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• 修道院藝術博物館: 概述

  Sunday, October 3, 2004, 4:13 p.m.

• 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.

• EMILY K. RAFFERTY ELECTED NEXT PRESIDENT OF METROPOLITAN MUSEUM

  Monday, September 13, 2004, 4:00 a.m.

  (New York, September 14, 2004)—The Metropolitan Museum of Art today announced that Emily Kernan Rafferty, an accomplished senior executive at the Museum, will become its next President, effective with the previously announced retirement of David E. McKinney on January 15, 2005. Ms. Rafferty was formally elected to the presidency today at the regular meeting of the Metropolitan's Board of Trustees. The decision was announced by James R. Houghton, Chairman of the Board of Trustees, and Philippe de Montebello, the Museum's Director and Chief Executive Officer.

• SCHEDULE OF EXHIBITIONS SEPTEMBER–DECEMBER 2004

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

  SCHEDULE OF EXHIBITIONS SEPTEMBER–DECEMBER 2004 New Exhibitions
  Upcoming Exhibitions
  Continuing Exhibitions
  New and Recently Opened Installations
  Traveling Exhibitions
  Visitor Information
  Closing Soon
  SPECIAL NOTE

• Gilbert Stuart, Renowned Portraitist of America's First Presidents, To Be Featured in Full Retrospective at Metropolitan Museum

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

  Gilbert Stuart (1755-1828), the most successful and resourceful portraitist of America's early national period, is best remembered today for his many incisive likenesses of George Washington. This fall, in the artist's first retrospective in nearly four decades, The Metropolitan Museum of Art will show nearly 100 exceptional works that reveal his talent for capturing both the appearance and the character of his many prominent clients. Representing all periods of Stuart's long career and featuring works drawn from private collections and museums in America and Britain, Gilbert Stuart opens on October 21.

• 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.

• 修道院艺术博物馆: 概述

  Tuesday, August 3, 2004, 2:37 p.m.

• نبذة عامة : "The Met Cloisters" متحف

  Tuesday, August 3, 2004, 2:36 p.m.

• 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.

• Metropolitan Museum Announces Fall/Winter Schedule of Programs for Children and Their Families

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

  (New York, August 4, 2004) – The Metropolitan Museum of Art today announced its schedule of weekend and weekday programs for children and their families for the period October 2004 through January 2005. In addition to an extensive range of age-specific art programs, the Metropolitan's amenities for families include special greeters on weekends and on Holiday Mondays, family Audio Guide tours, free printed guides for independent activities within the Museum, family-friendly dining – including a special children's menu in the cafeteria – a MetKids catalogue, Children's Shop, and "MuseumKids" Web page.

• Romare Bearden at the Met

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

  On the occasion of the citywide celebration of the artist's life and work, The Metropolitan Museum of Art will present a special installation, Romare Bearden at the Met, from October 19, 2004, through March 6, 2005.

• The Armored Horse in Europe, ca. 1475 to 1625

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

  Forty rare examples of European horse armor – varying in style, construction, and decoration – will go on view at The Metropolitan Museum of Art on December 14, 2004. The exhibition, The Armored Horse in Europe, ca. 1475 to 1625 – drawn exclusively from the Museum's own collection – will cover the peak period of the use of horse armor from around 1500 through its eventual obsolescence in the early 17th century. Established in 1912, the Metropolitan's Department of Arms and Armor houses the most extensive collection of European horse armor in the United States and one of the most comprehensive in the world.

• 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.

• SCHEDULE OF EXHIBITIONS MAY–AUGUST 2004

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

  New Exhibitions
  Upcoming Exhibitions
  Continuing Exhibitions
  New and Recently Opened Installations

• 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.

• The Bishop Jades

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

  An exhibition of some 100 precious Chinese and Mughal jade carvings from the Heber R. Bishop collection will open at The Metropolitan Museum of Art this spring. Featuring the objects from practical vessels and pendants to ornaments intended for the emperor's desk, The Bishop Jades will illustrate the full range of the lapidary's repertoire. An industrialist and entrepreneur, Mr. Bishop was an active patron of the arts and a trustee of the Metropolitan Museum. In the late 19th century, he assembled a collection of more than one thousand pieces of jade and other hardstones from China and elsewhere, and in 1902, he bequeathed the collection to the Museum.

