Two important medieval Hebrew manuscripts—a Mishneh Torah made between 1300 and 1400 in Germany and an illuminated leaf from a prayer book made in Austria around 1360—are on display at The Metropolitan Museum of Art and The Cloisters, respectively, in conjunction with the Jewish High Holy Days this fall. The Cloisters is the Metropolitan’s branch museum dedicated to the art and architecture of medieval Europe. The High Holy Days are ten days of penitence and prayer that commence with Rosh Hashanah (Jewish New Year) and end with Yom Kippur (the Day of Atonement), the most solemn day of the Jewish year. This year, the High Holy Days begin the evening of September 8.
On view in the Gallery for Western European Art from 1050 to 1300 in the Main Building of the Metropolitan, and on loan from The Library of The Jewish Theological Seminary, is a manuscript of the Mishneh Torah—the “Repetition of the Law”—a complete codification of Jewish law. Organized by subject matter, the Mishneh Torah was compiled by the renowned rabbi, physician, and philosopher Moses Maimonides (1135-1204) between 1170 and 1180. Written in Hebrew, it is organized into 14 books. The manuscript is open to the eighth book, or Sefer Avodah (the Book of Divine Service), which contains the laws of the Temple in Jerusalem. Its full-page diagram of the Temple is a particularly appropriate image at this season, because remembering the ancient sacrificial services of the Temple plays an important role in the observance of Yom Kippur. Made in tempera and ink on parchment between 1300 and 1400 in Germany, this copy of the Mishneh Torah is noteworthy for its precisely ruled and brightly colored drawings.
Maimonides’ text also provides crucial rules and regulations for an eventual rebuilding of the Temple. There are restrictions against building at night and specifications about appropriate building materials. Maimonides notes, moreover, that “Everyone is obligated to build and to assist both personally and financially; [both] men and women as in the [construction of the] Sanctuary in the desert.” Children, however, “are not to be interrupted from their studies.” Once the Temple is built, “Everyone who enters the Temple Courtyard should walk in a dignified manner…he should conceive of himself as standing before God.”
On display in the Treasury at The Cloisters is a beautifully illuminated leaf in tempera and gold on vellum, from the collection of Dr. David and Jemima Jeselsohn. Originally part of a mahzor (festival prayer book), the page was created in Austria around 1360. Drawn from the afternoon liturgy for Yom Kippur, this sumptuously decorated leaf would have been one of many in an oversize manuscript containing the prayers for the entire year, according to the Ashkenazic (Germanic) rite, as well as liturgical hymns, poems, and commentaries. The decoration draws attention to the first word of a piyyut or liturgical hymn, “Eitan hikir emunatekha“ (The mighty [Abraham] recognized Your truth). Commentary on the hymn appears in the right-hand margin.
The leaf’s whimsical images of dogs, rabbits and birds, which are also seen in contemporary Christian manuscripts, suggest a shared aesthetic, an awareness of book culture between the two communities, and, possibly, a common workshop or an artist who worked in dialogue with members of a different faith community. The sheer size and splendor of the manuscript indicate that it was likely commissioned for use and display in a synagogue.
Featured on the Museum’s Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History are two essays on Jewish art co-authored by Barbara Drake Boehm and Melanie Holcomb of the Museum’s Department of Medieval Art and The Cloisters: “Jewish Art in Late Antiquity and Early Byzantium“ and “Jews and the Arts in Medieval Europe“. Relevant works in the Museum’s collection are listed along with suggested further readings and additional resources. “Jews and the Arts in Medieval Europe” is produced in cooperation with and includes relevant works from The Library of The Jewish Theological Seminary. Both curators have participated in the Institute in Jewish Art of The Jewish Theological Seminary in New York.
The two images will remain on view through the High Holy Days. Afterward, the Mishneh Torah in the Metropolitan’s Main Building will be opened to another illuminated page, and a second illuminated leaf from the same manuscript will be displayed at The Cloisters.
VISITOR INFORMATION Hours
Fridays and Saturdays 9:30 a.m.-9:00 p.m.
Sundays, Tuesdays-Thursdays 9:30 a.m.-5:30 p.m.
Met Holiday Mondays in the Main Building: September 6, October 11, and December 27, 2010;
January 17, February 21, April 25, and May 30, 2011 9:30 a.m.-5:30 p.m.
All other Mondays closed; Jan. 1, Thanksgiving, and Dec. 25 closed
Adults $20.00, seniors (65 and over) $15.00, students $10.00
Members and children under 12 accompanied by adult free
Advance tickets available at TicketWeb or 1-800-965-4827
MetropolitanMuseum to Open on Labor Day “Met Holiday Monday“
Superheroes and Featherwork in Ancient PeruExtended for Special September 1 Viewing
Galleries, shops, and dining areas at The Metropolitan Museum of Art will be open to the public on September 1 (Labor Day), the next “Met Holiday Monday.” This special viewing day is also the last chance for visitors to see two popular exhibitions: Superheroes: Fashion and Fantasy, which has already had more than 400,000 visitors since it opened on May 7, and Radiance from the Rain Forest:Featherwork in Ancient Peru.
Met Holiday Mondays sponsored by CIT are extra public viewing days that take place on the Mondays of major holiday weekends, when historically the Museum has been closed.
“As summer draws to a close, I can think of no better place to celebrate the end of the season than at the Met, where our visitors can enjoy splendid works of art in some of the City’s most spectacular spaces, both indoors and out,” commented Emily K. Rafferty, President of the Metropolitan Museum. “We are pleased to invite the public to enjoy this – and our upcoming Met Holiday Mondays sponsored by CIT – in the presence of great art from around the world.“
The special exhibitions on view will be: Superheroes: Fantasy and Fashion, an exploration of the relationship between costumes designed for the movies and high-fashion and sports apparel (final day); Jeff Koons on the Roof, an installation of contemporary sculptures in the Met’s dramatic outdoor space, with spectacular views of Central Park and the Manhattan skyline (weather permitting, through October 26), J. M. W. Turner, the first American retrospective of paintings and watercolors by the famed British painter (through September 21); Art of the RoyalCourt: Treasures in Pietre Dure from the Palaces of Europe, the most comprehensive presentation to date of an extravagant decorative art form favored by princes and popes (through September 21); and Radiance from the Rain Forest:Featherwork in Ancient Peru, a colorful display of South American luxury goods and ritual objects embellished with feathers.
