SCHEDULE OF EXHIBITIONS
MAY 2011 - JANUARY 2012

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.

New Exhibitions
Upcoming Exhibitions
New Galleries
Continuing Exhibitions
New & Continuing Installations
Visitor Information

LOOKING AHEAD:
• Opening November 1, 2011: New Galleries for the Art of the Arab Lands, Turkey, Iran, Central Asia, and Later South Asia
• Opening January 16, 2012: New American Wing Galleries for Paintings, Sculpture, and Decorative Arts

NEW EXHIBITIONS

Alexander McQueen: Savage Beauty
May 4–July 31, 2011

The exhibition, organized by The Costume Institute, will celebrate the late Alexander McQueen's extraordinary contributions to fashion. From his postgraduate collection of 1992 to his final runway presentation, which took place after his death in February 2010, Mr. McQueen challenged and expanded the understanding of fashion beyond utility to a conceptual expression of culture, politics, and identity. His iconic designs constitute the work of an artist whose medium of expression was fashion. Approximately 100 examples will be on view including signature designs such as the bumster trouser, the kimono jacket, and the Origami frock coat, as well as pieces reflecting the exaggerated silhouettes of the 1860s, 1880s, 1890s, and 1950s, which he crafted into contemporary silhouettes that transmitted romantic narratives. Technical ingenuity imbued his designs with an innovative sensibility that kept him at fashion's vanguard.
The exhibition is made possible by Alexander McQueen™.
Additional support is provided in partnership with American Express and Condé Nast.

Pastel Portraits: Images of 18th-Century Europe
May 17–August 14, 2011

By 1750, almost 2,500 professional artists and amateurs were working in pastel in Paris alone. Portraits in pastel were commissioned by all ranks of society, but most enthusiastically by the royal family, members of the court, and the wealthy middle classes. Eighteenth-century pastels are brightly colored, highly finished, often of large dimensions, and elaborately framed, evoking oil painting, the medium to which they were invariably compared. The powdery texture of pastel and its diffuse, velvety quality were particularly suited to capturing the fleeting expressions that characterize the most life-like portraits. Pastel Portraits: Images of 18th-Century Europe will include some 40 pastels belonging to the Metropolitan Museum and, with important exceptions, to museums and private collections in the New York area. It presents Italian, French, and English works, supplemented by several German, Swiss, and American examples. The exhibition is made possible by the Gail and Parker Gilbert Fund.
Accompanied by a publication.

Historic Images of the Greek Bronze Age: The Reproductions of E. Gilliéron & Son
May 17–November 13, 2011

This exhibition features a selection of early 20th-century reproductions of now-famous works of art from Sir Arthur Evans's historic excavations of Minoan Crete and Heinrich Schliemann's Mycenaean Greece. Emile Gilliéron and later his son were the senior draftsmen for Evans responsible for reconstructing the fresco paintings in the palace at Knossos. The Gilliérons formed a thriving business selling original watercolors after the frescoes and other reproductions of three-dimensional artworks, which they made directly from the originals. Their work influenced the study of Aegean art and was integral to its widespread introduction throughout Europe and America. The installation draws from the Metropolitan Museum's own collection of Gilliéron reproductions, which is the largest in existence.
The exhibition is made possible by The Vlachos Family Fund.

Frans Hals in the Metropolitan Museum
July 26–October 10, 2011

The Metropolitan Museum of Art holds the most important collection of paintings in America by the celebrated Dutch artist Frans Hals (1582/83-1666), whose portraits and genre scenes were famous in his lifetime for their immediacy and dazzling brushwork. Frans Hals in the Metropolitan Museum will present 13 paintings by Hals, including two lent from private collections, and several works by other Netherlandish masters.
Several of the Museum's paintings by Hals are famous, especially the early Merrymakers at Shrovetide (ca. 1616) and the so-called Jonker Ramp and His Sweetheart (1623), both bequeathed to the Museum by Benjamin Altman in 1913. Also included in the exhibition will be two loans from private collections in New York—the small, exquisite Portrait of Samuel Ampzing (1630), on copper, and the well-known Fisher Girl (1630-32). A selection of other Dutch paintings from the Museum's collection and a few engravings will set Hals's work in the context of his native Haarlem and will help clarify how exceptional his animated poses and virtuoso brushwork were at the time. A portrait by Manet, inspired by Hals, will also demonstrate how strongly Hals anticipated Impressionist effects.
Accompanied by a Bulletin.
Press Preview: Monday, July 25, 10:00 a.m. – noon

