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CURRENT
Major Exhibitions
UPCOMING
Major Exhibitions
Exhibitions
Installations
CONTINUING
Exhibitions and Installations
Galleries
Chronological List of Exhibitions
Kerry James Marshall: Mastry
October 25, 2016–January 29, 2017
Location: The Met Breuer
Marking the artist’s largest museum exhibition to date, this retrospective of paintings by Kerry James Marshall (b. 1955, Birmingham, Alabama) spans the artist’s remarkable 35-year career, to reveal the complex and compelling creative output of one of today’s most important living artists.
Marshall is a history painter whose work reflects and challenges the time and culture he inhabits. Driven by an examination of the historical dearth and relatively recent appearance of the black figure in Western painting, he is immersed in the past and present of painting—particularly the century-long conflict between figuration and abstraction. He is also committed to a vision of American history that represents the narratives—triumphs and failures both—of individual African Americans as well as the concept of blackness as a whole. In the grand scale of the Old Masters, Marshall creates works that engage with themes of visibility and invisibility, portraiture and self-portraiture, religious iconography, the politics of Pan-Africanism and black militancy, and the ethics of painting.
The exhibition is accompanied by a selection of approximately 35 objects chosen by Kerry James Marshall from The Met collection.
The exhibition is made possible by the Ford Foundation, Kenneth and Rosalind Landis, and the H. Tony and Marti Oppenheimer Foundation.
Additional support is provided by The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts.
It is organized by The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago; and The Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles.
#KerryJamesMarshall
#MetBreuer
Native American Masterpieces from the Charles and Valerie Diker Collection
October 28, 2016–March 19, 2017
With works of art ranging in date from the second to the early 20th century, this exhibition explores important artistic achievements from culturally distinct Indigenous peoples throughout the North American continent. The selected works demonstrate the unique visons of indigenous artists who worked in a wide variety of aesthetic forms and media in innovative ways that defy categorization. Featuring 50 exceptional works drawn entirely from New York’s Charles and Valerie Diker Collection—one of the most comprehensive and diverse private collections of its kind—it makes historic and regional connections between the works of art while highlighting superb and rare pieces from early periods.
The exhibition is made possible in part by the Estate of Brooke Astor.
#NativeAmericanMasterpieces
Max Beckmann in New York
October 19, 2016–February 20, 2017
In late December 1950, Max Beckmann set out from his apartment on the Upper West Side to see his latest self-portrait, then on view at The Met. On the corner of 69th Street and Central Park West he suffered a fatal heart attack. The poignant circumstances of his death serve as the inspiration for this focused show. The exhibition highlights the artist’s special connection with New York City and features 14 paintings that Beckmann painted while living in New York from 1949 to 1950, as well as 25 from New York collections dating from 1920 to 1948. The exhibition assembles several groups of iconic works, including self-portraits; expressionist, mythical interiors; robust, colorful portraits of women and performers; landscapes; and triptychs.
The exhibition is made possible by The Isaacson-Draper Foundation.
It is supported by an Indemnity from the Federal Council on the Arts and the Humanities.
#MaxBeckmann
Valentin de Boulogne: Beyond Caravaggio
October 7, 2016–January 22, 2017
The greatest French follower of Caravaggio (1571–1610), Valentin de Boulogne (1591–1632), was also one of the outstanding artists in 17th–century Europe. In the years following Caravaggio’s death, he emerged as one of the most original protagonists of the new, naturalistic painting. Valentin de Boulogne is the first monographic exhibition devoted to this artist, who is little known because his career was short-lived—he died at age 41—and his works are so rare. Around 60 paintings by Valentin survive, and this exhibition brings together 45 of them, with works coming from Rome, Vienna, Munich, Madrid, London, and Paris. Exceptionally, the Musée du Louvre, which possesses the most important and extensive body of Valentin’s works, has lent all of its paintings by the artist.
Valentin has long been admired by those with a passion for Caravaggesque painting, and his work was a reference point for the great realists of the 19th century, from Courbet to Manet. His startlingly vibrant staging of dramatic events and the deep humanity of his figures, who seem touched by a pervasive melancholy, make his work unforgettable.
The exhibition is made possible by the Hata Stichting Foundation, the Placido Arango Fund, the William Randolph Hearst Foundation, Frank E. Richardson and Kimba M. Wood, Alice Cary Brown and W.L. Lyons Brown, and an Anonymous Foundation.
It is supported by an Indemnity from the Federal Council on the Arts and the Humanities.
The exhibition is organized by The Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Musée du Louvre.
#ValentindeBoulogne
Fragonard: Drawing Triumphant—Works from New York Collections
October 6, 2016–January 8, 2017
Jean-Honoré Fragonard (1732–1806) was perhaps the most forward-looking artist of the 18th century. His originality can be found in the spirited touch and fertile imagination that infuses his entire output, but is best appreciated in his works on paper. This exhibition of approximately 110 drawings and prints explores his full range of invention, from the quick sketches that captured his initial ideas, to the finished drawings so highly valued by collectors from his own day to the present. It is a testament to the special place Fragonard has held in the hearts of New York collectors that the selection is drawn entirely from local collections, public and private.
The exhibition is made possible by the Gail and Parker Gilbert Fund and the Diane W. and James E. Burke Fund.
#DrawingTriumphant
#MetOnPaper100
Jerusalem 1000-1400: Every People Under Heaven
September 26, 2016–January 8, 2017
This exhibition illuminates the key role that the Holy City played in shaping the art of the period from 1000 to 1400. While Jerusalem is often described as a city of three faiths, that formulation underestimates its fascinating complexity. In fact, the city was home to multiple cultures, faiths, and languages. History records harmonious and dissonant voices of people from many lands, passing in the narrow streets of a city not much larger than midtown Manhattan. This is the first exhibition to unravel the various cultural traditions and aesthetic strands that enriched and enlivened the medieval city.
