(New York, January 23, 2007)—A suite of galleries devoted to American art created between 1810 and 1840 was formally opened on the first floor of the American Wing at The Metropolitan Museum of Art today. The opening of the new galleries marks the completion of the first phase of a project to reconfigure, renovate, or upgrade nearly every section of the American Wing by 2010. A major goal of the plan is to improve public access to, and visitor flow within, the American Wing galleries.
The New Classical Galleries
The new galleries incorporate the pre-existing Israel Sack Galleries and feature works in all media that reflect the early 19th-century fascination with classical antiquity, especially ancient Greece. The style – known variously as Greek Revival, neoclassical, or classical – found favor in the young American nation as the symbolic embodiment of the noble ideals of the vigorous new democracy.
Ceramics, glass, silver, and other metalwork of this period imitated the shapes and decoration of ancient clay and bronze vessels unearthed at archaeological sites throughout the Mediterranean. A pair of monumental silver presentation vases crafted in 1824-25 by Thomas Fletcher and Sidney Gardiner, for example, is based directly on a classical model, although the engraved decoration includes scenes of the recently completed Erie Canal. Furniture literally imitated antique forms. Several examples of American seating based on the ancient Greek klismos chair are on view.
The classical galleries link the colonial and federal period galleries and historic interiors in the American Wing's original building, constructed in 1924, to later 19th- and early 20th-century rooms in the 1980 addition, and contain numerous outstanding examples of silver, ceramics, glass, textiles, furniture, paintings, and sculpture from the Museum's collection. Works on paper are shown in a small display area that has been set aside for this purpose.
The arrangement and detailing of the new galleries was inspired by two important surviving buildings of the period: architect Alexander Jackson Davis's magnificent LaGrange Terrace – also called Colonnade Row – built as luxury residences in 1833 on Lafayette Place in lower Manhattan and the Alsop house of 1838 from Middletown, Connecticut, on the campus of Wesleyan University.
Among the elements from LaGrange Terrace are actual pilasters salvaged from the building and a new coffered ceiling with rosettes, cast using modern molds of the original decorative motifs. In addition, Vermont marble floors in the galleries reference similar flooring in the vestibule to LaGrange Terrace. The influence of the Alsop house is apparent in all of the doorway surrounds and in the surface decoration of one of the galleries – the walls have been painted a warm ochre shade to resemble limestone ashlar (large square stones) with a grisaille painted frieze of classical winged genii and acanthus volutes.
"With the redesign of these rooms, we have created a building that allows us to show the collection in many different ways well," commented Morrison Heckscher, the Lawrence H. Fleischman Chairman of the American Wing. "The new galleries provide a sympathetic backdrop for historical material. And period rooms and settings representing two centuries of American furnishings are now arranged in a logical, chronological progression, from the colonies to Frank Lloyd Wright."
Future Construction
Phase Two of the construction project will begin in May 2007, and involves improvement of the display of works in silver, ceramics, and glass on the balcony of The Charles Engelhard Court and a reconfiguration of the sculpture as well as architectural enhancements to the Engelhard Court itself. Also part of this second phase will be a reinstallation of a number of the colonial period rooms and the addition of a new example in the 17th- and early 18th-century New York Dutch tradition from the Albany area. Phase Three will involve a total renovation of the paintings galleries with the addition of four completely new galleries for the display of the unparalleled collection of American paintings and sculpture. In addition, public access to all the new galleries will be greatly improved by a new public elevator, which will be constructed starting in May 2007. Completion of Phase Two is expected in January 2009.
Credits
The installation was overseen by Peter M. Kenny, Ruth Bigelow Wriston Curator of American Decorative Arts and Administrator of the American Wing, with the assistance of Frances Bretter, Research Associate, and Matthew Thurlow, Installation Coordinator. The plan was developed in consultation with the architect Thomas Gordon Smith under a plan created by Kevin Roche John Dinkeloo and Associates LLP, the Metropolitan's longtime architects. The installation was designed by Daniel Kershaw, Senior Exhibition Designer; graphics are by Sue Koch, Senior Graphic Designer; and lighting is by Clint Ross Coller and Richard Lichte, Senior Lighting Designers, all of the Metropolitan Museum's Design Department.
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January 23, 2007
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