9/11 Peace Story Quilt
August 30, 2011–January 22, 2012

The 9/11 Peace Story Quilt was designed by Faith Ringgold and constructed in collaboration with New York City students aged 8-19. The quilt poignantly conveys the importance of communication across cultures and religions to achieve the goal of peace. Comprised of three panels, each with 12 squares on the theme of peace, the quilt will be displayed in the Ruth and Harold D. Uris Center for Education alongside several original works of art that inspired the quilt's content.

UPCOMING EXHIBITIONS

The Art of Dissent in 17th-Century China: Masterpieces of Ming Loyalist Art from the Chih Lo Lou Collection
September 7, 2011 – January 2, 2012
The collapse of the Ming dynasty (1368-1644) and subsequent conquest of China by semi-nomadic Manchu tribesmen was one of the most traumatic events in Chinese history. This wrenching era also spurred an enormous outpouring of creative energy as many former Ming subjects turned to the arts to express their loyalty to the noble but doomed cause of Ming restoration and to assert their defiance and moral virtue. Drawn from one of the finest and most comprehensive private assemblages of the art of the Ming-Qing transition, the exhibition will showcase more than 60 landscape paintings and calligraphies that highlight the intensely personal styles created by the leading artists of that time. Particularly noteworthy are the clusters of exceptional works by Huang Daozhou, Hongren, Bada Shanren (Zhu Da), and Shitao.
Press preview: Tuesday, September 6, 10 a.m. – noon

Infinite Jest: Caricature and Satire from Leonardo to Levine
September 13, 2011–January 8, 2012

The exhibition explores caricature and satire in its many forms from the Italian Renaissance to the present, drawn primarily from the rich collection of this material in the Department of Drawings and Prints in the Metropolitan Museum. The show includes drawings and prints by Leonardo da Vinci, Eugène Delacroix, Francisco de Goya, Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, and Enrique Chagoya alongside works by artists more often associated with the genre—James Gillray, Thomas Rowlandson, Honoré Daumier, and Al Hirschfeld.
Press preview: Monday, September 12, 10:00 a.m. - noon

Heroic Africans: Legendary Leaders, Iconic Sculptures
September 20, 2011–January 29, 2012

Over the centuries across sub-Saharan Africa, artists have drawn upon various media to memorialize for posterity eminent individuals of their societies. They have achieved this in an astonishingly diverse repertory of regional sculptural idioms, both naturalistic and abstract, that idealize their subjects through complex aesthetic formulations. The original patrons of such depictions intended for them to commemorate specific elite members of a given community. For over a century, however, isolation of those creations from the sites, oral traditions, and socio-cultural contexts in which they were conceived, has led them to be seen as timeless abstractions of generic archetypes.
This exhibition will consider eight landmark sculptural traditions from West and Central Africa created between the 13th and early 20th centuries in terms of the individuals who inspired their creation. It will highlight the standardized aesthetic conventions apparent across a selection of 120 masterpieces that define particular regional genres, and will consider the cultural values that inform them. Selected for their artistic importance that has generated a critical mass of scholarship are the Akan of Ghana, ancient Ife civilization and the Kingdom of Benin of Nigeria, Bangwa and related chiefdoms of the Cameroon Grassfields, the Chokwe of Angola and Zambia, and the Luluwa, Hemba, and Kuba of the Democratic Republic of the Congo. This examination of major African forms of expression reveals the hidden meaning and inspiration of these great artistic achievements.
Press preview: Monday, September 19, 10:00 a.m. – noon

"Wonder of the Age": Master Painters of India, 1100-1900
September 28, 2011–January 8, 2012