Over 200 works of art have been gathered from some 60 lenders worldwide. Nearly a quarter of the objects come from Jerusalem, including key loans from its religious communities, some of which have never before shared their treasures outside their walls. The exhibition bears witness to the crucial role that the city has played in shaping world culture, a lesson vital to our common history.
The exhibition is made possible by The David Berg Foundation; The al-Sabah Collection, Kuwait; the Sherman Fairchild Foundation; the William S. Lieberman Fund; The Polonsky Foundation; Diane Carol Brandt; The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation; the Ruddock Foundation for the Arts; and Mary and Michael Jaharis.
Additional support is provided by the National Endowment for the Arts.
#MetJerusalem
Marisa Merz: The Sky Is a Great Space
January 24–May 7, 2017
Location: The Met Breuer
This is the first major retrospective in the United States for Italian artist Marisa Merz (born Turin, 1926), sole female protagonist of the Arte Povera movement. Encompassing five decades of work—from early experiments with nontraditional art materials to mid-career installations that balance intimacy with impressive scale, to enigmatic sculpted heads created after 1975—the exhibition explores Merz’s prodigious talent and influence.
The exhibition is organized by The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, and the Hammer Museum, Los Angeles.
Press Preview: Monday, January 23, 10 am–noon
#MarisaMerz
The Mysterious Landscapes of Hercules Segers
February 13–May 21, 2017
The great experimental printmaker Hercules Segers (Dutch, ca. 1589–ca. 1638), one of the most fertile artistic minds of his time, created otherworldly landscapes of astonishing originality. With a unique array of techniques whose identification still puzzles scholars, he etched extraordinary, colorful landscapes and still lifes. Rejecting the idea that prints from a single plate should all look the same in black and white, he produced impressions in varied color schemes, painting them, then adding lines or cutting down the plate. He turned each impression of his evocative landscapes into unique, miniature paintings that seem out of their time. This exhibition is the first to display all of Segers’s prints in varying impressions alongside a selection of his paintings and will be the first large selection of his fascinating work to be shown in the United States.
The exhibition is made possible by the Diane W. and James E. Burke Fund and The Schiff Foundation.
It is organized by the Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam and The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York.
Press Preview: Monday, February 6, 10 am–noon
#HerculesSegers
Seurat’s Circus Sideshow
February 17–May 29, 2017
Seurat’s evocative nighttime scene of circus performers, painted in 1887–88, takes center stage in a thematic exhibition that offers a unique context for appreciating its heritage and allure. Anchored by a core group of related works by Seurat, the presentation features paintings, drawings, and prints that trace the fascination the sideshow subject held for artists ranging from Daumier in the mid-19th century to the young Picasso at the fin de siècle.
The exhibition is made possible by the Janice H. Levin Fund, the Gail and Parker Gilbert Fund, and an Anonymous Foundation.
Press Preview: Wednesday, February 15, 10 am–noon
#SeuratSideshow
Marsden Hartley’s Maine
March 15–June 18, 2017
Location: The Met Breuer
This exhibition will examine Marsden Hartley’s life-long artistic engagement with his home state of Maine. Despite the painter’s well-known peripatetic nature, he returned repeatedly to Maine over the course of his career, from 1905 to his death in 1943. Maine was to Hartley a springboard to imagination and creative inspiration, a locus of memory and longing, a refuge, and a means of communion with previous artists who painted there, especially Winslow Homer. Consisting of about 90 paintings and drawings, the exhibition will showcase Hartley’s extraordinary range as an artist, from early Post-Impressionist interpretations of seasonal change in the region to late folk-inspired depictions of Mount Katahdin, the state’s great geological icon.
The exhibition is made possible by the Henry Luce Foundation, the William Randolph Hearst Foundation, and the Jane and Robert Carroll Fund.
It is organized by The Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Colby College Museum of Art.
Press Preview: Monday, March 13, 10 am–noon
#MarsdenHartley
Lygia Pape: A Multitude of Forms
March 21–July 23, 2017
Location: The Met Breuer
The first monographic exhibition in the United States devoted to Brazilian artist Lygia Pape (1927–2004), a pivotal figure in Brazilian modern art, opens at The Met Breuer in March 2017. Pape’s singular combination of geometric abstraction with notions of body, time, and space radically transformed the nature of the art object in the late 1950s and early 1960s. Pape’s prolific, unclassifiable career spanned five decades, and the show will examine the artist’s extraordinarily rich oeuvre in varied media, from sculptures to prints, including painting, installation, photography, performance, and film.
The exhibition is made possible by The Daniel and Estrellita Brodsky Foundation and The Garcia Family Foundation.
It is organized by The Metropolitan Museum of Art in collaboration with Projeto Lygia Pape.
Press Preview: Monday, March 20, 10 am–noon
#LygiaPape
Age of Empires: Chinese Art of the Qin and Han Dynasties (221 B.C.–A.D. 220)
April 3–July 16, 2017
This major international loan exhibition will feature more than 160 objects of ancient Chinese art, including renowned terracotta army warriors. Synthesizing new archaeological discoveries and in-depth research of the last 50 years, the landmark exhibition will explore the unprecedented role of art in creating a new and lasting Chinese cultural identity. The works in the exhibition—extremely rare ceramics, metalwork, textiles, sculpture, painting, calligraphy, and architectural models—are drawn exclusively from 31 museums and archaeological institutions in the People’s Republic of China, and a majority of the works have never before been seen in the West. Highlights include a striking statue of a seminude performer whose anatomical accuracy, unheard of in Chinese art, brings to mind Greco-Roman sculpture first introduced into Asia by Alexander the Great. The exhibition will introduce a largely unknown era of Chinese civilization to a global audience.