The schedule of upcoming Met Holiday Mondays is: Labor Day (September 1), Columbus Day (October 13), the Monday after Christmas (December 29), Martin Luther King Jr. Day (January 19), Presidents’ Day (February 16), and Memorial Day (May 25).
Prior to the beginning of the Met Holiday Mondays program in 2003, the Museum was closed to the public on Mondays for some 30 years.
A different selection of exhibitions will be open on each Met Holiday Monday. The Metropolitan’s public cafeteria and several of the gift shops in the main building will be open on all of these special viewing days.
Superheroes: Made possible by Giorgio Armani. Additional support provided by Condé Nast.
Jeff Koons: Made possible by Bloomberg. Additional support provided by Cynthia Hazen Polsky and Leon B. Polsky. J. M. W. Turner: Bank of America is proud to be the national sponsor. Additional support generously provided by Access Industries. Also made possible in part by the Gail and Parker Gilbert Fund and The Horace W. Goldsmith Foundation. Organized by The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, the National Gallery of Art, Washington, and the Dallas Museum of Art, in association with Tate Britain, London. Supported by an indemnity from the Federal Council on the Arts and the Humanities. Art of the Royal Court: Made possible by Mercedes and Sid Bass and Frank Richardson and the Honorable Kimba Wood. Additional support generously provided by Mr. and Mrs. J. Tomilson Hill. Radiance from the Rain Forest: Made possible by the Friends of the Department of the Arts of Africa, Oceania, and the Americas.
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VISITOR INFORMATION
Hours
Fridays and Saturdays 9:30 a.m.-9:00 p.m.
Sundays, Tuesdays-Thursdays 9:30 a.m.-5:30 p.m.
Met Holiday Mondays in the Main Building:
September 1, October 13, and December 29, 2008;
January 19, February 16, and May 25, 2009
Met Holiday Mondays sponsored by CIT 9:30 a.m.-5:30 p.m.
All other Mondays closed; Jan. 1, Thanksgiving, and Dec. 25 closed
Suggested Admission (Includes MainBuilding and The CloistersMuseum and Gardens on
the Same Day)
Adults $20.00, seniors (65 and over) $15.00, students $10.00
Members and children under 12 accompanied by adult free
Advance tickets available at www.TicketWeb.com or 1-800-965-4827
For More Information (212) 535-7710; www.metmuseum.org
Landscapes by Revered Chinese Painter Wang Hui in Fall Exhibition at MetropolitanMuseum
Exhibition dates: September 9, 2008 – January 4, 2009
Location: Galleries for Chinese Paintings and Calligraphy
Press preview: Monday, September 8, 10 a.m. – noon
The paintings of Wang Hui, the most celebrated artist of late 17th-century China, will be featured in an exhibition opening on September 9 at The Metropolitan Museum of Art. Landscapes Clear and Radiant: The Art of Wang Hui (1632-1717) will trace Wang’s artistic development – from his early years as a brilliant reinterpreter of cassic landscape styles to the pinnacle of his career, when he was chosen to illustrate he Kangxi Emperor’s epic 1689 inspection tour of China’s cultural heartland – through 27 paintings drawn from the Taipei and Beijing Palace Museums, Shanghai Museum, and several North American collections. The presentation of Wang Hui’s career will incorporate 11 works that have never before been exhibited in the West, including two enormous panoramic landscape handscrolls. Wang’s paintings will be complemented by a selection of earlier landscapes, drawn largely from the Metropolitan Museum’s holdings, that will highlight the sources of Wang Hui’s inspiration.
The exhibition is made possible by The Miriam and Ira D. Wallach Foundation.
“The most revered painter of his day, Wang Hui played a key role in reinvigorating past traditions of landscape painting and in establishing the stylistic foundations for the imperially sponsored art of the Manchu Qing court,” said Maxwell K. Hearn, Douglas Dillon Curator in the Museum’s Department of Asian Art. “He developed an all-embracing synthesis of historical landscape styles that constituted one of the greatest innovations in the arts of late imperial China. Thanks to our cordial relationship with the three major repositories of Wang’s art-in Beijing, Shanghai, and Taipei-and to the Metropolitan’s own exceptional holdings of his art, we have been able to undertake this major, one-man show.”
Exhibition Organization
The exhibition will be organized in four chronological sections, as follows:
Part 1: Emulating the Ancients: The Formative Years, 1660-1670
This section will trace the artist’s tutelage under the prominent painters Wang Jian (1598-1677) and Wang Shimin (1592-1680). They introduced him to the styles of the ancient masters and helped him gain access to many of the finest private collections in the region. Wang Hui’s mastery of the idioms of 14th-century scholar painters such as Wang Meng (1308-1385) is demonstrated by his Reading Next to the Window in the Mountains (dated 1666, The Palace Museum, Beijing). Here, Wang Hui has animated his composition through a combination of dense, energized brushwork and dynamically pulsating landscape elements.
Part 2: Copying the Old Masters
Wang’s facility in emulating earlier styles will be featured in this section.
Commissioned by collectors, he produced a number of exact copies of ancient masterpieces. In them, the artist’s authorship is revealed – even in the most faithful ones – by his expressive brushwork and kinesthetically charged compositions. Some of the copies, however, were mistakenly catalogued as originals when they entered the imperial collection.
Part 3: The Great Synthesis, 1670-1680
How the artist systematically expanded his repertoire of ancient styles in order to achieve a “great synthesis” is the main topic of this section. This is the period when Wang began to explore the potential of the infinitely expandable handscroll format. The Colors of Mount Taihang of 1669 is one of his earliest essays at reviving the monumental style of the 10th and 11th centuries. In it, Wang successfully reconfigures the towering vertical mountains of the 10th-century master Guan Tong into the horizontal format through the use of thrusting mountain forms and vigorous brushwork that powerfully convey the tectonic forces of nature.