An exhibition devoted to the connoisseurship of Indian painting, with works selected according to identifiable hands and named artists, dispelling the notion of the anonymity in Indian art. New scholarship has begun to securely link innovations in style with specific artists and their lineages. The identities of individual artists and their oeuvre are defined through signed and attributed works, presented through the greatest works of Indian painting known. The high points of artistic innovation in Indian painting will be demonstrated through the works of the 40 greatest painters in the history of Indian art. Drawn from collections in India, Europe, and the United States, it will include some 220 works, each artist represented by seminal works.
The exhibition is made possible by MetLife Foundation.
Additional support provided by the Novartis US Foundation.
It was organized by the Museum Rietberg Zurich in collaboration with The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York.
Accompanied by a catalogue.
Press preview: Monday, September 26, 10:00 a.m. - noon

Stieglitz and His Artists: Matisse to O'Keeffe
October 13, 2011–January 2, 2012

This exhibition is the first large-scale presentation of paintings, sculptures, drawings, and prints from Alfred Stieglitz's collection, acquired by the Metropolitan in 1949. In addition to being a master photographer, Stieglitz (1864-1946) was a visionary promoter of modern American and European art, and he assembled a vast art collection of exceptional breadth and depth. Through a succession of influential galleries that he ran in New York City between 1905 and 1946, Stieglitz exhibited many of the most important artists of the era, and he collected works by Pablo Picasso, Henri Matisse, Constantin Brancusi, Gino Severini, Wassily Kandinsky, Georgia O'Keeffe, Marsden Hartley, John Marin, Charles Demuth, and Arthur Dove. For more than 60 years, The Alfred Stieglitz Collection has been the cornerstone of the Museum's holdings of modern American art. The exhibition features some 300 major works by American and European modernists, supplemented by photographs by the Photo-Secessionists and publications by Stieglitz—all from the Metropolitan's holdings. Highlights include Picasso's Woman Ironing and Standing Female Nude, Kandinsky's Garden of Love, Brancusi's Sleeping Muse, O'Keeffe's Black Iris and Cow's Skull: Red, White, and Blue, Demuth's I Saw the Figure 5 in Gold, and Hartley's Portrait of a German Officer.
The exhibition will be accompanied by a catalogue of the entire collection.
Press preview: Tuesday, October 11, 10:00 a.m. – noon

The Game of Kings: Medieval Ivory Chessmen from the Isle of Lewis
November 15, 2011–April 22, 2012

More than 30 of the world's most famous chess pieces—all part of a hoard unearthed in 1843 on the isle of Lewis, off the west coast of Scotland—will be shown at The Cloisters, the branch of the Metropolitan Museum dedicated to the art and architecture of the Middle Ages. Created in the mid-12th century, probably in Scandinavia, each piece is a precious miniature sculpture in walrus ivory.
The game of chess as we know it today is one of the great legacies of the Middle Ages, and the Lewis chess pieces are among the earliest that include the full cast of characters found on modern boards. Reflecting medieval society in Europe, there are bishops (replacing the elephants of Indian and Persian chess traditions) and queens (supplanting the viziers who stand at the king's side in Islamic tradition).
All of the chessmen in the exhibition are on loan from the British Museum.
Press preview: Monday, November 14, 10:00 a.m. - noon

Storytelling in Japanese Painting
November 19, 2011–May 6, 2012

Japan has enjoyed a long tradition of narrative painting, one that continues even today with the popular contemporary Japanese cartoon (manga) and animation. Historically, the subjects of narrative painting have varied: romances of court ladies, aristocrats, and monks; heroic warriors' tales of courage in the face of overwhelming odds; stories of miracles, celebratory events, and personal accomplishments; and tales of animals and ghosts. Illustrated tales appear in various formats: handscrolls (emaki), albums, books, hanging scrolls, and screens. This exhibition will show a wide variety of illustrated Japanese tales from the 13th to the 19th century that reflect the cultural and social landscape of the time. The exhibition will feature approximately 60 works, including a group of 30 illustrated handscrolls, the ideal format for continuous sequential illustration, and 20 scrolls, books, and screens from the Metropolitan's collection. The exhibition will also include works from local New York collections.
Press Preview: Monday 21, 10:00 a.m. - noon

Annual Christmas Tree and Neapolitan Baroque Crèche
November 22, 2011–Jan 6, 2012

The Museum will continue a long-standing holiday tradition with the presentation of its Christmas tree, a favorite of New Yorkers and visitors from around the world. A vivid 18th-century Neapolitan Nativity scene—embellished with a profuse array of diminutive, lifelike attendant figures and silk-robed angels hovering above—will adorn the candlelit spruce. Recorded music and lighting ceremonies will add to the enjoyment of the holiday display.
The exhibit of the crèche is made possible by gifts to The Christmas Tree Fund and the Loretta Hines Howard Fund.