• 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.

• Metropolitan Museum Announces Retirement of President David E. McKinney in January 2005; Trustees Launch Process to Choose Successor

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

  (New York, June 11, 2004)—The Metropolitan Museum of Art today announced that the Museum's President, David E. McKinney, would retire in January 2005, soon after he reaches the age of 70.

• 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.

• Metropolitan Museum of Art Unveils Great Modern Gift: The Pierre and Maria-Gaetana Matisse Collection

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

  The recent gift of more than 100 works from the Pierre and Maria-Gaetana Matisse Foundation will be celebrated in a major exhibition opening on May 18, 2004. Collected by New York art dealer Pierre Matisse (1900-1989), the younger son of French painter Henri Matisse, the selection includes paintings, sculpture, and drawings by such icons of 20th-century art as Matisse, Balthus, Chagall, Derain, Dubuffet, Giacometti, Magritte, Miró, and Tanguy. The Pierre and Maria-Gaetana Matisse Collection, on view through June 26, 2005, will feature highlights from the Foundation's gifts together with works previously donated by Mr. and Mrs. Matisse.

• August Sander: People of the Twentieth Century. A Photographic Portrait of Germany

  Tuesday, April 20, 2004, 4:00 a.m.

  Approximately 150 images by the pioneering German photographer August Sander (1876-1964) will be on view at The Metropolitan Museum of Art beginning May 25, 2004. The photographs are drawn from the artist's most famous project, People of the Twentieth Century (Menschen des 20. Jahrhunderts), which was envisioned as a comprehensive visual record of the German populace.

• Andy Goldsworthy on the Roof

  Tuesday, April 20, 2004, 4:00 a.m.

  British sculptor Andy Goldsworthy (born 1956), known for working in, and with, the natural landscape, has been invited by The Metropolitan Museum of Art to create the sculpture installation for The Iris and B. Gerald Cantor Roof Garden, opening to the public on May 4, 2004. Andy Goldsworthy on the Roof will consist of two monumental, organic domes of wood and stone, inspired by the immediate surroundings of Central Park and its architectural setting. This special project will be exhibited in the 10,000-square-foot open-air space that offers spectacular views across Central Park to the Manhattan skyline. This is one in a series of solo-artist installations presented on the Cantor Roof Garden, and the first to be constructed on site by the artist.

• 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.

• METROPOLITAN MUSEUM ANNOUNCES SUMMER 2004 WEEKDAY & WEEKEND DROP-IN PROGRAMS FOR CHILDREN AND THEIR FAMILIES

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

  The following English- and Spanish-language weekday and weekend programs for children up to age 12 and their adult companions will be offered by The Metropolitan Museum of Art from Tuesday, July 6, through Sunday, August 8, 2004. These drop-in programs are free with Museum admission, and all materials are provided.

• 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.

• Metropolitan Museum Announces Promotions in Department of Photographs

  Sunday, March 28, 2004, 5:00 a.m.

  The Metropolitan Museum of Art announced today that Malcolm Daniel, Acting Curator in Charge of the Department of Photographs for the past seven months, would assume the post of Curator in Charge, effective immediately. The appointment – ratified February 10 by the Executive Committee of the Museum's Board of Trustees – will allow Maria Morris Hambourg, founding curator of the department and its head for the past 12 years, to assume the post of Consulting Curator. In this new role, Ms. Hambourg will continue to work closely with the department on special projects, exhibitions, and acquisitions, free of day-to-day administrative duties.

• Dazzling Byzantine Treasures Displayed in Major International Exhibition at Metropolitan Museum, Opening March 23

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

  As the triumphant Byzantine general Michael VIII Palaiologos entered Constantinople on August 15, 1261, carrying aloft the famed icon of the Virgin Hodegetria, the city's eternal protector, he initiated an artistic and intellectual flowering in Byzantium, and among its East Christian rivals, that would endure for nearly 300 years. The restoration of the "Empire of the Romans" – the basileia ton Rhomaion – just 57 years after the fall of Constantinople to the knights of the Fourth Crusade in 1204, encouraged faith-inspired art of astonishing beauty and widespread influence.