Part 4: “Streams and Mountains Without End, 1680-1700″
The final section of the exhibition will document Wang’s emergence as the preeminent landscapist of his day. One of the defining features of his national reputation was his singular skill at creating vast panoramic landscape compositions in the handscroll format. When the Kangxi Emperor (r. 1662-1722) began to make plans for a tour of the economic and cultural centers of the Yangzi Delta region of “Southern” China in 1684, Wang was already campaigning actively for a chance to create a pictorial record of the journey. Shortly before the emperor embarked on his tour, Wang painted Layered Rivers and Tiered Peaks (dated 1684, Shanghai Museum) for an influential court official; he clearly intended the 61-foot-long handscroll to be an example of his ability to document a monumental journey. In 1691 Wang’s persistence was rewarded, and he was summoned to Beijing to create a pictorial document of Kangxi’s second inspection tour of 1689 – the grandest artistic commission of the age. After working on the piece for seven years, Wang, with his assistants, finally completed a mammoth 12-scroll work (measuring over 740 feet in length) entitled the Kangxi Emperor’s Southern Inspection Tour in 1698. Of the 12 scrolls, the exhibition will present Scroll Three (Metropolitan Museum), depicting the emperor’s journey through the mountainous terrain of Shandong Province to Mount Tai, and Scroll Seven (University of Alberta, Canada), which follows the Grand Canal through China’s “land of fish and rice,” from the city of Wuxi to the great commercial and cultural metropolis of Suzhou.
Upon completion of the piece, Wang was granted an audience with the emperor and was rewarded with the calligraphic encomium of “landscapes clear and radiant.” He hung it in his studio and thenceforth called himself “Master of the Clear and Radiant Hall.”
Exhibition Catalogue
Edited by Curator Maxwell K. Hearn, Landscapes Clear and Radiant: The Art of Wang Hui (1632-1717) offers the first comprehensive study of the artist’s careerpublished in English. It features essays by three leading scholars that examine: the nature of his artistic achievement (Wen C. Fong, Edwards S. Sanford Professor (ret.), Princeton University, and retired chairman of the Department of Asian Art, The Metropolitan Museum of Art); Wang Hui’s life and artistic development leading up to his selection for the Southern Tour project (Dr. Chin-Sung Chang, Associate Professor, Seoul National University); and his masterpiece, the Kangxi Emperor’s Southern Inspection Tour (Maxwell K. Hearn).
Education Programs
A variety of education programs will be presented in conjunction with the exhibition.
Highlights include gallery talks and a September 30 documentary film screening of A Day on the Grand Canal with the Emperor of China (1988). Directed by Philip Haas,the film follows British artist David Hockney as he shares his insights while examining a late 17th-century Chinese scroll painting (46 min.). Maxwell K. Hearn will also lead a private gallery tour of the exhibition on November 20. The Museum’s website at www.metmuseum.org will include a feature on the exhibition and details of all related programming.
The catalogue is made possible by the Joseph Hotung Fund and The Dillon Fund.
The exhibition is organized by Maxwell K. Hearn. Graphics are by Sophia Geronimus, Graphic Design Manager; and lighting is by Clint Ross Coller and Richard Lichte, Lighting Design Managers, all of the Metropolitan Museum’s Design Department.
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August 14, 2008
VISITOR INFORMATION
Hours
Fridays and Saturdays 9:30 a.m.-9:00 p.m.
Sundays, Tuesdays-Thursdays 9:30 a.m.-5:30 p.m.
Met Holiday Mondays in the Main Building:
September 1, October 13, and December 29, 2008;
January 19, February 16, and May 25, 2009
Met Holiday Mondays sponsored by CIT 9:30 a.m.-5:30 p.m.
All other Mondays closed; Jan. 1, Thanksgiving, and Dec. 25 closed
Suggested Admission
(includes MainBuilding and The Cloisters museum and gardens on the same day)
Adults $20.00, seniors (65 and over) $15.00, students $10.00
Members and children under 12 accompanied by adult free
Advance tickets available at www.TicketWeb.com or 1-800-965-4827.
For More Information (212) 535-7710; www.metmuseum.org
Metropolitan Museum Acquires Lucas van Leyden Drawing
(New York, July 24, 2008)-The Metropolitan Museum of Art has acquired a drawing of the Archangel Gabriel announcing the birth of Christ by the Netherlandish master Lucas van Leyden (Leyden ca. 1494 – 1533 Leyden), it was announced today. The drawing, dating to the 1520s, enters the Museum’s collection through the combination of a promised gift by Leon D. and Debra R. Black and purchase by the Museum. It is now the only drawing by the artist in America.
The work, in pen and brown ink with traces of squaring in black chalk, is the pendant to a drawing depicting the Virgin looking up from her book that is in the Kupferstichkabinett, Berlin. Both works were monogrammed by the artist and were most likely conceived as models for stained-glass windows. The monumentality of the figures, and especially that of the Archangel, as well as the affecting, controlled, yet sensitive drawing style, situate them among the masterful drawings of the artist’s maturity.
“Given its quality, importance, and rarity in the field, this drawing is a spectacular addition to the Metropolitan Museum’s drawings collection and we are most grateful to the Blacks for making it possible,” stated Philippe de Montebello, Director of the Museum. “It also crowns our efforts over the past 15 years to make the Met the most comprehensive repository of Netherlandish drawings in America.”
Lucas van Leyden was the greatest artist of the Northern Netherlands to have emerged before the end of the 16th century. He gained his international fame mainly through his prints; as a painter he is known only by around 15 paintings. His drawings, which belong to the highlights of 16th-century
Netherlandish art, are almost equally rare – only 28, including the one just acquired by the Metropolitan, are generally accepted by scholars as by the artist, many of which are in the collections of the British Museum (eight sheets) and the Louvre (four).
The drawing is a typical example of Lucas’s late pen drawings, characterized by the concentration on one, or few, figures, which are given full importance in the composition, and by a subtle net of varying hatchings and cross-hatchings. The composition follows a long-established iconographic tradition that also includes the Metropolitan’s own Merode triptych and a contemporary Annunciation by Joos van Cleve. However, in this drawing and its pendant, Lucas concentrates almost exclusively on the figures, omitting all details of the interior in which the scene takes place except for the lectern at which the Virgin is reading and Gabriel’s usual attribute of a scepter.