The exhibition is made possible by the Joseph Hotung Fund, the Henry Luce Foundation, and the E. Rhodes and Leona B. Carpenter Foundation.
Press Preview: Monday, March 27, 10 am–noon
#MetAgeofEmpires
Irving Penn: Centennial
April 24–July 30, 2017
The most comprehensive retrospective to date of the work of the great American photographer, Irving Penn (1917-2009), will open on April 20, 2017. This centennial exhibition follows the 2015 promised gift from The Irving Penn Foundation to The Met of more than 150 photographs by Penn, representing every period of the artist’s dynamic 70-year career with the camera.
The exhibition is made possible by the Terra Foundation for American Art, the Enterprise Holdings Endowment, and The Peter Jay Sharp Foundation.
It is organized by The Metropolitan Museum of Art in collaboration with The Irving Penn Foundation.
Press Preview: Monday, April 17, 10 am–noon
#IrvingPenn
Rei Kawakubo/Comme des Garçons
May 4–September 4, 2017
The Costume Institute’s spring 2017 exhibition will examine Rei Kawakubo’s fascination with interstitiality, or the space between boundaries. Existing within and between entities—self/other, object/subject, fashion/anti-fashion—Kawakubo’s work challenges conventional notions of beauty, good taste, and fashionability. The thematic exhibition will feature approximately 120 examples of Kawakubo’s womenswear designs for Comme des Garçons, dating from her first Paris runway show in 1981 to her most recent collection.
Press Preview: Monday, May 1, 2017, 10 am–1 pm
#MetKawakubo
Birds of a Feather: Joseph Cornell’s Homage to Juan Gris
May 23–September 10, 2017
In October 1953, Joseph Cornell, who pioneered the art form known as assemblage, caught sight of a painting by Cubist artist Juan Gris, The Man at the Café (1914), on view in a New York gallery. The encounter sparked a productive streak: Within weeks Cornell had begun work on a series of boxes and collages that he would develop over more than a decade. Starting in May 2017, a tightly focused exhibition at The Met, Birds of a Feather: Joseph Cornell’s Homage to Juan Gris, will for the first time unite Gris’s canvas with nearly a dozen works that Cornell created in homage to the Cubist artist.
Press Preview: Monday, May 22, 10 am–noon
Breuer Revisited: New Photographs by Luisa Lambri and Bas Princen
February 1–May 21, 2017
Location: The Met Breuer
In this exhibition, two contemporary photographers examine five major public buildings designed by Marcel Breuer (1902–1981), the renowned architect whose accomplishments include The Met Breuer. Italian artist Luisa Lambri (born 1969) and Dutch artist Bas Princen (born 1975) each look at how these buildings are used and occupied today and how they reflect and have changed with the passage of time.
The exhibition is made possible by The Daniel and Estrellita Brodsky Foundation.
Small Wonders: Gothic Boxwood Miniatures
February 22–May 21, 2017
Location: The Met Cloisters
Small in scale, yet teeming with life, miniature boxwood carvings have been a source of wonder since their creation in the Netherlands in the 16th century. The execution of these intricately carved prayer beads and diminutive altarpieces—some measuring a mere two inches (five centimeters) in diameter—is as miraculous as the stories they tell. In this exhibition, the first of its kind, the ingenious techniques of the carvers are revealed through the joint efforts of conservators at The Met and the Art Gallery of Ontario. Nearly 50 of these tiny treasures will be featured.
The exhibition is made possible by the Michel David-Weill Fund.
It is organized by The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; the Art Gallery of Ontario, Toronto; and the Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam.
Press Preview: Tuesday, February 21, 10 am–noon
Japanese Bamboo Art: The Abbey Collection
June 13, 2017–February 4, 2018
Featuring works of Japanese bamboo art dating from the late 19th century to the present—the period when basketry in Japan became recognized as a form of art transcending “craft”—this loan exhibition will showcase more than 80 baskets and sculpture created by accomplished artists, including all six masters who have received the designation of Living National Treasure. Highlighting key stages in the modern history of Japanese bamboo art, the exhibition is drawn from one of the finest assemblages of Japanese baskets and bamboo sculpture in private hands, and many of the works have never before been presented in public. More than 50 of these remarkable objects—promised gifts to The Met from long-time New York residents Diane and Arthur Abbey—will become a part of the Museum’s collection, bringing added depth to its already–incomparable holdings in Asian art and allowing the Museum to tell the modern history of basketry from the 1880s through the present.
Accompanied by a Bulletin published by The Met.
Press Preview: Monday, June 12, 10 am–noon
Cristóbal de Villalpando: Mexican Painter of the Baroque
July 25–October 15, 2017
The Mexican artist Cristóbal de Villalpando (ca. 1649–1714) emerged in the 1680s as one of the most innovative and accomplished artists in the entire Spanish world. His earliest masterpiece—a monumental painting that depicts Moses and the brazen serpent and the Transfiguration of Jesus—is an unprecedented juxtaposition of Old and New Testament subjects. Newly conserved, the 28-foot-tall painting has never been exhibited outside its original location in Puebla Cathedral. Ten additional works, including his recently discovered
Adoration of the Kings from Fordham University and other important works on loan from collections in Mexico, will be shown.
Organized by The Metropolitan Museum of Art and Fomento Cultural Banamex.
Press Preview: Monday, July 24, 10 am–noon
UPCOMING INSTALLATIONS
Picturing Math: Selections from the Department of Drawings and Prints
January 31–May 1, 2017
The visualization of mathematics has taken many forms since the advent of printing. Animated by tensions between the abstract and the figural, the geometric and the gestural, these works from The Met collection show how artists from the 15th century to contemporary times have engaged in the creation and communication of mathematical knowledge through the use and production of images.