• 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.

• METROPOLITAN MUSEUM LAUNCHES '21st-CENTURY MET': INTERIOR CONSTRUCTION PLAN TO RETURN ROMAN AND HELLENISTIC ART TO PUBLIC VIEW IN MAJESTIC NEW SETTING, RENOVATE AND REINSTALL GALLERIES FOR ISLAMIC ART, 19th-CENTURY ART, MODERN ART, AND MODERN PHOTOGRAPHY,

  Monday, February 23, 2004, 5:00 a.m.

  (NEW YORK, FEBRUARY 24, 2004)—The Metropolitan Museum of Art today announced plans to launch—and fund—a series of milestone 21st-Century Met interior construction projects aimed at dramatically enhancing the Museum's displays of Hellenistic and Roman art, Etruscan art, Islamic art, 19th-century art, modern art, and modern photography. Additionally, the major new "building-from-within" program will substantially upgrade the Museum's Ruth and Harold D. Uris Center for Education, the traditional welcoming point of entry for some 125,000 school visitors each year. To finance the projects, the Museum announced a new plan to complete private funding for the construction and rehabilitation work.

• Major Gift of Diane Arbus Photographs Promised to The Metropolitan Museum of Art

  Thursday, February 19, 2004, 5:00 a.m.

  (New York, February 17, 2004)--An important group of photographs by Diane Arbus, one of the most original and influential photographers of the last half-century, will join the collections of The Metropolitan Museum of Art as the promised gift of collectors Danielle and David Ganek. The 13 rare, vintage prints represent one of the most significant acquisitions of 20th-century photography in the history of the Metropolitan and more than double the Museum's holdings of works by the artist.

• $345 MILLION ECONOMIC IMPACT ON NEW YORK CITY AND NEW YORK STATE GENERATED BY METROPOLITAN MUSEUM'S SPECIAL EXHIBITION EL GRECO

  Wednesday, February 18, 2004, 5:00 a.m.

  (New York, February 17, 2004) – National, regional, and foreign tourists visiting The Metropolitan Museum of Art's acclaimed fall 2003 exhibition, El Greco, spent a combined $345 million during their visits to New York City, according to a Museum audience survey released today. Using the standard ratios for calculating tax revenue impact, the direct tax benefit to New York City and New York State from visitors who said that seeing the exhibition was important to their decision to visit the City is estimated at $14.5 million.

• Selected Masterpieces from Metropolitan Museum's Collection of Islamic Art on View During Gallery Renovation

  Tuesday, February 17, 2004, 5:00 a.m.

  A key milestone in the final phase of The Metropolitan Museum of Art's 1993 master plan for construction in the southern part of its main building will be initiated this month, with the temporary closing of the galleries for Islamic art for enlargement, renovation, and restoration beginning June 2. Over the next several years, the 30-year-old galleries will be expanded to include additional display space and updated to reflect the most recent scholarship and museological practices.

• Poets, Lovers and Heroes in Italian Mythological Prints

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

  Printmaking revolutionized artistic production in the 15th century by allowing artists to create numerous impressions from a single matrix and distribute their work to a wider audience then ever before. Italian artists from Mantegna to Canova embraced the medium, focusing their efforts largely on depictions of scenes from Greek and Roman mythology. A new exhibition exploring the Italian passion for mythological prints that started in the Renaissance and lasted into the early decades of the 19th century opens on February 3, 2004, at The Metropolitan Museum of Art. Drawn from the Metropolitan Museum's collections, Poets, Lovers, and Heroes in Italian Mythological Prints showcases more than 100 woodcuts, engravings, and etchings, as well as illustrated books, by such artists as Jacopo de' Barbari, Marcantonio Raimondi, Ugo da Carpi, Agostino and Annibale Carracci, Salvator Rosa, Giovanni Benedetto Castiglione, and Giambattista and Domenico Tiepolo among others.

• 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.

• Once-in-a-Lifetime Viewing Opportunity within Old Kingdom Tombs at New Gateway to Metropolitan Museum's Egyptian Collection

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

  The Metropolitan Museum of Art announced today the eagerly awaited reopening of the Old Kingdom tombs of Perneb and Raemkai – which will go on temporary view without the glass panels that will be installed later this spring – for a rare six-week viewing by the public.