The drawing will be included in the fall 2008 exhibition organized by the Metropolitan Museum’s curators in honor of Director Philippe de Montebello’s 31-year tenure at the Metropolitan Museum, on the occasion of his upcoming retirement. The exhibition, The Philippe de Montebello Years: Curators Celebrate Three Decades of Acquisitions, will be on view in the Museum’s Tisch Galleries from October 24, 2008, through February 1, 2009.
Nan Rosenthal Retires and Marla Prather Joins Modern Art Department at Metropolitan Museum
(New York, July 10, 2008)-After 15 years as Senior Consultant for modern and contemporary art at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Nan Rosenthal will retire on July 1, it was announced today by Gary Tinterow, Engelhard Curator in Charge of the Department of Nineteenth-Century, Modern, and Contemporary Art at the Metropolitan.
He further announced that Marla Prather would become Senior Consultant to the department, effective in the fall of 2008.
“Nan is a remarkable curator who has organized landmark exhibitions of some of the greatest artists of our times – Jasper Johns, Robert Rauschenberg, Chuck Close, and Philip Guston, to mention a few,” stated Gary Tinterow, on making the announcement. “She is well-known here for her intelligence, refined taste, and exquisite installations, and we will miss working with her. As Nan retires, Marla Prather – a respected colleague who, coincidentally, worked with Nan at the National Gallery – has agreed to join our department this fall. We look forward to many exciting collaborations with her in the years to come.”
Since becoming Senior Consultant in 1993, Nan Rosenthal was the curator of numerous exhibitions held at the Metropolitan, including Jasper Johns: Gray (2008), Abstract Expressionism and Other Modern Works: The Muriel Kallis Steinberg Newman Collection in The Metropolitan Museum of Art (with Gary Tinterow and Lisa Messinger, 2007-2008), Robert Rauschenberg: Combines (2005-2006), Chuck Close Prints: Process and Collaboration (2004), Philip Guston (2003-2004), Terry Winters: Printed Works (2001), Anselm Kiefer: Works on Paper 1969-1993 (1998-99), The Paintings of Judith Rothschild: An Artist’s Search (1998), Jackson Pollock: Early Sketchbooks and Drawings (1997-98), Howard Hodgkin: Paintings 1975-1995 (1995), and Willem de Kooning: Paintings (1994).
Many of the single-artist installations on the Iris and B. Gerald Cantor Roof Garden – of works by Sol LeWitt (2005), Roy Lichtenstein (2003), Claes Oldenberg and Coosje van Bruggen (2002), Joel Shapiro (2001), David Smith (2000), and Ellsworth Kelly (1998) – were organized by her.
Before joining the Met, she was Curator of Twentieth-Century Art at the National Gallery of Art in Washington (1985-1992). She has also been professor, guest lecturer, and guest curator at a number of institutions, including Columbia University, the Institute of Fine Arts at New York University, Princeton University, and the University of California at Santa Cruz.
Marla Prather was Curator for American Art at Tate Modern, London, from 2005 to 2007. Based in New York, she was charged with helping Tate develop its collection of American art, working closely with the Director of Collections, Jan Debbaut. From 1999 through 2004, she was Curator of Postwar Art at the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, organizing such exhibitions as Unrepentant Ego: The Self-Portraits of Lucas Samaras (2003-4), American Legacy: A Gift to New York (2003), and Lovely Life: The Recent Work of Agnes Martin (2000). Previously at the National Gallery of Art, in Washington, D.C., beginning in 1986, she was Curator and Head of the Department of 20th Century Art there from 1996 to 1999, where her projects included the National Gallery of Art Sculpture Garden (1998), Alexander Calder (1998), Claes Oldenburg: An Anthology (1995), and Willem de Kooning: Paintings (1994), an exhibition that traveled to The Metropolitan Museum of Art and Tate Gallery. She is a trustee of the Archives of American Art, a frequent lecturer, and the author of many publications on 19th- and 20th-century art.
Curators Pay Tribute to Outgoing Director with Exhibition The Philippe de Montebello Years
Exhibition dates: October 24, 2008 – February 1, 2009
Exhibition location: The Tisch Galleries
Press Preview: Monday, October 20, 10 a.m. – noon
(New York, June 2, 2008)-To celebrate Philippe de Montebello’s 31 years as
Director of The Metropolitan Museum of Art, the curators of the Museum announced plans today to organize an exhibition of approximately 300 of the more than 84,000 works of art acquired during his tenure. This unique project – The Philippe de Montebello Years: Curators Celebrate Three Decades ofAcquisitions, which will be on view in The Tisch Galleries from October 24, 2008, through February 1, 2009 – will be a collaboration of the curators currently working in the Museum’s 17 curatorial departments. Special emphasis will be placed on works that were transformative to the Metropolitan Museum’s collections by building on existing strengths and expanding into new areas of collecting. Mr. de Montebello – the eighth and longest-serving Director of The Metropolitan Museum of Art – announced in January his plans to retire at the end of the year.
“We wanted to create an exhibition to celebrate Philippe de Montebello’s auspicious career by focusing on an area of spectacular achievement at the heart of the institution: acquisitions,” said Helen C. Evans, the exhibition’s coordinator, who is the Metropolitan Museum’s Mary and Michael Jaharis Curator of Byzantine Art. “The breadth and greatness of the works on display in ThePhilippe de Montebello Years will tell multiple stories – of his stellar leadership of the Museum’s more than 300 curators, conservators, scientists, librarians, and educators; of the excellence of the collections in representing 5,000 years of human artistic achievement around the world; and of the Museum’s vital evolution in terms of renovating, expanding, and reinstalling galleries, developing conservation and research facilities, and enhancing visitors’ understanding and experiencing of art.”
