmaking will be on view at The Metropolitan Museum of Art from January 13 through April 18, 2004. Chuck Close Prints: Process and Collaboration will feature approximately 100 prints, working proofs, and objects. Together they will document the creative and often highly experimental ways in which Close has re-interpreted the signature subject of his paintings and photographs – monumentally scaled images of the human head – into the artistic language of various print mediums.

• Echoing Images: Couples in African Sculpture

  Sunday, December 7, 2003, 5:00 a.m.

  Couples in African art and how that theme has been expressed in 30 cultures across the continent are explored in an exhibition at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, beginning February 10, 2004. Featuring some 60 works in wood, bronze, terracotta, and beadwork that were created between the 12th and the 20th centuries, Echoing Images: Couples in African Sculpture will provide for the first time a dynamic range of artistic commentaries on human duality. The works on exhibition draw primarily from important public and private collections in the New York area, including the American Museum of Natural History, the Brooklyn Museum of Art, and the High Museum in Atlanta.

• Painters of Reality: The Legacy of Leonardo and Caravaggio in Lombardy

  Sunday, December 7, 2003, 5:00 a.m.

  A major loan exhibition exploring the rich tradition of naturalism in painting of the North Italian region of Lombardy — most famously expressed in the works of Caravaggio — will open at The Metropolitan Museum of Art on May 27, 2004. Painters of Reality: The Legacy of Leonardo and Caravaggio in Lombardy, will feature some 80 paintings and 40 drawings that document the region's distinctive emphasis on observation of the natural world, beginning in the 15th century, with Leonardo da Vinci's stay in Milan, through the 18th century. A central figure in the exhibition is Caravaggio, through whom this naturalist approach came to Rome and became of key importance to Baroque art there and throughout Europe. On view through August 15, 2004, the exhibition will also feature works by such notable exemplars of the Lombard school as Lorenzo Lotto, Giovanni Girolamo Savoldo, Giacomo Ceruti, and the important women artists Sofonisba Anguissola and Fede Galizia. This will be the first time that this great school of Italian painting will be presented in the U.S.A in such depth.

• Christo and Jeanne-Claude: The Gates, Central Park, New York

  Sunday, December 7, 2003, 5:00 a.m.

  The evolution of the widely anticipated outdoor work of art for New York City initiated in 1979 by the husband-and-wife collaborators Christo and Jeanne-Claude will be the subject of the exhibition Christo and Jeanne-Claude: The Gates, Central Park, New York, on view at The Metropolitan Museum of Art from April 6 through July 25, 2004. Fifty preparatory drawings and collages by Christo, 40 photographs, and 10 maps and technical diagrams will document the soon-to-be-realized work of art, which when completed will consist of 7,500 saffron-colored gates placed at 12-foot intervals throughout 23 miles of pedestrian walkways lacing Central Park from 59th Street to 110th Street and from Central Park West to Fifth Avenue.

• Bravehearts: Men in Skirts

  Wednesday, November 5, 2003, 5:00 a.m.

  Throughout the history of Western dress, women have borrowed elements of men's clothing. And yet the reverse has rarely been the case. Nowhere is this asymmetry more apparent than in the taboo surrounding men in skirts. Bravehearts: Men in Skirts, an exhibition opening at The Metropolitan Museum of Art on November 4, looks at designers and individuals who have appropriated the skirt as a means of injecting novelty into male fashion, as a means of transgressing moral and social codes, and as a means of redefining ideal masculinities. In an unprecedented survey of "men in skirts" in historical and cross-cultural contexts, the exhibition will feature more than 100 items drawn from The Costume Institute's permanent collection, augmented by loans from cultural institutions and fashion houses in Europe and America.

• Hudson River School Visions: The Landscapes of Sanford R. Gifford

  Tuesday, September 30, 2003, 4:00 a.m.

  The noted American painter Sanford Robinson Gifford (1823-1880) – a master of the atmospheric landscape, who was the subject of the very first monographic exhibition in the Metropolitan's history 123 years ago – will be the subject of a major new retrospective at The Metropolitan Museum of Art this fall. This showing of Gifford's work will be the first in more than 30 years and only the second since his Memorial Exhibition at the Museum in 1880. Opening on October 7, Hudson River School Visions: The Landscapes of Sanford R. Gifford will feature some 70 paintings reflecting the artist's travels in America, Europe, and the Middle East.

• $368 MILLION ECONOMIC IMPACT ON NEW YORK CITY AND NEW YORK STATE GENERATED BY METROPOLITAN MUSEUM'S SPECIAL EXHIBITION MANET/VELáZQUEZ: THE FRENCH TASTE FOR SPANISH PAINTING

  Wednesday, September 10, 2003, 4:00 a.m.

  (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.