Duncan Phyfe: Master Cabinetmaker in New York
December 20, 2011–May 6, 2012

Referred to during his lifetime as the "United States Rage," Duncan Phyfe (1768-1854) remains to this day America's best-known cabinetmaker. This will be the first major retrospective on Phyfe since 1922, when the Metropolitan mounted a monographic show on the cabinetmaker and his work. The exhibition will cover the full chronological sweep of Phyfe's distinguished career and include his earliest and best known furniture based on the published designs of Thomas Sheraton, as well as work from the middle and later stages of his career when he adopted the richer "archaeological" antique style of the 1820s, and a refined plain Grecian style based on French Restauration prototypes.
The exhibition is made possible in part by The Henry Luce Foundation, the Americana
Foundation, Dr. and Mrs. Paul Cushman, and Mr. Robert L. Froelich.
The exhibition was organized by The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, and the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston.
Press preview: Monday, December 19, 10:00 a.m. – noon

The Renaissance Portrait from Donatello to Bellini
December 21, 2011–March 18, 2012

It has been said that the Renaissance witnessed the rediscovery of the individual. Certainly portraiture assumed a new importance, whether it was to record the features of a family member for future generations, celebrate a prince or warrior, extol the beauty of a woman, or make possible the exchange of a likeness among friends. This exhibition will bring together paintings, medals, drawings, and sculpture that testify to the new vogue for and uses of portraiture in 15th-century Italy.
Press preview: Monday, December 19, 10:00 a.m. - noon

NEW GALLERIES

New Galleries for the Art of the Arab Lands, Turkey, Iran, Central Asia, and Later South Asia
Opening November 1, 2011

More than 1,000 works from the preeminent collection of the Museum's Department of Islamic Art—one of the most comprehensive gatherings of this material in the world—will return to view this fall in a completely renovated, expanded, and reinstalled suite of 15 galleries. The organization of the galleries by geographical area will emphasize the rich diversity of the Islamic world, over a span of 1300 years, by underscoring the many distinct cultures within its fold.
Press preview: Monday, October 24, 10:00 a.m. – noon

New American Wing Galleries for Paintings, Sculpture, and Decorative Arts
Opening January 16, 2012

This third and final phase of the overall American Wing renovation project comprises 24 entirely new galleries on the wing's second floor. Twenty-one of the galleries are for the display of the permanent collection of American paintings—including the rich holdings of such masters as Gilbert Stuart, Frederic Edwin Church, Winslow Homer, Thomas Eakins, and John Singer Sargent. Centered in the Grand Gallery will be Emanuel Leutze's monumental and iconic Washington Crossing the Delaware. Interspersed among the pictures will be American sculptures, notably the work of Augustus Saint-Gaudens. Three other galleries, together with a grand pre-revolutionary New York interior, will display 18th-century American decorative arts, principally treasures of colonial furniture and silver. In the Henry R. Luce Center for the Study of American Art, on the mezzanine level, a concurrent renovation includes additional casework, touch-screen case labels, and upgraded computer access.
Part 1 of the American Wing renovation project opened in January 2007 with galleries dedicated to the classical arts of America, 1810-1845. Part 2, inaugurated in May 2009, included the renovated Charles Engelhard Court and the Period Rooms. After Part 3 is completed, nearly all of the American Wing's 17,000 works will be on view, constituting an encyclopedic survey of fine art in the United States.