She continued: “Philippe de Montebello has declared that curatorial expertise is the Museum’s most valuable currency. The Philippe de Montebello Years above all represents the curators’ appreciation of his respect for the expertise of his staff and their recognition of his devoted and skillful stewardship over the past three decades in building the Metropolitan Museum’s collections.”
The works of art in the exhibition were selected by each of the curatorial department heads, working with the curatorial Director’s Council and the Museum’s Forum of Curators, Conservators, and Scientists – the group that proposed the idea for the exhibition. Pre-existing selections of significant works that had been published in the Metropolitan Museum’s Bulletin (which is devoted each fall to major acquisitions) were also incorporated. The contributions of conservators and scientists, as well as the Museum’s extensive publishing program, will be represented in the exhibition as well.
Some highlights of the exhibition include: a striding horned demon of arsenical copper (Mesopotamia or Iran, Proto-Elamite period, ca. 3000 B.C.); an Egyptian wooden statuette of a kneeling figure (wood, Late Period or Early Ptolemaic Period, 380-246 B.C.); a porphyry support for a water basin (Roman, second century A.D.); a standing Buddha in mottled red sandstone from India (Gupta period, fifth century); a leaf from a Spanish manuscript (Romanesque, ca. 1180); Duccio di Buoninsegna’s Madonna and Child (ca. 1300); the illustrated manuscript Allegoryof worldly and otherworldly drunkenness (Islamic, Safavid period, ca. 1526-27); Rubens, His Wife Helena Fourment (1614-1673), and Their Son Peter Paul (born1637) (oil on canvas, probably late 1630s) by Peter Paul Rubens; Giovanni Battista Foggini’s Grand Prince Ferdinando de’ Medici (marble, ca. 1683-85); the armor of Infante Luis, Prince of Asturias (French, 1712); Ralph Earl’s Elijah Boardman (American, oil on canvas, 1789); a salted paper print by Onésipe Aguado of a woman seen from the back (French, ca. 1862); a Kongo power figure (NkisiN’Kondi) from the second half of the 19th century; Tahitian Faces (Frontal Viewand Profiles) (charcoal on laid paper, ca. 1899) by Paul Gauguin; a coat by Paul Poiret made in Paris in 1919; a guitar made by Hermann Hauser in Germany in 1937; and White Flag (1955) by Jasper Johns.
The installation of the 300 works of art in The Philippe de Montebello Years: Curators Celebrate Three Decades of Acquisitions - which will createjuxtapositions of centuries and cultures not normally possible within theorganization of the collections galleries of the Museum – will be overseen by JeffDaly, Senior Design Adviser to the Director for Capital and Special Projects.Graphic design will be by Sophia Geronimus, Senior Graphic Designer, andlighting will be by Clint Coller and Richard Lichte, Senior Lighting Designers, allof the Museum’s Design Department.
Related Programs
A subscription series of three evenings with Philippe de Montebello on the stage of the Metropolitan’s Grace Rainey Rogers Auditorium – entitled Philippe deMontebello: A Triptych - has been organized on the initiative of the Museum’s Concerts & Lectures Department to reflect his involvement in and passion for the visual arts, music, and the spoken word. The three programs are: a conversation with award-winning art critic, author, and historian Robert Hughes on October 28; a performance of Saint-Saëns’ Carnival of the Animals (the Ogden Nash version, narrated by Mr. de Montebello) with the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra on September 26; and a special reading of great Renaissance love poems and dialogues in Italian, English, and French with actress Isabella Rossellini (also in conjunction with the fall 2008 exhibition Art and Love in Renaissance Italy) on December 9.
The exhibition will also be accompanied by educational programs designed for a wide range of audiences, including lectures, panel discussions, films, and an interactive Web program for teachers.
A special feature on the Museum’s website at www.metmuseum.org will present information on all of these related programs, as well as photographs, audio podcast episodes, and videos about the Museum’s evolution over the past three decades, including in-depth discussions about key works of art that entered the collections during Mr. de Montebello’s tenure as Director.
An Audio Guide program will feature commentary by Philippe de Montebello and Museum staff on the works of art in the exhibition.
The Audio Guide program is sponsored by Bloomberg.
Philippe de Montebello
Philippe de Montebello began his career at The Metropolitan Museum of Art in 1963 in its Department of European Paintings and rose steadily through the curatorial ranks. Except for four-and-a-half years as Director of the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston (1969-1974), he has spent his entire career at the Met, returning in 1974 to assume the post of Vice Director for Curatorial and Educational Affairs, and then becoming the Museum’s Director in 1977. He assumed the additional role of Chief Executive Officer in 1998. He has not only served longer than any other director in the Metropolitan’s history, but has for several years ranked as the longest-serving leader at any major museum in the world. He leads a professional staff of more than 300 curators, conservators, educators, and librarians, as well as an administrative staff, reporting through the Museum’s President, consisting of more than 2,300 full- and part-time employees in the fields of operations, construction, development, marketing, finance, visitor services, systems and technology, human resources, and merchandising.
In announcing Philippe de Montebello’s upcoming retirement, Museum Chairman James R. Houghton stated in January: “To say that his decision marks the end of an era surely constitutes one of the great understatements, not only in the Museum’s life, but in the cultural life of the city, the state, the nation, and the world…He leaves an incomparable legacy of accomplishment that has significantly enhanced the institution and brilliantly served its vast international public. No museum director anywhere has done more to expand and enrich the appreciation of art for more generations and with greater taste, erudition, diplomacy, and vision than Philippe de Montebello.”
Mr. de Montebello plans to step down as Director of The Metropolitan Museum of Art by December 31, 2008, or upon the arrival of his successor. He recently announced that he will then assume the first Fiske Kimball Professorship in the History and Culture of Museums at New York University’s renowned Institute of Fine Arts in Manhattan.
The Metropolitan Museum of Art, which was founded in 1870 and now has around 4.5 million visitors annually, holds encyclopedic collections of more than two million works of art.
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VISITOR INFORMATION
Hours
Fridays and Saturdays 9:30 a.m.-9:00 p.m.
Sundays, Tuesdays-Thursdays 9:30 a.m.-5:30 p.m.