Sara Berman’s Closet
March 6–September 5, 2017
The meticulously organized closet in which Sara Berman (1920–2004)—an immigrant from Belarus—kept her all-white apparel and accessories both contained her life and revealed it. A re-creation of this modest closet, with its neatly arranged stacks of starched and precisely folded clothing, will be presented in The Met’s American Wing as a small period room in dialogue with the opulent, recently installed Worsham-Rockefeller Dressing Room from 1882. Conceived by the artists Maira and Alex Kalman (Berman’s daughter and grandson), the exhibition was originally organized at Mmuseumm, New York.
Peder Balke: Painter of Northern Light
April 10–July 9, 2017
This exhibition will introduce the American public to the strikingly original, visionary work of this 19th-century Norwegian artist. Balke developed a remarkable freedom in his approach to painting that evokes both the spiritual naturalism of Caspar David Friedrich and the painterly expressiveness of Edvard Munch. Fifteen landscapes and marine paintings by Balke—all from private collections—will be presented alongside a selection of works by his colleagues and contemporaries, underscoring his unique place in northern Romanticism.
Renaissance Portrait Medals from the Robert Lehman Collection
December 19, 2016–May 29, 2017
This exhibition is the first to present the Robert Lehman Collection’s portrait medals. The selection features 30 Italian and Northern European bronze medals, ranging from early examples of the mid-15th century to rare 17th-century wax models. Combining masterful portraits of rulers, dignitaries, and literary figures on one side, and rich, symbolic imagery on the other, medals were the ideal vehicle for immortalizing and disseminating one’s achievements. The exhibition, which explores the development and role of the portrait medal in Renaissance culture, as well as production techniques, celebrates the recently published catalogue of the Lehman Collection’s holdings of European sculpture and metalwork.
An Artist of Her Time: Y. G. Srimati and the Indian Style
December 15, 2016–June 18, 2017
The first retrospective exhibition devoted to the Indian artist Y.G. Srimati (1926–2007) will feature 25 watercolor paintings, augmented by musical instruments, archival photographs, and performance recordings. Raised in the heated climate of the independence movement—she performed devotional songs for Mahatma Gandhi—Srimati explored themes from Indian religious epic literature and visions of rural culture, asserting traditional subject matter as part of a conscious expression of nationalist sentiments. Drawn from The Met collection and private collections.
The exhibition is made possible by The Miriam and Ira D. Wallach Foundation Fund.
The Poetics of Place: Contemporary Photographs from The Met Collection
December 12, 2016–May 28, 2017
This exhibition will survey the diverse ways in which contemporary artists have photographed landscape and the built world. Through 41 works, it will explore this topic over the span of a half century and feature artists including Matthew Brandt, Roe Ethridge, Sarah Anne Johnson, and Wolfgang Staehle.
#PoeticsofPlace
Annual Christmas Tree and Neapolitan Baroque Crèche
November 22, 2016–January 8, 2017
The Met will continue a long-standing holiday tradition with the presentation of its Christmas tree, a favorite of both New Yorkers and visitors from around the world. The magnificently lit, 20-foot blue spruce looms over a vivid 18th-century Neapolitan Nativity scene, enclosed in an abundant array of lifelike figures with silk-robed angels hovering above. The scene represents in detail the Mediterranean harbor town’s multicultural society. The installation will be set in front of the 18th-century Spanish choir screen from the Cathedral of Valladolid in the Museum’s Medieval Sculpture Hall. Recorded Christmas music and daily 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.
#MetChristmasTree
Masterworks: Unpacking Fashion
November 18, 2016–February 5, 2017
The Costume Institute’s fall 2016 exhibition will feature significant acquisitions of the past 10 years and explore how the department has honed its collecting strategy to amass masterworks of the highest aesthetic and technical quality, including iconic works by designers who have changed fashion history and advanced fashion as an art form. During the 70 years since The Costume Institute became part of The Met, the strategy has shifted from creating a collection of Western high fashion that is encyclopedic in breadth to one focused on acquiring masterworks. The exhibition, in the Anna Wintour Costume Center, will highlight approximately 60 of these masterworks from the early 18th century to the present. Each will be accompanied by an in-depth explanation of its significance within the canon of fashion history.
#FashionMasterworks
City of Memory: William Chappel’s Views of Early 19th-Century New York
November 15, 2016–May 14, 2017
William P. Chappel (ca. 1801-1880), a tinsmith and amateur painter, depicted scenes of early 19th-century New York City. This installation features 27 small oil paintings from The Met collection that were probably executed late in the artist’s life. Chappel’s meticulously detailed images of street peddlers, artisan workshops, and swimmers cooling off in the East River—the kinds of commonplace scenes that were seldom documented—provide a rare glimpse of urban life 200 years ago.
Late Antique Textiles and Modern Design
November 11, 2016–October 1, 2017
Artists and designers often find inspiration for their work in objects created in the past. Focusing on foliate patterns and roundels found on textiles from the Late Roman, Byzantine, and Early Islamic periods in Egypt, this exhibition considers how similar motifs found their way onto postcards by the Wiener Werkstätte and garments designed by Mariano Fortuny (1871–1949).All works are from The Met collection.
Velázquez Portraits: Truth in Painting
November 4, 2016–March 12, 2017
Although he established his career by making formal state portraits of the leading figures of the Spanish monarchy, some of Velázquez’s (1599–1660) most immediate and captivating images are the bust-length likenesses he produced in Spain and during his travels in Italy. Seven exceptional portraits by Velázquez, including The Met’s iconic Juan de Pareja (1650), are view in this focused exhibition, which shows how the artist captured human experience. Two paintings from the Hispanic Society of America—Portrait of a Young Girl (ca. 1640) and Cardinal Camillo Astalli-Pamphili (ca. 1650)—that were recently cleaned and restored at The Met are also on view.