• 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.

• Metropolitan Museum Opens Galleries, Exhibitions for Presidents' Day, February 16

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

  (New York, February 4, 2004) - The Metropolitan Museum of Art's recently inaugurated and highly popular "Holiday Mondays" program will continue February 16 with the opening of the Museum's galleries and exhibitions to the public on Presidents' Day.

• Metropolitan Museum Opens Galleries, Exhibitions for Martin Luther King Jr. Day, January 19

  Monday, January 12, 2004, 5:00 a.m.

  (New York, January 13, 2004) – In the latest of its recently inaugurated and highly popular new series of "Holiday Mondays," The Metropolitan Museum of Art will mark Martin Luther King Jr. Day by opening its galleries and exhibitions to the public on Monday, January 19.

• 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.

• Retrospective Celebrates Pioneer American Impressionist Childe Hassam

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

  Childe Hassam (1859-1935), a pioneer of American Impressionism and perhaps its most devoted, prolific, and successful practitioner, was born in Dorchester, Massachusetts (now part of Boston), into a family descended from settlers of the Massachusetts Bay Colony. Equally adept at capturing the charms of country retreats and the excitement of modern cities, Hassam became the foremost chronicler of New York City at the turn of the century. In our day, he is best known for his depictions of flag-draped Fifth Avenue during World War I.

• 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.

• The Pierre and Maria-Gaetana Matisse Collection

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

  The recent gift of more than 100 works from the Pierre and Maria-Gaetana Matisse Foundation—one of the largest donations made to The Metropolitan Museum of Art's Department of Modern Art—will be celebrated in a major exhibition opening on May 18, 2004. Collected by New York art dealer Pierre Matisse (1900-1989), the younger son of French painter Henri Matisse, the selection includes paintings, sculpture, and drawings by such icons of 20th-century art as Matisse, Balthus, Chagall, Derain, Dubuffet, Giacometti, Magritte, Miró, and Tanguy. The Pierre and Maria-Gaetana Matisse Collection, on view through June 26, 2005, will feature highlights from the Foundation's gifts together with works previously donated by Mr. and Mrs. Matisse.

• 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.

• Ruhlmann: Genius of Art Deco/Art Deco Paris

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

  The highest achievements of French Art Deco, the style that epitomizes the glamour and sophistication of 1920s Paris, will be explored in two related exhibitions, concurrently on view at the The Metropolitan Museum of Art from June 8 through September 5, 2004.

• 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.

• Chocolate, Coffee, Tea

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

  The introduction of chocolate, coffee, and tea into 17th-century Europe resulted from the sustained contacts of seagoing nations — primarily Portugal, Spain, England, and Holland — and direct trade with formerly inaccessible parts of the world, such as Mexico, Arabia, and China. A large variety of furniture and utensils was developed to serve the new drinks, first for the great households and quickly thereafter for the popular market. A new exhibition, Chocolate, Coffee, Tea, will show the amazing response in Europe by the luxury trades — silver, porcelain, glass, and pottery — in providing a new range of utensils for these new beverages. Drawn from the collections of The Metropolitan Museum of Art, the exhibition will be on view from February 3 through July 11, 2004.

• 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.

• Poets, Lovers and Heroes in Italian Mythological Prints

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

  Printmaking revolutionized artistic production in the 15th century by allowing artists to create numerous impressions from a single matrix and distribute their work to a wider audience then ever before. Italian artists from Mantegna to Canova embraced the medium, focusing their efforts largely on depictions of scenes from Greek and Roman mythology. A new exhibition exploring the Italian passion for mythological prints that started in the Renaissance and lasted into the early decades of the 19th century opens on February 3, 2004, at The Metropolitan Museum of Art. Drawn from the Metropolitan Museum's collections, Poets, Lovers, and Heroes in Italian Mythological Prints showcases more than 100 woodcuts, engravings, and etchings, as well as illustrated books, by such artists as Jacopo de' Barbari, Marcantonio Raimondi, Ugo da Carpi, Agostino and Annibale Carracci, Salvator Rosa, and Giovanni Benedetto Castiglione, among others.