The André Mertens Galleries for Musical Instruments
Opened March 2, 2010

The gallery devoted to Western musical instruments reopened in March 2010, showcasing more than 230 works drawn primarily from the Metropolitan's extensive holdings of musical instruments, among the most important in the world. The new installation focuses attention on individual masterworks by exploring each within its musical and cultural context, by offering exciting comparisons of how individual makers realized the same concept, and by introducing examples of the various instruments' developments. Among the wide range of objects on view— keyboard, string, percussion, woodwind, and brass instruments—a highlight is the famed "Batta" cello made in Cremona, Italy, by Antonio Stradivari (1644-1737), on loan from a private collection. The reinstallation also includes new acquisitions and objects from the permanent collection that have rarely been seen by the public.

Renovation of the Late Gothic Hall, The Cloisters
Opened December 8, 2009

The Late Gothic Hall at The Cloisters museum and gardens reopened following an extensive renovation. The four large, 15th-century, French limestone windows from the Dominican monastery in Sens, Burgundy, were conserved, and new leaded glass was installed on the interior with protective glazing on the exterior. The new installation features a monumental tapestry from Burgos Cathedral representing the Salvation of Man, which returned to public view for the first time in a generation following a thorough campaign of conservation. The Late Gothic Hall, distinguished by its high timber ceiling, also exhibits many of the finest 15th-century works in The Cloisters' collection, including sculptures by Tilman Riemenschneider and richly painted and gilded altarpieces from Spain.
The renovation was funded by The Alice Tully Foundation.

CONTINUING EXHIBITIONS

Anthony Caro on the Roof
April 26 – October 30, 2011 (weather permitting)
Sculpture by Anthony Caro (b. 1924)—who is widely considered the most influential and prolific British sculptor of his generation, and a key figure in the development of modernist sculpture over the last 60 years—will comprise the Museum's 2011 installation on The Iris and B. Gerald Cantor Roof Garden, opening April 26. The exhibition features a selection of works in industrial steel, painted and unpainted from 1960 to 2010, that highlights principal aspects of the artist's long career: the engagement with abstract forms in space, the dialogue between sculpture and architecture, and the creation of new, abstract analogies for the human figure and the landscape.
The exhibition is made possible by Bloomberg.
Additional support is provided by Cynthia Hazen Polsky and Leon B. Polsky.

Richard Serra Drawing: A Retrospective
April 13–August 28, 2011

This first retrospective of the drawings of American contemporary artist Richard Serra traces his investigation of drawing as an activity both independent from and linked to his sculptural practice. Serra's drawings have played a crucial role in his work for more than 40 years, yet they have not been as widely recognized as his sculptures. This major exhibition features 60 works from the 1970s to the present, including many loans from European and American public and private collections. Serra's drawings from the early 1970s began as a means of exploring formal and perceptual relationships between his sculpture and the viewer; with time they evolved into autonomous works of art and increased in scale. In the mid-1970s, Serra made the first of his monumentally scaled Installation Drawings, some of which hang from floor to ceiling. To make these works, the artist attached linen directly to the wall and applied black paintstick using repetitive and vigorous physical gestures. Over the last 25 years, working primarily on paper, Serra has continued to invent new drawing techniques and to radically change the practice and definition of drawing. The exhibition will culminate with new large-scale works completed specifically for this presentation.
The exhibition is made possible in part by the Jane and Robert Carroll Fund.
It was organized by the Menil Collection, Houston.
Accompanied by a catalogue.

Poetry in Clay: Korean Buncheong Ceramics from Leeum, Samsung Museum of Art
April 7–August 14, 2011

This exhibition focusing on Buncheong ware, the bold and dynamic ceramic art that flourished in Korea during the 15th and 16th centuries, will feature approximately 60 works from the renowned collection of the Leeum, Samsung Museum of Art in Seoul, Korea. Included in the exhibition will be select works by modern/contemporary potters, highlighting how this tradition, which had disappeared in Korea for 400 years, has been revived and transformed by today's artists. In addition, the exhibition will feature a handful of Edo-period Japanese ceramics from the Museum's permanent collection, to illustrate Japanese revivals of the Buncheong idiom. The exhibition is made possible by the Korea Foundation.
It was organized by The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, and Leeum,
Samsung Museum of Art, Seoul.
Accompanied by a catalogue.