Met Holiday Mondays in the Main Building:
September 1, October 13, and December 29, 2008;
January 19, February 16, and May 25, 2009
Met Holiday Mondays sponsored by CIT 9:30 a.m.-5:30 p.m.
All other Mondays closed; Jan. 1, Thanksgiving, and Dec. 25 closed
Suggested Admission (Includes MainBuilding and The Cloisters on the Same Day)
Adults $20.00, seniors (65 and over) $15.00, students $10.00
Members and children under 12 accompanied by adult free
Advance tickets available at www.TicketWeb.com or 1-800-965-4827.
For More Information (212) 535-7710; www.metmuseum.org
STATEMENT BY THE METROPOLITAN MUSEUM OF ART ON ACCIDENT INVOLVING ITALIAN TERRACOTTA RELIEF SCULPTURE BY DELLA ROBBIA
(NEW YORK, TUESDAY, JULY 1, 2008)-The Metropolitan Museum of Art is saddened to report that late last night or early this morning, a late 15th-century glazed terracotta relief sculpture of Saint Michael the Archangel by Andrea della Robbia (1435-1525), came loose from metal mounts that have long held the framed lunette securely to the wall above a doorway in its European Paintings and Decorative Arts Galleries. The 62-x-32-inch relief, which has been on view in its current location since 1996, fell to a stone floor and suffered some damage. Preliminary inspection indicates that the relief has not been irrevocably harmed and that it can be repaired and again presented to the public.
Museum curators and conservators are at work this morning fully assessing the situation, trying to determine the cause of this accident, and considering next steps. The sculpture is expected to be transferred soon to a conservation area within the building for a full assessment, at which time the gallery will be reopened to the public. While the Metropolitan routinely and thoroughly inspects its pedestals and wall mounts to reconfirm their structural integrity, it will initiate a reinvigorated museum-wide examination as expeditiously as possible in the days that follow this unfortunate accident.
The blue-and-white della Robia lunette of Saint Michael, dressed in armor and holding a sword and the scales of justice, was commissioned ca. 1475 for the church of San Michele Arcangelo in Faenza, a small town between Bologna and Ravenna. The church was dismantled around 1798. Later owned by private collectors, the Saint Michael was acquired by the Metropolitan Museum in 1960 at the auction sale of the Myron C. Taylor Collection.
MetropolitanMuseum Explores Relationship of Art and Science during First Annual World Science Festival
A variety of special programs – including lectures, gallery tours, family activities, and the inauguration of a new Audio Guide program – focusing on art and science will take place at The Metropolitan Museum of Art from May 28 through June 1 as part of New York City’s first annual World Science Festival.
World Science Festival programs at the Metropolitan Museum are made possible by the Malcolm Hewitt Wiener Foundation.
The Metropolitan Museum is one of 15 venues throughout the city taking part in the 2008 World Science Festival. Nobel Laureates, researchers, technologists, educators, and policy makers will join artists, filmmakers, and performers to create more than 40 events that will explore the many ways in which scientific inquiry shapes modern life. Details about the overall festival and its events can be found at www.worldsciencefestival.com.
The Metropolitan Museum will offer activities on each day of the four-day festival, including the following:
Talks
In a sold-out special program – Oliver Sacks: The Mind’s Eye - neurologist Oliver Sacks and award-winning journalist Robert Krulwich will have a wide-ranging conversation on the stage of the Museum’s Grace Rainey Rogers Auditorium about the complex and often surprising relationship between vision and perception. Over several decades, Dr. Sacks has explored the interplay between what the eye sees and how the mind perceives. Friday, May 30, 6:00 p.m.
World Science Festival: The Science of Art will be the theme of the Sunday at the Met afternoon of programming on June 1, 2008. A panel of world-renowned scientists – including Nobel Laureate chemist Richard R. Ernst; Silvia A. Centeno and Mark Abbe, researchers at The Metropolitan Museum of Art; Narayan Khandekar, a conservation scientist at Harvard University Art Museums; and experimental physicist Charles M. Falco – will give talks concerning the application of scientific research to works of art. Marco Leona, the Metropolitan Museum’s David H. Koch Scientist-in-Charge of the Department of Scientific Research, will introduce the program. Sunday, June 1, 1:30-5:00 p.m.
Gallery Tours
Museum researchers will host a series of science-related gallery tours from May 27 through June 6, 2008. Investigate the surfaces of classical art with Mark Abbe on Tuesday, May 27, at 10:00 a.m. or on Friday, June 6, at 6:00 p.m. Explore what is in modern paint with Julie Arslanoglu on Wednesday, May 28, at 4:00 p.m. Learn why traditional paintings look the way they do with Julie Arslanoglu on Friday, May 30, at 10:00 a.m. Tours meet at the south end of the Great Hall. Museum programs and gallery tours are free with Museum admission. For a complete schedule of Museum events, visit the Museum’s online calendar at www.metmuseum.org/calendar.
Audio Guide
Coinciding with the first annual World Science Festival, a new and ongoing Audio Guide program will be inaugurated at the Metropolitan Museum: Investigations:Art, Conservation, and Science. Visitors can explore 32 wide-ranging works of art in the galleries while listening to insights and analyses by the Museum’s curators, scientists, and conservators. Recorded features include interviews with Marco Leona and other Museum scientists, and a conversation between Maryan Ainsworth, Curator of European Paintings, and Michael Gallagher, Sherman Fairchild Conservator-in-Charge of Paintings Conservation.
Audio tours are available on palm-sized, easy-to-operate MP3 players. The random-access programming allows visitors to design their own tours in terms of length and sequence. Players can be rented for up to an entire day for $7 ($6 for members, $5 for children under the age of 12) in the Great Hall of the Museum. The Audio Guides are produced in collaboration with Antenna Audio, the leading provider of audio programming for museums and historic sites around the world.
The Audio Guide program at the Metropolitan Museum is sponsored by Bloomberg.