• "People of the Twentieth Century": August Sander's Photographic Portrait of Germany

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

  Approximately 150 images by the pioneering German photographer August Sander (1876-1964) will be on view at The Metropolitan Museum of Art beginning May 25, 2004. The photographs are drawn from the artist's most famous project, People of the Twentieth Century (Menschen des 20 Jahrhunderts), which was envisioned as a comprehensive visual record of the German populace.

• 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.

• Dazzling Byzantine Treasures Displayed in Major International Exhibition at Metropolitan Museum, Opening March 2004

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

  As the triumphant Byzantine general Michael VIII Palaiologos entered Constantinople on August 15, 1261, carrying aloft the famed icon of the Virgin Hodegetria, the city's eternal protector, he initiated an artistic and intellectual flowering in Byzantium, and among its East Christian rivals, that would endure for nearly 300 years. The restoration of the "Empire of the Romans" – the basilea ton Rhomaion – just 57 years after the fall of Constantinople to the knights of the Fourth Crusade in 1204, encouraged faith-inspired art of astonishing beauty and widespread influence.

• Metropolitan Museum's Weekend Programs For Children and Their Families

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

  The Metropolitan Museum of Art offers a variety of weekend programs for children and families – featuring special greeters, family Audio Guide tours, free printed guides for independent activities within the Museum, and an extensive range of age-specific art programs conducted by Museum instructors.

• 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.

• METROPOLITAN MUSEUM ANNOUNCES WEEKEND & WEEKDAY "DROP-IN" PROGRAMS FOR FAMILIES IN NOVEMBER AND DECEMBER 2003

  Tuesday, November 4, 2003, 5:00 a.m.

  The following programs for children up to age 12 and their adult companions will be offered by The Metropolitan Museum of Art during November and December 2003. These drop-in programs are free with Museum admission, and all materials are provided.

• Medieval Gallery Re-Opens at The Cloisters

  Wednesday, October 22, 2003, 4:00 a.m.

  The reconstructed 12th-century cloister from the French monastery of St.-Guilhem-le-Désert will return to view this fall – under a new skylight that will protect its fragile limestone carvings from the elements – at The Cloisters, The Metropolitan Museum of Art's branch museum for medieval art in northern Manhattan. The enclosed courtyard gallery from St.-Guilhem will reopen to the public on October 7 after nearly two years of construction, cleaning, and reinstallation. Also returning to view in this space will be the Museum's collection of Italian Romanesque architectural sculpture.

• Jackson Pollock Drawings, On View at Metropolitan Museum, Reveal El Greco's Influence on Modern Artist

  Thursday, October 2, 2003, 4:00 a.m.

  The Metropolitan Museum of Art will present five drawings by American Abstract Expressionist Jackson Pollock (1912-1956) in connection with its landmark exhibition of works by the great 16th-century painter Domenikos Theotokopoulos (1541-1614) -known to posterity as El Greco. The drawings will be on view in the Museum's Robert Wood Johnson, Jr. Gallery for the duration of the El Greco exhibition, from October 7, 2003 through January 11, 2004.

• 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.

• SCHEDULE OF EXHIBITIONS SEPTEMBER–DECEMBER 2003

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

  New Exhibitions
  Upcoming Exhibitions
  Continuing Exhibitions
  New and Recently Opened Installations

• SCHEDULE OF EXHIBITIONS MAY-AUGUST 2003

  Sunday, July 6, 2003, 4:00 a.m.

• Central Park: A Sesquicentennial Celebration

  Sunday, July 6, 2003, 4:00 a.m.

  This summer, in celebration of the 150th anniversary of the legislation (July 21, 1853) that designated as "a public place" the lands that were to become New York's Central Park, The Metropolitan Museum of Art will present an exhibition about the design and construction of the park. The Metropolitan Museum has been located in Central Park since 1880.