The exhibition is made possible by the Richard and Natalie Jacoff Foundation.
Show and Tell: Stories in Chinese Painting
October 29, 2016–August 6, 2017
In China, paintings that tell stories serve as powerful vehicles, enlisted to promote political agendas and cultural values as well as express personal thoughts. This exhibition focuses on the complex art of Chinese pictorial storytelling. Featuring some 100 works dating from the 12th century to the present, it reveals the structural and expressive strategies of the genre. Drawn from The Met collection, with 16 loans from private collectors, it is presented in three sections, each demonstrating a different mode of pictorial narrative.
The exhibition is made possible by the Joseph Hotung Fund.
#ChinesePainting
Renaissance Maiolica: Painted Pottery for Shelf and Table
October 20, 2016–May 29, 2017
This exhibition of Renaissance maiolica from The Met collection celebrates the publication of Maiolica, Italian Renaissance Ceramics in The Metropolitan Museum of Art by Timothy Wilson. As Wilson has written, “painted pottery, at its most ambitious, is a serious form of Italian Renaissance art, with much to offer those interested in the wider culture of this astoundingly creative period.” Taking this premise as its point of departure, the exhibition includes objects that can be categorized as sculpture, tableware and serving vessels, desk accessories, storage containers, and devotional objects—all made in painted and glazed earthenware. The maiolica tradition, which flourished from the 15th to the 17th century, brought together innovations of Renaissance goldsmithry, sculpture, and painting in humble media and functional forms, but often for an elite clientele. Renaissance Maiolica explores how different functions dictated the ways maiolica was seen and decorated, and groups of objects are installed to suggest how they were used.
Workshop and Legacy: Stanley William Hayter, Krishna Reddy, Zarina Hashmi
October 6, 2016—March 26, 2017
Atelier 17, the celebrated print studio established by Stanley William Hayter (1901–1988) in Paris in 1927, was the fertile ground where the Indian artists Krishna Reddy (b. 1925) and Zarina Hashmi (b. 1937) evolved their styles and techniques. Hayter and Reddy broke new ground in simultaneous color printing, known as the viscosity method. After learning intaglio at Atelier 17, Hashmi added Japanese woodblock to her repertoire. This focused exhibition explores the collaborative relationships among these three print masters, bringing together works from their years in Paris with more recent examples.
Splendors of Korean Art
October 1, 2016–September 17, 2017
Thirteen masterpieces on loan from the National Museum of Korea are the highlights of this exhibition. They include Silla gold jewelry and pottery, Goryeo Buddhist sculpture and celadon, and Joseon porcelain and paintings—some of which have never before crossed the Pacific Ocean—and are presented together with treasured works from The Met collection in the Arts of Korea Gallery. Organized chronologically from the Late Bronze Age to the 21st century, this year-long presentation explores Korea's rich artistic traditions and conveys the broad framework of its art history.
The exhibition is made possible in part by The Met’s collaboration with the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism of the Republic of Korea and the National Museum of Korea.
#MetKoreanArt
Faith and Photography: Auguste Salzmann in the Holy Land
September 12, 2016–February 5, 2017
In 1853, Auguste Salzmann (French, 1824–1872)—academic painter, poet, archaeologist, photographer—embarked on the arduous journey from Paris to Jerusalem. Hoping to objectively verify religious faith through the documentation of the city’s holy sites, he turned to photography, creating one of the most enigmatic bodies of work of the 19th century. Despite a high-caliber photographic oeuvre of great variation and creativity, Salzmann remains relatively unknown. Some three dozen rare salted paper prints have been selected from his influential 1856 album, Jerusalem: A Study and Photographic Reproduction of the Monuments of the Holy City from the Jewish Epoch until Our Own Time. Drawn exclusively from the rich holdings of The Met’s Department of Photographs, particularly the Gilman Collection, this is the first major exhibition of Salzmann’s work in more than a generation and the first ever devoted exclusively to his career.
#FaithAndPhotography
Power and Piety: Islamic Talismans on the Battlefield
August 29, 2016–February 13, 2017
Inscriptions and images on Islamic arms and armor were believed to provide their wearers with safety and success in combat. The exhibition, which features some 30 works from The Met collection, examines the role of text and image in the construction and function of arms and armor in the Islamic world. Qur’anic verses; prayers that invoke Allah, the Asma al-Husna (99 names of Allah), as well as the Prophet Muhammad, his family, and companions; and mystical symbols were all used to imbue military apparel, weapons, and paraphernalia with protective powers.
The exhibition is made possible by The Hagop Kevorkian Fund.
#IslamicArmsandArmor
Simple Gifts: Shaker at The Met
July 13, 2016–June 25, 2017
The United Society of Believers in Christ’s Second Appearing—also known as the Shakers—is a utopian religious sect that rose to prominence in the 19th century. The simplicity and utility for which Shaker apparel, furniture, and architecture are known stem from the sect’s religious beliefs and customs, which stress social, gender, economic, and spiritual equality for all members. The exhibition features more than two dozen examples of primarily mid-19th-century furniture, textiles, and domestic objects by Shaker craftspeople. Many of the works came to The Met from the collection of Faith and Edward Deming Andrews, the leading collectors and scholars of Shaker culture from the 1930s through the 1960s, who were heralded for stimulating widespread interest in Shaker design and antiques.
The Aesthetic Movement in America
July 13, 2016–October 2017
The Aesthetic movement developed in the wake of the Industrial Revolution in Great Britain with the aim of reforming art and industry through design. This influential design crusade championed the marriage of the beautiful and the functional in all media. A cultural phenomenon of its time, the Aesthetic movement promoted beauty as an artistic, social, and moral force, particularly in the domestic realm. The exhibition features nearly two dozen American works—primarily from The Met collection—that represent the movement.