Podcast
A new episode about the convergence of art and science in the study of a Greek funerary stele (at the Metropolitan Museum will go online on June 2 as part of the ongoing Met Podcast series (www.metmuseum.org/podcast). The collaborative analysis of the painted limestone stele, depicting a seated man with two standing figures – which is on view in the Leon Levy and Shelby White Court of the New Greek and Roman Galleries – is discussed by scientist Marco Leona; Joan Mertens, Curator in the Greek and Roman Art Department; and Mark Abbe, a doctoral candidate in archaeology at New York University.
Conservation and Science at the Met
The Metropolitan Museum of Art has been at the forefront of the scientific investigation of art for the last 30 years. In 1980, the Met was the first museum to acquire an electron microscope, used to study microscopic samples of metal, glass, and paint. Likewise in 2000, the Met was the first institution in the United States to obtain a Raman microscope, which identifies components of paints using laser technology. Metropolitan Museum Director Philippe de Montebello established the Department of Scientific Research in 2004 with the goal of expanding the breadth of research conducted at the Museum. With 10 scientists – led by Dr. Marco Leona, David H. Koch Scientist-in-Charge – the department is one of the largest of any museum in the world. Research scientists collaborate closely with museum curators and conservators in an effort to understand the techniques and materials used by artists and to verify the authenticity and conditions of recent acquisitions. Non-invasive analytical methods including laser spectroscopy, ultraviolet-fluorescence, x-ray fluorescence, and fiber-optics spectroscopy are used by the scientists in their investigations of works of art. Since its inception, the Department of Scientific Research has been awarded research grants by the National Science Foundation, the United States Department of Justice, and the Camille and Henry Dreyfus Foundation.
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VISITOR INFORMATION
Hours
Fridays and Saturdays 9:30 a.m.-9:00 p.m.
Sundays, Tuesdays-Thursdays 9:30 a.m.-5:30 p.m.
Met Holiday Mondays in the Main Building:
September 1, October 13, and December 29, 2008;
January 19, February 16, and May 25, 2009
Met Holiday Mondays sponsored by CIT 9:30 a.m.-5:30 p.m.
All other Mondays closed; Jan. 1, Thanksgiving, and Dec. 25 closed
Suggested Admission (Includes MainBuilding and The Cloisters on the Same Day)
Adults $20.00, seniors (65 and over) $15.00, students $10.00
Members and children under 12 accompanied by adult free
Advance tickets available at www.TicketWeb.com or 1-800-965-4827.
For More Information (212) 535-7710; www.metmuseum.org
Major Retrospective of British Artist J. M. W. Turner Opens at MetropolitanMuseum on July 1
Exhibition dates: July 1 – September 21, 2008
Exhibition location: The Tisch Galleries, 2nd floor
Press preview: Monday, June 23, 10:00 a.m. – noon
The first major retrospective of the work of celebrated British artist J. M. W.
Turner (1775-1851) to be presented in the United States in more than 40 years will be on view at The Metropolitan Museum of Art beginning July 1, 2008. The exhibition J. M. W. Turner will represent the artist’s extensive iconographic range, from seascapes and topographical views to historical subjects and scenes from his imagination. More than half of the approximately 140 paintings and watercolors on view will be on loan from Tate Britain, which houses the Turner Bequest, the most comprehensive collection of the artist’s work in the world. These will be complemented by works from other collections in Europe and North America.
Bank of America is proud to be the national sponsor.
Additional support is generously provided by Access Industries.
The exhibition is also made possible in part by the Gail and Parker Gilbert Fund and The Horace W. Goldsmith Foundation.
It was organized by The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, the National Gallery of Art, Washington, and the Dallas Museum of Art, in association with Tate Britain, London.
The exhibition is supported by an indemnity from the Federal Council on the Arts and the Humanities.
Exhibition Overview and Highlights
The retrospective will provide a rich overview of the artistic achievement of Joseph Mallord William Turner as it documents the evolution of his unique style. In a career that spanned more than six decades, Turner essayed a wide range of subjects, from landscapes-a genre that he dominated during the first half of the 19th century in Britain-to historical and modern scenes and subjects of his own invention. A fascination with light and color characterizes his work in all media.
In addition, his technical innovations, notably in watercolor, had a profound impact on subsequent artistic developments across the Channel in France, as well as in the United States.
Born in London in 1775, Turner spent his early childhood in Covent Garden, where his father had a barber shop. At a very young age he showed talent in sketching and became a draftsman with an architect. When he was fourteen, Turner enrolled in London’s Royal Academy of Arts Schools and in 1802 became the youngest artist to be elected as a full Academician. As a student, Turner studied with Sir Joshua Reynolds (1723-92), who was in his last years as president of the Royal Academy. Reynolds encouraged his students to study the techniques of the Old Masters. The idealized landscapes of Claude Lorrain (c.1604/5-82) served as a touchstone for Turner throughout his career.
The exhibition will feature many of the remarkable canvases that Turner exhibited at the Royal Academy-works that established his reputation-from his first exhibited oil, Fishermen at Sea (1796, Tate), to the luminous paintings TheBurning of the Houses of Lords and Commons, 16 October 1834 (1835, Philadelphia Museum of Art) and Keelmen Heaving in Coals by Moonlight (1835, National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C). The iconic Snow Storm: Hannibaland his Army Crossing the Alps (1812, Tate) will be on view in the United States for the first time during this exhibition tour. J. M. W. Turner will also include the artist’s “color beginnings,” or watercolor studies for subsequently developed images, along with his finished watercolors. The exhibition will be organized both thematically and chronologically, beginning with his earliest Sublime and historical landscapes and culminating with his late seascapes and light-filled canvases.
Prior to its showing at the Metropolitan, J. M. W. Turner was on view at the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C., and the Dallas Museum of Art. The Trustees of the Tate have made a special exception to allow the works from the Turner Bequest to be out of England for the duration of the U.S. tour.
Audio Guides
An audio tour of the exhibition, part of the Metropolitan’s Audio Guide program, will be available for rental ($7, $6 for members, and $5 for children under 12).
The Audio Guide program is sponsored by Bloomberg.
Exhibition Organization and Catalogue
At the Metropolitan Museum, the exhibition is organized by Gary Tinterow, Engelhard Curator in Charge, and Kathryn Calley Galitz, Assistant Curator, both of the Department of Nineteenth-Century, Modern, and Contemporary Art.