• El Greco

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

  The first major retrospective in more than 20 years devoted to the great 16th-century painter Domenikos Theotokopoulos (1541-1614) – known to posterity as El Greco – will open at The Metropolitan Museum of Art on October 7, 2003. One of the most original artists of his age, El Greco was celebrated for his highly expressive and visionary religious paintings. The international loan exhibition's approximately 80 works include an unsurpassed selection of his psychologically compelling portraits, as well as his rare incursions into landscape, genre, mythology, and sculpture. Particular emphasis will be placed on his late works, in which mystical content, expressive distortions, and monumental scale are taken to ever greater extremes, culminating in the Adoration of Shepherds, the spectacular nine-foot-tall painting created to decorate his own tomb.

• 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.

• Philip Guston

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

  The American painter Philip Guston (American, b. Canada, 1913-1980) will be the subject of a major retrospective at The Metropolitan Museum of Art from October 27, 2003, through January 4, 2004. The exhibition will include more than 75 paintings and drawings dating from 1930, when he was 17, to 1980, the year of his death. Beginning with his childhood fascination with popular American comic strips, through mural painting laden with political imagery, to easel painting and a burgeoning interest in, advancement of, and ultimate disenchantment with abstraction and Abstract Expressionism, through his invention of a highly controversial figurative mode of painting and drawing that influenced younger artists, Guston courageously changed styles according to his beliefs and in response to social and political issues of the day.

• $220 MILLION ECONOMIC IMPACT ON NEW YORK CITY AND NEW YORK STATE GENERATED BY METROPOLITAN MUSEUM'S RECENT SPECIAL EXHIBITION LEONARDO DA VINCI, MASTER DRAFTSMAN

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

  (New York, June 18, 2003) – National, regional, and foreign tourists spent a combined $220 million in New York City during their visits to see The Metropolitan Museum of Art's acclaimed winter exhibition Leonardo da Vinci, Master Draftsman, according to a Museum audience survey released today. The visitor spending generated an estimated $12 million in direct tax revenues for the City and State.

• 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.

• African-American Artists, 1929-1945: Prints, Drawings, and Paintings in The Metropolitan Museum of Art

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

  More than 70 works—drawn extensively from 204 prints donated to the Museum by Reba and Dave Williams in 1999—will be on view at The Metropolitan Museum of Art from January 15 through May 4, 2003.

• 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 of Art Creates Spacious Public Cafeteria, Centerpiece of New, Expanded Museum Restaurant Program

  Tuesday, June 10, 2003, 4:00 a.m.

  New York, June 4, 2003 – A spacious, attractively informal new public cafeteria for visitors to The Metropolitan Museum of Art will open on Tuesday, June 17. Located at the very center of the Museum, on the ground floor beneath the Medieval Sculpture Hall, this handsome cafeteria—which comfortably seats 440—replaces the long-time first-floor restaurant adjacent to the Mary and Michael Jaharis Gallery for Greek and Roman art. At the same time, the existing Petrie Court Café—located along the glass wall facing west into Central Park from the Carroll and Milton Petrie European Sculpture Court—will reopen concurrently as a full-service restaurant for Museum visitors, featuring café cuisine accompanied by breathtaking views of the park.

• Celebrating Saint Petersburg

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

  The 300th anniversary of the founding of Saint Petersburg will be celebrated at The Metropolitan Museum of Art with a display of the Museum's important holdings of sculpture and decorative works of art, either made in the imperial Russian capital or formerly included in Saint Petersburg collections.

• 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.

• Charles Sheeler's Contemporaries

  Monday, May 12, 2003, 4:00 a.m.

  Some 40 vintage photographs from the collections of The Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Gilman Paper Company will be on view at The Metropolitan Museum of Art from June 3 through August 17, 2003, complementing The Photography of Charles Sheeler. Ranging from Frederick H. Evans's rich platinum prints of the interior of William Morris's home (1896), to Ralph Steiner's Power Lines and Insulators (1929), Charles Sheeler's Contemporaries will feature works by early 20th-century photographers who drew inspiration from the American city, the machine, and the radical innovations of European modernists.

• Goddess to be Theme of Costume Institute's Spring 2003 Exhibition and Gala at Metropolitan Museum

  Monday, May 5, 2003, 4:00 a.m.

  From the clothing of ancient Greece to such modern evocations as Madame Grès's emblematic creations and Versace's Neoclassical loincloths, classical dress has profoundly inspired and influenced art and fashion through the millennia. Goddess – a major exhibition opening in The Metropolitan Museum of Art's Costume Institute on May 1, 2003 – will present clothing, prints, photographs, and decorative works of art from the 18th century onward, to reveal the many ways in which classical dress has become a truly timeless style.