• New "Holiday Mondays" to Begin at Metropolitan Museum This Fall

  Tuesday, September 9, 2003, 4:00 a.m.

  (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.

• A Private Passion: 19th-Century Paintings and Drawings from the Grenville L. Winthrop Collection, Harvard University

  Thursday, September 4, 2003, 4:00 a.m.

  Two hundred nineteen works by leading 19th-century American, British, and French artists from the legendary collection formed by Grenville L. Winthop (1864-1943) will go on display at The Metropolitan Museum of Art on October 23, 2003. The exhibition, which marks the first time the collection has traveled since its bequest to Harvard in 1943, features paintings, drawings, and sculptures by more than 50 artists, including William Blake, Edward Burne-Jones, Jacques-Louis David, Eugène Delacroix, Théodore Géricault, Winslow Homer, Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres, Gustave Moreau, Camille Pissarro, Auguste Renoir, Auguste Rodin, Dante Gabriel Rossetti, John Singer Sargent, and James Abbott McNeill Whistler. A Private Passion: 19th-Century Paintings and Drawings from the Grenville L. Winthrop Collection, Harvard University will remain on view at the Metropolitan through January 25, 2004.

• First Survey of French Daguerreotypes—Many Among the Earliest Photographs Ever Taken—Opens at Metropolitan Museum on September 23

  Thursday, June 26, 2003, 4:00 a.m.

  Some 175 of the best surviving examples of a medium that changed the history of art and visual representation forever will be on view at The Metropolitan Museum of Art from September 23, 2003, through January 4, 2004. The Dawn of Photography: French Daguerreotypes, 1839-1855 is the first survey of key monuments from photography's first moments, when its pioneers used the invention for artistic, scientific, ethnographic, documentary, and other purposes. The exhibition will employ state-of-the-art display and lighting techniques to reveal the incomparable detail and sculptural quality that distinguishes this process and which led one of its earliest champions, Jules Janin, to describe the daguerreotype as "divine magic."

• The Responsive Eye: Ralph T. Coe and the Collecting of American Indian Art

  Wednesday, June 25, 2003, 4:00 a.m.

  Some 200 American Indian objects assembled over almost half a century by the renowned Santa Fe authority and collector Ralph T. Coe will go on view at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, beginning September 9. Featuring objects dating from 3000 B.C. to the present, The Responsive Eye: Ralph T. Coe and the Collecting of American Indian Art will display a wide-ranging selection of works representative of most of the diverse Native American regions and periods. Objects on view will range from authoritative masks and headdress frontlets of painted wood made by peoples of the Pacific Northwest, to splendidly ornamented deerskin shirts and smoking pipes of the high Plains, to delicate and carefully wrought works of the Northeast region made with a clear understanding of European taste and acquisitiveness.

• Dreams of Yellow Mountain: Landscapes of Survival in Seventeenth-Century China

  Wednesday, June 25, 2003, 4:00 a.m.

  An exhibition focusing on the 17th-century landscape painting of China's Nanjing School will go on view at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, beginning September 13. Comprising nearly 60 works, Dreams of Yellow Mountain: Landscapes of Survival in Seventeenth-Century China will highlight works created by "leftover subjects" of the Ming dynasty, who lived in and around Nanjing during the early years of the Manchu Qing dynasty (1644-1911). For these loyalist artists, images of landscape – often inspired by Yellow Mountain – symbolized survival, resistance, and reclusion in response to alien rule. Including works from the Museum's permanent holdings as well as loans from East Coast collections, the exhibition will be the most comprehensive presentation of such landscapes ever mounted in the United States.

• Treasures of a Lost Art: Italian Manuscript Painting of the Middle Ages and Renaissance

  Wednesday, June 25, 2003, 4:00 a.m.

  The first-ever public presentation of 101 works from the impressive group of Italian illuminated manuscripts assembled by Robert Lehman (1891-1969), one of the foremost American collectors of his day, opens at The Metropolitan Museum of Art on September 30, 2003. Treasures of a Lost Art: Italian Manuscript Painting of the Middle Ages and Renaissance, on view through February 1, 2004, features some of the finest examples of the illuminator's art—many of them previously unknown even to scholars—produced in Italy from the 13th through the 16th century. Among the many important new discoveries presented in the exhibition is the only known illumination by the great Sienese master Duccio di Buoninsegna.

• Urban Art by Christo and Jeanne-Claude The Gates Project for Central Park, 1979-2005 Previews at Metropolitan Museum in April 2004

  Wednesday, June 25, 2003, 4:00 a.m.