Exhibition design is by Michael Langley, Senior Exhibition Designer; graphics are by Barbara Weiss, Senior Graphic Designer; and lighting is by Clint Ross Coller and Richard Lichte, Senior Lighting Designers, all of the Metropolitan Museum’s Design Department.
The exhibition is accompanied by a fully illustrated catalogue edited by Turner scholar Ian Warrell and published by the Tate. It is available in the Metropolitan Museum’s bookshops ($55 hardcover and $35 paperback).
Related Programs
A variety of education programs has been organized to complement the exhibition.
World Views: Landscapes in the Metropolitan, a week-long teacher program from July 28 through August 1, will allow participants to collaborate in creating a classroom resource to stimulate student discussion on works in the permanent collection as well as the exhibition J. M. W. Turner. Other highlights include a Sunday at the Met lecture program; a series of gallery talks; and lectures. Other programs will also be featured on the Museum’s website at www.metmuseum.org.
Master Photographers’ Work of 1840-1940 Highlighted from Rich Holdings of the MetropolitanMuseum
Exhibition Dates: June 3 – September 1, 2008
Exhibition Location: Galleries for Drawings, Prints and Photographs, and The Howard Gilman Gallery, second floor
Framing a Century: Master Photographers, 1840-1940 tells the story of photography’s first 100 years through the work of 13 key figures who helped shape the aesthetic and expressive course of the medium: Gustave Le Gray, Roger Fenton, Carleton Watkins, William Henry Fox Talbot, Julia Margaret Cameron, Nadar, Edouard Baldus, Charles Marville, Eugène Atget, Walker Evans, Man Ray, Henri Cartier-Bresson, and Brassaï. Opening at The Metropolitan Museum of Art on June 3, 2008, the exhibition will present 10 to 12 iconic works by each of these influential artists, to convey a broad sense of their contributions to photography. Many of the works displayed in Framing a Century are drawn from the acclaimed Gilman Paper Company Collection, which was acquired by the Museum in 2005.
“The exhibition highlights the way in which the recently acquired Gilman Collection meshes perfectly with the Museum’s existing collection to create deep, rich holdings of work by many of the most important masters of the first century of photography,” noted Malcolm Daniel, Curator in Charge of the Department of Photographs. “There are, of course, many other individual masterpieces in the collection by a host of photographers, but this exhibition allows us to sense the full achievement of some of the medium’s greatest artists.”
Framing a Century begins with beautifully preserved works by three photographers of architecture and landscape: the Englishman Roger Fenton (1819-1869), the preeminent British photographer of the 1850s; Carleton Watkins (1829-1916), the consummate photographer of the American West during the 1860s and 1870s, famed for his early views of Yosemite; and the Frenchman Gustave Le Gray (1820-1884), who is now represented in the Met’s collection by more than 40 photographs spanning his entire career, from his early views of Fontainebleau Forest and medieval architecture to his famed seascapes of the mid-1850s and his final pictures, made in Egypt.
The next section includes rare photographs by the inventor of paper photography, William Henry Fox Talbot (1800-1877), whose work in the Metropolitan ranges from some of the first photographs ever made, predating the announcement of photography, through iconic images that were included in Talbot’s groundbreaking photographically illustrated book The Pencil of Nature, to examples of the photogravure process that consumed the latter part of his life.
Also in the second room of the exhibition are works by two masters of portraiture, Nadar (Gaspard-Félix Tournachon, 1820-1910) in France and Julia MargaretCameron (1815-1879) in England. Nadar, whose keen observation of physiognomy and personality was honed as a caricaturist, was at his best when photographing his literary, artistic, and left-wing political friends, including the writer Alexandre Dumas, the critic Théophile Gautier, and the famous mime Charles Deburau. The subjects of Cameron’s works in the exhibition include her friends-the eminent scientist Sir John Herschel and poet laureate Alfred, Lord Tennyson-as well as family members, neighbors, and staff pressed into service as models in Cameron’s biblical and literary tableaux.
The history, landscape, and streets of Paris and the French countryside are explored in works on view by: Edouard Baldus (1813-1889), whose images include historic monuments, the natural landscape, and the achievements of modern engineers; Charles Marville (1816-1879), best known for photographs commissioned by Napoleon III’s master urban planner, Baron Hausmann, recording the transformation of Paris from a city of narrow streets and medieval buildings to one with grand boulevards and impressive public works that still define the French capital; and Eugène Atget (1857-1927), an artist who spent three decades documenting the look and feel of Paris and the surrounding region, working within a 19th-century tradition, nonetheless celebrated by the Surrealists.
The exhibition concludes with the work of four artists who were significant in transforming photography into a modern visual language. The exhibition’s photographs by Man Ray (1890-1976), for example, will capture the broad creative scope of his work in the 1920s and 1930s, including portraits of fellow artists Marcel Duchamp and Jean Cocteau; documentation of his own ephemeral sculptures; and photographs that reveal his dynamic experimentation with the plasticity of the medium through solarization, photograms, negative prints, and film. Also included is work by pioneering and influential photojournalist Henri Cartier-Bresson (1908-2004); Brassaï (1899-1984), the chronicler of Paris by night; and Walker Evans (1903-1975), best known for his Depression-era photographs in the American South.
Framing a Century is organized by Malcolm Daniel.
The exhibition will also be featured on the Museum’s website, www.metmuseum.org.
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VISITOR INFORMATION
Hours
Fridays and Saturdays 9:30 a.m.-9:00 p.m.
Sundays, Tuesdays-Thursdays 9:30 a.m.-5:30 p.m.
Met Holiday Mondays in the Main Building:
May 26, and September 1, 2008
Sponsored by Bloomberg 9:30 a.m.-5:30 p.m.
All other Mondays closed; Jan. 1, Thanksgiving, and Dec. 25 closed
Suggested Admission (Includes MainBuilding and The Cloisters on the Same Day)
Adults $20.00, seniors (65 and over) $15.00, students $10.00
Members and children under 12 accompanied by adult free
Advance tickets available at www.TicketWeb.com or 1-800-965-4827.
