From Géricault to Rockburne: Selections from the Michael and Juliet Rubenstein Gift

In 1954, at the age of seventeen, the architect Michael A. Rubenstein bought his first work of art. Today, the collection, largely formed with his late wife Juliet van Vliet, spans two centuries and consists mostly of drawings and watercolors, either lyrical or geometrical. One hundred and sixty works from the collection are promised gifts to The Met, to be shared by the departments of Drawings and Prints and Modern and Contemporary Art. This exhibition will highlight and celebrate some fifty works from the gift, ranging from a drawing by French artist Théodore Géricault from about 1818—the earliest work in the show—to a wax-crayon drawing done in 2019 by a friend of Rubenstein, artist Dorothea Rockburne.