Rooms with a View: The Open Window in the 19th Century
April 5–July 4, 2011

During the Romantic era, the open window appeared either as the sole subject or main feature in many pictures of interiors that were filled with a poetic play of light and perceptible silence. Rooms with a View: The Open Window in the 19th Century will be the first exhibition to focus on this motif as first captured by German, Danish, French, and Russian artists around 1810-20. The exhibition will include some 31 oil paintings and 26 works on paper, including two seminal images by Caspar David Friedrich, shown for the first time in this country, as well as works by the many artists of the period who were influenced by him, including Carl Gustav Carus, Johan Christian Dahl, Georg Friedrich Kersting, Léon Cogniet, and others. The works will be shown in distinct groupings: austere hushed rooms with contemplative figures reading, sewing, or writing; studios with artists at work; and windows as sole motif. These pictures may shift from early Romantic severity to Biedermeier coziness to poetic Realism, yet they all share a distinct absence of anecdote or narrative.
The exhibition is made possible by the Anna-Maria and Stephen Kellen Foundation and The Isaacson-Draper Foundation.
Accompanied by a catalogue.

The Andean Tunic, 400 B.C.E.-1800 C.E.
March 8–September 18, 2011

Thirty Andean tunics drawn from Metropolitan holdings, the collections of the Textile Museum in Washington, D.C., and the Cleveland Museum of Art, will examine, together with loans from a private collection, the form of the tunic—essentially a type of man's shirt that held an important cultural place in Andean South America for centuries. The tunics of the Andean regions of Peru, northern Bolivia and Chile will be featured with examples that date from the late centuries before the Common Era until well after the arrival of European colonists in the 16th century.
Textiles themselves, an extraordinarily well developed art form in ancient times, were valued as wealth, and tunics were among the most treasured of them.
The exhibition is made possible through the generosity of the Friends of the Department of the Arts of Africa, Oceania, and the Americas.

Reconfiguring an African Icon: Odes to the Mask by Modern and Contemporary Artists from Three Continents
March 8–August 21, 2011

Works featured in this installation constitute highly creative re-imaginings of the iconic form of the African mask. Among them are sculptural assemblages constructed of incongruous combinations of discarded consumption goods by two contemporary artists from the Republic of Benin, Romuald Hazoumé (b. 1962) and Calixte Dakpogan (b. 1958). These ironical tributes to the mask as the African form of expression most renowned in the West are considered within a wider art historical context. Illuminating juxtapositions include works in a variety of media by modern and contemporary American artists, such as the celebrated photograph Noire et Blanche by Man Ray (1890–1976), recent works in glass by influential sculptor Lynda Benglis (b. 1941), and composite creations by Willie Cole (b. 1955). The installation is a collaboration of the Museum's departments of Nineteenth-Century, Modern, and Contemporary Art and The Arts of Africa, Oceania, and the Americas.

Guitar Heroes: Legendary Craftsmen from Italy to New York
February 9–July 4, 2011

The exhibition features guitars and other stringed instruments made by John D'Angelico, James D'Aquisto, and John Monteleone, three New York master luthiers of Italian descent. Their instruments are presented against the backdrop of the long tradition of Italian stringed instrument-making that has thrived for more than 500 years. The exhibition includes approximately 80 musical instruments, including many masterpieces from the Museum's collection, as well as instruments on loan from museums, private collectors, and performers.
The exhibition is made possible in part by Mr. and Mrs. Richard L. Chilton, Jr.
Accompanied by a publication.

Haremhab, The General Who Became King
Through July 4, 2011

The exhibition examines the Metropolitan's well-known statue of Haremhab as a Scribe, focusing on the historical and art-historical significance of the statue and of its subject: a royal scribe, general of the army under Tutankhamun, and eventually king (18th Dynasty, ca.1323–1309 B.C.).

Katrin Sigurdardottir at the Met
Through June 5, 2011

Two new sculptural installations created specifically for the Metropolitan by Katrin Sigurdardottir, an Icelandic artist (born 1967) who lives and works in New York City and Reykjavik, are the focus of this exhibition. Sigurdardottir is known for her highly detailed renditions of places, both real and fictional, that often incorporate an element of surprise. Entitled Boiseries, the installations are interpretations of 18th-century French rooms preserved at the Museum, one from the Hôtel de Crillon (1777–1780) on the Place de la Concorde, Paris, and the other from the Hôtel de Cabris (ca. 1775) at Grasse in Provence. The exhibition is the seventh in the Metropolitan's series of solo exhibitions of the work of contemporary artists at mid-career.
The exhibition is made possible by an anonymous donor and Sarah Peter.