• 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.

• Statement by Philippe de Montebello, Director, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, On the Looting of the Baghdad Museum

  Sunday, April 20, 2003, 4:00 a.m.

  Even as the Metropolitan Museum continues working to open on May 8 its long-scheduled, and now providential international loan exhibition "Art of the First Cities," featuring so many masterpieces of art from ancient Iraq, we join the greater museum community in mourning the horrifying plunder of the Baghdad Museum. And we stand prepared to join our fellow institutions to begin restoring the Baghdad Museum at the earliest possible opportunity.

• The Photography of Charles Sheeler

  Saturday, April 12, 2003, 4:00 a.m.

  Nearly 100 works, including 90 photographs, by Charles Sheeler (1883-1965), one of the most important American artists of the first half of the 20th century and a pioneer of American modernism, will be on view at The Metropolitan Museum of Art from June 3 through August 17, 2003. The Photography of Charles Sheeler, is the first major exhibition to concentrate on each of Sheeler's landmark photographic series made between 1915 and 1939, and will consist of rare vintage prints. The exhibition will reveal the full significance of Sheeler's photographs as the foundation from which his better-known works in other mediums were derived.

• 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.

• Pierre and Maria-Gaetana Matisse Collection of Modern Art Donated to Metropolitan Museum

  Wednesday, February 26, 2003, 5:00 a.m.

  More than 100 paintings, sculptures, drawings, and original prints by some of the most prominent artists of the 20th century have been donated by the Pierre and Maria-Gaetana Matisse Foundation to The Metropolitan Museum of Art. These works – by such modern art icons as Henri Matisse, Balthus, Chagall, Derain, Dubuffet, Giacometti, Miró, and Tanguy, as well as several pivotal but lesser-known artists – were collected by the New York art dealer Pierre Matisse (1900-1989).

• 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.

• SCHEDULE OF EXHIBITIONS JANUARY-APRIL 2003

  Wednesday, January 8, 2003, 5:00 a.m.

  New Exhibitions
  Upcoming Exhibitions
  Continuing Exhibitions
  New and Recently Opened Installations

• 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.

• Rare Porcelain Made in China for Export to Go on View at Metropolitan Museum

  Monday, December 16, 2002, 5:00 a.m.

  One of the most important and comprehensive collections of Chinese export porcelain in America will go on view at The Metropolitan Museum of Art on January 14, 2003. Featuring more than 80 works drawn from the Museum's own collections, Chinese Export Porcelain at The Metropolitan Museum of Art will examine the precious porcelain created in China for export to Europe and America. Dating from the mid-16th century through the third quarter of the 19th century, the exhibition includes bowls and vases, services and tureens, reverse glass paintings, and works in ivory. Together with the Metropolitan's winter 2003 Bulletin on the subject, the exhibition will spotlight this little-known facet of the Museum's collections.

• New Installation of Indian Paintings Now on View in Metropolitan Museum's Irving Galleries

  Monday, December 16, 2002, 5:00 a.m.

  Purists at the Hindu Courts – a new installation of paintings from the Hindu courts of India, dating from the 17th to the 19th century – will be on view in Florence and Herbert Irving Galleries for South and Southeast Asian Art at The Metropolitan Museum of Art through April 6, 2003. Drawn from the Museum's collection, and including many recent acquisitions, the installation features 18 works depicting hunting scenes, garden parties, and historical events. This exquisite grouping explores the interconnections between the Muslim and Hindu court traditions.

• Charles Sheeler's Contemporaries

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

  Forty vintage photographs from the collections of The Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Gilman Paper Company will be on view at The Metropolitan Museum of Art from June 3 through August 17, 2003, complementing The Photography of Charles Sheeler. Ranging from Frederick H. Evans's rich platinum prints of the interior of William Morris's home (1896), to Ralph Steiner's Power Lines and Insulators (1929), Charles Sheeler's Contemporaries will feature works by early 20th-century photographers who drew inspiration from the American city, the machine, and the radical innovations of European modernists.