From the Imperial Theater: Chinese Opera Costumes of the 18th and 19th Centuries
June 25, 2016–October 9, 2017
This installation sheds light on Chinese opera costumes. Showcasing robes drawn entirely from The Met collection, it examines these luxury textiles from artistic and technical points of view. The first rotation (on view through January 8, 2017) focuses on costumes used in dramas based on historical events; and the second rotation (on view January 14–October 9, 2017) will feature costumes from plays derived from legends and myths. A set of album leaves faithfully depicting theatrical characters wearing such robes is also displayed.
The exhibition is made possible by the Joseph Hotung Fund.
#ChineseOperaCostumes
Cinnabar: The Chinese Art of Carved Lacquer, 14th to 19th Century
June 25, 2016–October 9, 2017
An installation featuring 45 magnificent examples of Chinese carved lacquer drawn entirely from The Met collection, this display explores the development of this significant artistic tradition.
The exhibition is made possible by the Joseph Hotung Fund.
#ChineseLacquer
Colors of the Universe: Chinese Hardstone Carvings
June 25, 2016–October 9, 2017
Showcasing a selection of 75 exquisite carvings—not only jade, the most esteemed of East Asian gems, but also agate, malachite, turquoise, quartz, amber, coral, and lapis lazuli—this installation presents the lapidary art of China’s Qing dynasty (1644–1911). Drawn entirely from The Met collection, it reveals the extensive variety of hardstones and full palette of vibrant colors favored at the imperial court.
The exhibition is made possible by the Joseph Hotung Fund.
Celebrating the Arts of Japan: The Mary Griggs Burke Collection
October 20, 2015–May 14, 2017
Over the course of five decades, Mary Griggs Burke (1916–2012), a New York-based collector of Asian art, built one of the finest and most comprehensive private collections of Japanese art outside Japan. Over 300 masterworks, including over 225 paintings in various formats, as well as Buddhist sculptures and an array of ceramics and lacquerware, outstanding examples of every type of Japanese art represented, were bequeathed to The Met. This exhibition, which serves as a tribute to a great collector, reveals the distinctive features of Japanese art as viewed through the lens of 50 years of collecting: the sublime spirituality of Buddhist and Shinto art; the boldness of Zen ink painting; the imaginary world conjured up by the Tale of Genji and classical Japanese literature; the sumptuous colors of bird-and-flower painting; the subtlety of poetry, calligraphy, and literati themes; the aestheticized accoutrements of the tea ceremony; and the charming portraiture of courtesans from the "floating world" (ukiyo-e).
The exhibition is made possible by the Mary Griggs Burke Fund, Gift of the
Mary Livingston Griggs and Mary Griggs Burke Foundation, 2015.
#AsianArt100
#ArtsofJapan
Reimagining Modernism: 1900–1950
Opened September 2014
This reinstallation of the first-floor galleries of the Lila and Acheson Wallace Wing for modern and contemporary art is a comprehensive and unprecedented reinterpretation of The Met collection of European and American modern painting, sculpture, photography, drawings and prints, and design. The first-floor galleries have been divided into seven themes that relate to art and life in the first half of the 20th century: Avant-Garde (Muriel Kallis Steinberg Newman Gallery and The Esther Annenberg Simon Gallery), Direct Expression (Gallery 911), Abstraction (The Marietta Lutze Sackler Gallery and The Helen and Milton A. Kimmelman Gallery), Bodies (also in The Helen and Milton A. Kimmelman Gallery), Work and Industry (Gallery 903), The Metropolis (Pierre and Maria-Gaetana Matisse Gallery), and Retreat (The Sharp Gallery and 901).
Sol LeWitt: Wall Drawing #370
June 30, 2014–January 28, 2018
Sol LeWitt’s 1982 piece Wall Drawing #370: Ten Geometric Figures (including right triangle, cross, X, diamond) with three-inch parallel bands of lines in two directions was installed at the Museum over a period of four weeks. The drawing of 10 geometric figures set within squares went on view in its complete state beginning June 30, 2014 and will remain on view through January 1, 2018.
The loan of Wall Drawing #370 is courtesy of The Estate of Sol LeWitt.
The installation is made possible by The Modern Circle.
Fabergé from the Matilda Geddings Gray Foundation Collection
November 22, 2011–November 30, 2021
When Matilda Geddings Gray acquired her first piece of Fabergé for her niece, in 1933, she was already a wealthy and sophisticated collector, and the name of the Russian artist-jeweler Peter Carl Fabergé (1846–1920) was almost unknown in the United States. Since then, Fabergé’s art has become widely known and his exquisite objects are now internationally sought after. On long-term loan to The Met, this selection from the Matilda Geddings Gray Foundation collection, one of the finest in the world, includes objects created for the Russian Imperial family, such as the Lilies-of-the-Valley Basket—the most important Fabergé creation in the United States—and three Imperial Easter Eggs.
Worsham-Rockefeller Dressing Room
Opened December 15, 2015
This sumptuous Aesthetic-style dressing room (1881–82) was part of George A. Schastey’s larger commission for Arabella Worsham. She then sold her West 54th Street house and its furnishings to John D. Rockefeller, who made few changes. Although little known today, Schastey operated one of the largest and most successful decorating firms of the time. The Worsham-Rockefeller Dressing Room has found new life at The Met, where it provides fresh insight into the luxurious and artistic interiors found in New York’s wealthiest households in the late 19th century.
The Arts of Nepal and Tibet
Reopened March 13, 2015
These newly reinstalled galleries for Nepalese and Tibetan arts display some 100 sculptures, paintings, and textiles from the 9th to the 19th century, showcasing the 14 masterpieces acquired recently from the Zimmerman Family Collection.
The installation is made possible in part by The Miriam and Ira D. Wallach Foundation Fund.