NEW & CONTINUING INSTALLATIONS

Highlights from the Modern Design Collection, 1900 to the Present, Part II
Opens May 17, 2011

This installation of modern and contemporary design objects features new acquisitions and other important works from the past century to the present. Highlights include René Lalique's "Swan" necklace of opals and amethysts, a newly acquired chair by Henry Van de Velde, a playfully brilliant room divider by Ettore Sottsass, and a chandelier by the Dutch designer Joris Laarman. Also presented are glass, ceramics, metalwork, drawings, and posters.

Mother India: The Goddess in Indian Painting
June 29 – November 27, 2011

In India the Goddess (Devi) is the omnipresent embodiment of power and wisdom. Devi in her myriad forms, benign, maternal, empowering, and fearsome, expresses the range of human emotion and is perhaps the most widely worshipped deity in all India, standing alongside Shiva and Vishnu in the first rank of the Hindu, Buddhist, and Jain pantheons. In addition to selected paintings from the collection, highlights will include rare early molded clay images of the goddess from the early centuries B.C., whose meaning is lost to us, such as Goddess with attendants, from Chanduketugarh, in Bengal, dated to the Shunga Period, ca. first century B.C. A beautiful bronze of Yasoda nursing the infant Krishna from 12th-century Tamil Nadu is an enduring image of maternal love, and very likely a royal commission for use in a private chapel. Later Indian paintings, such as a Devi from Bikaner, Rajasthan, shows her assuming the form of a benign Durga, displaying the cosmic weapons lent to her by the male gods but standing on lotus flowers.

The Persistence of Antiquity: French Drawings from the Lehman Collection
September 27, 2011-January 8, 2012

This installation explores the changing interpretations and uses of antiquity in French art from the 17th century through the first half of the 20th century. Classicism was the proving ground for French artists, even in the modernist era, with each generation transforming the myths and histories of ancient Greece and Rome to fill the emotional and political needs of their time. From the legitimization of the French revolution through Jacques-Louis David's Brutus, to the post-World War I "return to order" evident in Aristide Maillol's nudes, the classical legacy has persisted as a reference point and source of renewal for French art. Despite their heterogeneity, the drawings in this exhibition display the continuity and survival of ancient motifs and narratives through the centuries.

Art in Renaissance Venice, 1400-1515: Paintings and Drawings from the Museum's Collections
November 8, 2011 – February 5, 2012

This exhibition of early Renaissance Venetian art integrates approximately 40 paintings, drawings, and manuscript illuminations from the Metropolitan Museum's collections, uniting works by individual Venetian masters and offering the opportunity to recontextualize well-known masterpieces and less-recognized works. Encompassing the early 15th to the early 16th century, the selection features paintings by several leading artists who were active in the city, including Gentile da Fabriano, Jacopo and Giovanni Bellini, the Vivarini, Vittore Carpaccio, Carlo Crivelli, and Giovanni Battista Cima (da Conegliano), as well as drawings by these masters and their circles. The exhibition highlights several key developments in the production of sacred art in Venice by exploring the workshop practices and specializations of the two leading families of artists: the Bellini and the Vivarini.
A rich selection of half-length paintings of the Madonna and of the Sacra Conversazione vividly demonstrates Venetian artists' increasing use of this format for private devotional images and evokes the interrelation of form and function in devotional practices. In addition to illustrating Giovanni Bellini's pervasive influence, many of the works showcase the significance of Paduan art, and especially Andrea Mantegna, in Venice.