  The evolution of the widely anticipated outdoor work of art for New York City initiated in 1979 by the husband-and-wife collaborators Christo and Jeanne-Claude will be the subject of the exhibition Christo and Jeanne-Claude: The Gates, Central Park, New York, on view at The Metropolitan Museum of Art from April 6 through July 25, 2004. Some 45 preparatory drawings and collages by Christo, 40 photographs, and 10 maps and technical diagrams will document the soon-to-be-realized work of art, which when completed will consist of 7,500 saffron-colored gates placed at 10- to 15-foot intervals throughout 23 miles of pedestrian walkways lacing Central Park from 59th Street to 110th Street and from Central Park West to Fifth Avenue.

• Genesis: Ideas of Origin in African Sculpture

  Thursday, June 12, 2003, 4:00 a.m.

  More than 75 exceptional examples of sculpture from some of the finest public and private collections of African art in the United States will be shown at The Metropolitan Museum of Art in Genesis: Ideas of Origin in African Sculpture, opening to the public on November 19. The works relate to traditions that interweave elements of myth, history, religion, and contemporary experience to address universal questions: How did the world begin? What is our ancestry? What is the source of agriculture, kingship, and other societal institutions? The exhibition represents the first time that 17 distinct sculptural traditions that take their inspiration from myths of origin will be considered together. Examined in particular depth will be that of the Bamana (Bambara) people of Mali. Forty stunning ci wara (Chi Wara) antelope headdresses – a classical sculptural form from the Bamana – will constitute the largest assemblage of such works and will allow viewers an appreciation of this tradition in its fullest expression. These works will be introduced by 35 rarely seen masterpieces from 16 distinct cultural traditions from sub-Saharan Africa.

• Manet/Velázquez: The French Taste for Spanish Painting to Open at Metropolitan Museum March 4

  Thursday, June 12, 2003, 4:00 a.m.

  The first major exhibition ever to examine the impact of 17th-century Spanish painting on 19th-century French artists will feature nearly 240 paintings and works on paper spanning several centuries of European art at the most astounding levels of achievement. On view will be some 130 paintings by Velázquez, Murillo, Ribera, El Greco, Zurbarán, and other masters of Spain's Golden Age as well as masterpieces by the 19th-century French artists they influenced, among them Delacroix, Courbet, Millet, Degas, and, most notably, Manet. On view at The Metropolitan Museum of Art from March 4 through June 8, 2003, Manet/Velázquez: The French Taste for Spanish Painting will also include works by American artists such as Sargent, Chase, Eakins, Whistler, and Cassatt, who studied in France but learned to paint like Spaniards.

• Metropolitan Museum Extends Popular Landmark Exhibition Manet/Velázquez: The French Taste for Spanish Painting through June 29

  Thursday, May 29, 2003, 4:00 a.m.

  (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.

• First Major Retrospective of Dutch Master Hendrick Goltzius To Open at Metropolitan Museum June 26

  Wednesday, May 21, 2003, 4:00 a.m.

  The first major retrospective devoted to the virtuoso Netherlandish mannerist Hendrick Goltzius – one of the most versatile and accomplished figures in the history of art – will open at The Metropolitan Museum of Art on June 26, 2003. Hendrick Goltzius, Dutch Master (1558-1617): Drawings, Prints, and Paintings, an international loan exhibition of more than 160 works, spans the artist's entire career and demonstrates his legendary mastery of a remarkably wide range of media, subject matter, and styles – from extravagantly complex mythological scenes in prints, to sensitively observed studies from nature, to sumptuously colored oil paintings on canvas and copper. The exhibition remains on view at the Metropolitan through September 7, 2003.

• Civilizations of Ancient Iraq, Syria, Turkey, and Pakistan Featured in Landmark Metropolitan Museum Show

  Sunday, May 4, 2003, 4:00 a.m.

  The remarkable flowering of the world's earliest civilizations some 5,000 years ago in Mesopotamia—present-day Iraq—will be the focus of a landmark exhibition opening at The Metropolitan Museum of Art on May 8. The culmination of years of planning and research, Art of the First Cities: The Third Millennium B.C. from the Mediterranean to the Indus will survey the evolution of art and culture in the land between the rivers Tigris and Euphrates and their impact on the emerging cities of the ancient world—from the Aegean and Eastern Mediterranean across Central Asia and along the Gulf to the Indus Valley—during one of the most seminal and creative periods in history. Some 50 museums from more than a dozen countries in Europe, Asia, and the Middle East will participate in this ambitious exhibition, lending national treasures that have rarely, if ever, been sent outside the walls of their art institutions.

• Metropolitan Museum to Expand Hours for Final Weekend of Leonardo da Vinci, Master Draftsman Exhibition

  Monday, March 24, 2003, 5:00 a.m.

  (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.

• Great Waves: Chinese Themes in the Arts of Korea and Japan

  Monday, February 10, 2003, 5:00 a.m.