#NepalTibetArts
#AsianArt100
Venetian Sculpture Gallery
Opened November 11, 2014
The Met’s marble sculpture Adam by Tullio Lombardo (ca. 1455–1532) returned to public view late last fall following a 12-year conservation project, presented in a special exhibition in the Museum’s new Venetian Sculpture Gallery. Adam is now the focal point of this permanent gallery in a niche inspired by its original location in a monumental tomb in Venice. The creation of this new space has encouraged the curatorial reassessment of The Met’s sculpture collection from this period. Tullio’s statue is joined by an exquisitely carved Saint Catherine of Alexandria by Cristoforo Solari (ca. 1460–1524), specially acquired for this gallery, and a newly conserved masterpiece by Tullio’s father Pietro Lombardo, a Madonna and Child, whose attribution to Pietro was sometimes questioned in the past and that, as a consequence, has spent several decades in storage. The new Venetian Sculpture Gallery, a perfect cube, was designed with Renaissance ideals of geometry and proportion in mind. It is a meditative environment that encourages sustained encounters with these important works.
The installation of this gallery was made possible by Assunta Sommella Peluso,
Ignazio Peluso, Ada Peluso and Romano I. Peluso.
Chinese Treasury
Opened May 19, 2014
This gallery, which recreates the type of collecting and display found in 18th-century treasure cabinets (duobaoge), features some of The Met's most precious works of Chinese art including sculptures and vessels of ivory, rhinoceros horn, glass, porcelain, and jade. Touchpads allow viewers to read introductory texts for all of the objects as well as to explore further by grouping the works of art digitally by material and by theme.
The Costume Institute’s Anna Wintour Costume Center
Opened May 8, 2014
The Costume Institute galleries reopened on May 8 as the Anna Wintour Costume Center after a two-year renovation, reconfiguration, and updating. The 4,200-square-foot main Lizzie and Jonathan Tisch Gallery features a flexible design that lends itself to frequent transformation, as well as a zonal sound system and innovative projection technology. The redesigned space also includes: the Carl and Iris Barrel Apfel Gallery, which orients visitors to The Costume Institute’s exhibitions and holdings; a state-of-the-art costume conservation laboratory; an expanded study/storage facility that houses the combined holdings of The Met and the Brooklyn Museum Costume Collection (which was transferred to The Met in 2009); and The Irene Lewisohn Costume Reference Library, one of the world’s foremost fashion libraries. The Costume Institute was last refurbished in 1992.
European Paintings Galleries, 1250–1800
Opened May 23, 2013
The Met’s galleries for its world-renowned collection of European Old Master paintings from the 13th through the early 19th century reopened in May 2013 after an extensive renovation and reinstallation. This was the first major renovation of the galleries since 1951 and the first major reinstallation of the collection since 1972. Gallery space has increased by almost one-third, making it possible to display more than 700 paintings from the collection and giving the entire floor of galleries a grandeur not seen in half a century. The reinstallation also captures historical crosscurrents between countries and contacts between artists by placing them in adjoining rooms. The Met collection of early Netherlandish, Italian, and French paintings is wide-ranging and includes landmark pictures, while its collection of Dutch school paintings must be counted among the finest in the world. As for individual artists, the representation of Rembrandt, Rubens, Vermeer, Poussin, Velázquez, Goya, and David is the strongest in the western hemisphere, and there are individual masterpieces known to every student of art history, such as Bruegel’s The Harvesters and David’s The Death of Socrates. Key works have been cleaned, conserved, or reframed, and important new loans complement the collection.
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Updated January 5, 2017
CURRENT MAJOR EXHIBITIONS
Kerry James Marshall: Mastry
October 25, 2016–January 29, 2017
Location: The Met Breuer
Native American Masterpieces from the Charles and Valerie Diker Collection
October 28, 2016–March 19, 2017
Max Beckmann in New York
October 19, 2016–February 20, 2017
Valentin de Boulogne: Beyond Caravaggio
October 7, 2016–January 22, 2017
Fragonard: Drawing Triumphant—Works from New York Collections
October 6, 2016–January 8, 2017
Jerusalem 1000-1400: Every People Under Heaven
September 26, 2016–January 8, 2017
UPCOMING MAJOR EXHIBITIONS
Marisa Merz: The Sky Is a Great Space
January 24–May 7, 2017
Location: The Met Breuer
The Mysterious Landscapes of Hercules Segers
February 13–May 21, 2017
Seurat’s Circus Sideshow
February 17–May 29, 2017
Marsden Hartley’s Maine
March 15–June 18, 2017
Location: The Met Breuer
Lygia Pape: A Multitude of Forms
March 21–July 23, 2017
Location: The Met Breuer
Age of Empires: Chinese Art of the Qin and Han Dynasties (221 B.C.–A.D. 220)
April 3–July 16, 2017
Irving Penn: Centennial
April 24–July 30, 2017
Rei Kawakubo/Comme des Garçons
May 4–September 4, 2017
Birds of a Feather: Joseph Cornell’s Homage to Juan Gris
May 23–September 10, 2017
UPCOMING EXHIBITIONS
Breuer Revisited: New Photographs by Luisa Lambri and Bas Princen
February 1–May 21, 2017
Location: The Met Breuer
Small Wonders: Gothic Boxwood Miniatures
February 22–May 21, 2017
Location: The Met Cloisters