Night Vision: Photography After Dark
April 26 – September 18, 2011

Photographers have always been fascinated by the technical and pictorial challenges of capturing images after dark, but it was not until the first decade of the 20th century that night photography came into its own as a distinct artistic genre. This installation surveys the ways in which modern photographers have used the camera to explore the visual and symbolic potential of the nocturnal image. Among the featured works will be moody Pictorialist nocturnes by Edward Steichen and Alvin Langdon Coburn; shadowy street scenes by Brassaï, Bill Brandt, and Robert Frank; electric light abstractions by Italian Futurist Giuseppe Albergamo; and aerial views of suburban Los Angeles at night by contemporary photographer David Deutsch. Drawn entirely from the Metropolitan's collection, the installation will include approximately 40 photographs, ranging from the late 1890s to the present.

After The Gold Rush: Contemporary Photographs from the Collection
March 22, 2011 – January 2, 2012

This installation in the Joyce and Robert Menschel Hall for Modern Photography juxtaposes recently made photographs by An-My Lê, James Casebere, and Wolfgang Tillmans with prescient works by artists such as Hans Haacke and Adrian Piper that are equally relevant today.

Thinking Outside the Box: European Cabinets, Caskets, and Cases from the Permanent Collection (1500-1900)
Through October 30, 2011

For centuries, boxes, caskets, cabinets, and chests played an important role in everyday life. Ranging from strongboxes to travel cases and from containers for tea or tobacco to those for the storage of toiletries or silverware, these lidded pieces were made in a large variety of shapes and sizes, and of many different materials. Thinking Outside the Box: European Cabinets, Caskets, and Cases from the Permanent Collection (1500–1900) features a selection of 100 examples of important boxes, caskets, and small chests from the Metropolitan Museum's Department of European Sculpture and Decorative Arts. The form and decoration of these objects not only reflect changes in social customs and manners but also follow the stylistic developments in Europe that span 400 years. Pieces made of tortoiseshell, carved or inlaid wood, porcelain, hard stones and natural substances, embroidery, various metals, leather, enamel, pastiglia, and straw are included. These objects, some of which have not been on display for years, were much more than mere containers and many became precious works of art, collected in their own right.

Rugs and Ritual in Tibetan Buddhism
Through June 26, 2011

Thirty works dedicated to the enactment of Tibetan Vajrayana Buddhism, focusing on Tibetan tantric rugs as the seats of power employed by practitioners of esoteric Buddhism, form this installation. These rugs typically depict the flayed skin of an animal or human and, together with associated ritual utensils, are the tools employed in the enactment of esoteric rites associated with protective deities. The employment of these images and ritual tools celebrate the power of detachment from the corporal body that advanced Buddhist practitioners strive to attain. It features two large ritual tangkas in the Museum, together with the rugs upon which the practitioner sits, or upon which his ritual utensils are placed, as well as a rich assortment of associated ritual paraphernalia. Many are rarely seen objects from private collections.

Wiener Werkstätte Textiles
Through May 22, 2011

The Wiener Werkstätte, founded in 1903, was a school for modern design and craftsmanship in Vienna. This small installation, organized by the Department of Nineteenth-Century, Modern, and Contemporary Art and the Antonio Ratti Textile Center, features 32 fabric samples of Wiener Werkstätte textile designs and a day dress made with a fabric designed by Dagobert Peche.

Tibetan Arms and Armor from the Permanent Collection
Through spring 2012

This installation presents approximately 35 highlights from the Museum's extensive collection of rare and exquisitely decorated armor, weapons, and equestrian equipment from Tibet and related areas of Mongolia and China, dating from the eighth to the 20th century. Included are several recent acquisitions that have never before been exhibited or published.

VISITOR INFORMATION

MAIN BUILDING 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 9:30 a.m.–5:30 p.m.
May 30, 2011
All other Mondays Closed
January 1, Thanksgiving, and December 25 Closed

THE CLOISTERS MUSEUM AND GARDENS HOURS

November–February:
Tuesdays–Sundays 9:30 a.m.–4:45 p.m.
Mondays Closed

March–October:
Tuesdays–Sundays 9:30 a.m.–5:15 p.m.
Mondays Closed

RECOMMENDED ADMISSION (INCLUDES MAIN BUILDING 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

Express admission may be purchased in advance at www.metmuseum.org/visit

For more information (212) 535-7710; www.metmuseum.org

No extra charge for any exhibition

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May 17, 2011

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