  An exhibition examining the successive waves of artistic influence that flowed from China eastward to the Korean peninsula and the Japanese archipelago over the past 1,000 years will take place at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, beginning in March 2003. Great Waves: Chinese Themes in the Arts of Korea and Japan, drawn from the Museum's unparalleled collection of East Asian painting, will explore how Chinese pictorial themes – Buddhist iconography, landscape imagery, flower and bird subjects, and figural narratives – were adopted selectively and reinterpreted by native artists in Korea and Japan. Organized thematically, the exhibition will focus on landscapes and images from nature in the Douglas Dillon Galleries for Chinese Painting and Calligraphy (opening March 1), and on the figural arts, including religious and narrative themes, in The Sackler Wing Galleries for the Arts of Japan (opening March 15). Works from China, Japan, and Korea will be shown in both gallery areas.

• Hendrick Goltzius (1558-1617): Prints, Drawings, and Paintings

  Tuesday, December 31, 2002, 5:00 a.m.

  The first major retrospective devoted to the virtuoso Netherlandish mannerist Hendrick Goltzius will open at The Metropolitan Museum of Art on June 26, 2003. Hendrick Goltzius, Dutch Master (1558-1617): Drawings, Prints, and Paintings—a selection of some 80 prints, 69 drawings, and 13 paintings, including loans from collections throughout Europe and the United States—spans the artist's entire career and demonstrates his legendary mastery of a remarkably wide range of media, subject matter and styles.

• Manet and the American Civil War: The Battle of the "Kearsarge" and the "Alabama"

  Sunday, November 24, 2002, 5:00 a.m.

  In June of 1864, an important episode in the American Civil War took place in international waters off the coast of Cherbourg, France. The duel between the U.S.S. Kearsarge and the C.S.S. Alabama created a sensation in Europe and America alike, and caught the imagination of the French artist Édouard Manet (1832-83), who made a painting of the battle before rushing to Boulogne to see the victorious Kearsarge. The Metropolitan Museum of Art recently acquired Manet's portrait of the Kearsarge and to celebrate the acquisition will present a small exhibition devoted to the battle, Manet's response, and the effect of Manet's paintings on his immediate friends. Manet and the American Civil War: The Battle of the "Kearsarge" and the "Alabama" is a dossier exhibition that opens on June 3.

• Art of the First Cities: The Third Millennium B.C. from the Mediterranean to the Indus

  Sunday, November 24, 2002, 5:00 a.m.

  The remarkable flowering of the world's earliest civilizations in Mesopotamia some 5,000 years ago will be the focus of a landmark exhibition opening at The Metropolitan Museum of Art on May 8. Art of the First Cities: The Third Millennium B.C. from the Mediterranean to the Indus will survey the evolution of Mesopotamian art and culture and its impact on the cities of the ancient world – stretching from the Aegean and Eastern Mediterranean across Central Asia to the Indus Valley – during one of the most seminal and creative periods in history.

• Three Stellar Acquisitions Join Collections of The Metropolitan Museum of Art

  Sunday, November 24, 2002, 5:00 a.m.

  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).

• STATEMENT BY METROPOLITAN MUSEUM OF ART ON DAMAGE TO TULLIO LOMBARDO'S ADAM

  Monday, October 7, 2002, 4:00 a.m.

  (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.

• Christmas Tree and Neapolitan Baroque Creche

  Wednesday, October 2, 2002, 4:00 a.m.

  The Christmas tree and Neapolitan Baroque crèche at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, a long-established yuletide tradition in New York, will be on view for the holiday season beginning November 26. The brightly lit, 20-foot blue spruce – with a collection of 18th-century Neapolitan angels and cherubs among its boughs and groups of realistic crèche figures flanking the Nativity scene at its base – will once again delight holiday visitors in the Museum's Medieval Sculpture Hall. Set in front of the 18th-century Spanish choir screen from the Cathedral of Valladolid, with recorded Christmas music in the background, the installation reflects the spirit of the holiday season. There will be a spectacular lighting ceremony every Friday and Saturday evening at 7:00 p.m.

• Arts of the Spanish Americas to be Highlighted in Metropolitan Museum Fall Exhibition

  Wednesday, October 2, 2002, 4:00 a.m.

  An exhibition of secular and religious arts created in Latin America during the period of Spanish rule will open at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, beginning October 11. Featuring nearly 70 works of art, Arts of the Spanish Americas, 1550-1850: Works from the Museum's CollectionI will highlight the creativity of artists working in the regions colonized by Spain, from the Rio Grande to the Andes, from the period of evangelization through Independence. The exhibition will include a selection of Mexican glazed ceramic ware know as Talavera de Puebla, Mexican and Andean textiles and silver, paintings and polychrome sculpture from all over the Spanish-speaking Americas and the Philippines, and a group of wooden kero cups, the traditional ceremonial drinking vessels of the Andes.