Japanese Bamboo Art: The Abbey Collection
June 13, 2017–February 4, 2018
Cristóbal de Villalpando
July 25–October 15, 2017
UPCOMING INSTALLATIONS
Picturing Math: Selections from the Department of Drawings and Prints
January 31–May 1, 2017
Sara Berman’s Closet
March 6–September 5, 2017
Peder Balke: Painter of Northern Light
April 10–July 9, 2017
CONTINUING EXHIBITIONS AND INSTALLATIONS
Renaissance Portrait Medals from the Robert Lehman Collection
December 19, 2016–May 29, 2017
An Artist of Her Time: Y. G. Srimati and the Indian Style
December 15, 2016–June 18, 2017
The Poetics of Place: Contemporary Photographs from The Met Collection
December 12, 2016–May 28, 2017
Annual Christmas Tree and Neapolitan Baroque Crèche
November 22, 2016–January 8, 2017
Masterworks: Unpacking Fashion
November 18, 2016–February 5, 2017
City of Memory: William Chappel’s Views of Early 19th-Century New York
November 15, 2016–May 14, 2017
Late Antique Textiles and Modern Design
November 11, 2016–October 1, 2017
Velázquez Portraits: Truth in Painting
November 4, 2016–March 12, 2017
Show and Tell: Stories in Chinese Painting
October 29, 2016–August 6, 2017
Renaissance Maiolica: Painted Pottery for Shelf and Table
October 20, 2016–May 29, 2017
Workshop and Legacy: Stanley William Hayter, Krishna Reddy, Zarina Hashmi
October 6, 2016—March 26, 2017
Splendors of Korean Art
October 1, 2016–September 17, 2017
Faith and Photography: Auguste Salzmann in the Holy Land
September 12, 2016–February 5, 2017
Power and Piety: Islamic Talismans on the Battlefield
August 29, 2016–February 13, 2017
Simple Gifts: Shaker at The Met
July 13, 2016–June 25, 2017
The Aesthetic Movement in America
July 13, 2016–October 2017
From the Imperial Theater: Chinese Opera Costumes of the 18th and 19th Centuries
June 25, 2016–October 9, 2017
Cinnabar: The Chinese Art of Carved Lacquer, 14th to 19th Century
June 25, 2016–October 9, 2017
Colors of the Universe: Chinese Hardstone Carvings
June 25, 2016–October 9, 2017
Celebrating the Arts of Japan: The Mary Griggs Burke Collection
October 20, 2015–May 14, 2017
Reimagining Modernism: 1900–1950
Opened September 2014
Sol LeWitt: Wall Drawing #370
June 30, 2014–January 28, 2018
Fabergé from the Matilda Geddings Gray Foundation Collection
November 22, 2011–November 30, 2021
Image Captions:
Kerry James Marshall: Mastry: Kerry James Marshall (American, b. 1955). Untitled (Studio), 2014. Acrylic on PVC panels. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, Purchase, The Jacques and Natasha Gelman Foundation Gift, Acquisitions Fund and The Metropolitan Museum of Art Multicultural Audience Development Initiative Gift, 2015 (2015.366)
Native American Masterpieces from the Charles and Valerie Diker Collection: Unrecorded Yup'ik Artist. Dance mask, ca. 1916–18. Hooper Bay, Alaska. Wood, pigment, vegetal fiber. Collection of Charles and Valerie Diker (788) © Charles and Valerie Diker Collection. Photo by Dirk Bakker
Max Beckmann in New York: Max Beckmann (German, Leipzig 1884–1950 New York). Self-Portrait in Blue Jacket, 1950. Oil on canvas. Saint Louis Art Museum, Bequest of Morton D. May. SL.9.2016.24.1, © 2016 Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York / VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn
Valentin de Boulogne: Beyond Caravaggio: Valentin de Boulogne (French, Coulommiers-en-Brie 1591–1632 Rome). Samson. 1631. Oil on canvas. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Mr. and Mrs. William H. Marlatt Fund (inv. 1972.50)
Fragonard: Drawing Triumphant—Works from New York Collections: Jean Honoré Fragonard (French, 1732–1806). Rinaldo in the Enchanted Forest, ca. 1763. Brown wash over very light black chalk underdrawing. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, Purchase, Louis V. Bell, Harris Brisbane Dick, Fletcher, and Rogers Funds and Joseph Pulitzer Bequest; Guy Wildenstein Gift; The Elisha Whittelsey Collection, The Elisha Whittelsey Fund; Kristin Gary Fine Art Gift; and funds from various donors, 2009 (2009.236)
Jerusalem 1000-1400: Every People Under Heaven: The Archangel Israfil (detail), from The Wonders of Creation and Oddities of Existence (‘Aja’ib al-Makhluqat) by al-Qazwini (1202–1283). Egypt or Syria, late 14th–early 15th century. Opaque watercolor and ink on paper. British Museum, London. © The Trustees of the British Museum
Marisa Merz: The Sky is a Great Space: Marisa Merz (Italian, b. 1926). Untitled, 1993. Copper wire, unfired clay, steel structure. Courtesy of the artist and Fondazione Merz
The Mysterious Landscapes of Hercules Segers: Hercules Segers (Dutch, ca. 1590–ca. 1638). Ruins of the Abbey of Rijnsburg, ca. 1625–30. Etching printed in yellow-white on dark brown prepared paper. Kupferstichkabinett. Staatliche Museen zu Berlin (Inv. no. 961-13)
Seurat’s Circus Sideshow: Georges Seurat (French, 1859–1891). Circus Sideshow (Parade de cirque), 1887–88. Oil on canvas. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Bequest of Stephen C. Clark, 1960 (61.101.17)
Marsden Hartley's Maine: Marsden Hartley (American, 1877–1943). Canuck Yankee Lumberjack at Old Orchard Beach, Maine (detail), 1940–41. Oil on Masonite-type hardboard. Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Smithsonian Institution, Gift of Joseph H. Hirshhorn, 1966. Photo by Cathy Carver
Rei Kawakubo/Comme des Garçons: Rei Kawakubo (Japanese, born 1942) for Comme des Garçons (Japanese, founded 1969), “Body Meets Dress - Dress Meets Body,” spring/summer 1997. Courtesy of The Metropolitan Museum of Art, © Paolo Roversi
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