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Rare Example of Late 15th-Century Jewish Prayerbook and Christian Manuscript – Illustrated by One Artist – on View at Metropolitan Museum
Tuesday, September 25, 2007, 4:00 a.m.
Through the winter holiday season at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, a Hebrew prayerbook on generous loan from The Library of The Jewish Theological Seminary in New York City and a page from a Latin choir book from the Metropolitan's own collection will be displayed side by side for the first time, both painted at the end of the 15th century by the same Florentine artist. The two works are attributed to Mariano del Buono (1433/4-1504), head of one of the most renowned and prolific ateliers in the city. His work for both Christian and Jewish patrons reveals their shared taste for embellishing books with beautiful lettering and evocative imagery and testifies to a dialogue among members of different faiths that was integral to Italian Renaissance culture.
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Kenneth Jay Lane Named Honorary Trustee at Metropolitan Museum
Tuesday, September 25, 2007, 4:00 a.m.
Kenneth Jay Lane has been elected an Honorary Trustee of The Metropolitan Museum of Art, it was announced by James R. Houghton, the Museum's Chairman. The election took place at the September 11 meeting of the Board of Trustees.
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Metropolitan Museum Announces Appointment of Deirdre Larkin as Associate Horticultural Manager at The Cloisters
Monday, September 10, 2007, 4:00 a.m.
The Metropolitan Museum of Art has appointed Deirdre Larkin to the position of Associate Horticulture Manager at The Cloisters. A branch of the Metropolitan, The Cloisters is America's only museum dedicated exclusively to the art of the Middle Ages.
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Virtuosity and Artistic Richness of 18th-Century Chinese Court's Decorative Arts on Display at Metropolitan Museum
Wednesday, August 15, 2007, 4:00 a.m.
An exhibition featuring a remarkable assemblage of porcelain, metalwork, jade, lacquer, and textiles created during the Qing dynasty of China will go on view at The Metropolitan Museum of Art on August 25. Drawn from the permanent collection and complemented by select loans, Excellence and Elegance: Decorative Arts of the Eighteenth-Century Qing Court will explore the unprecedented level of technical virtuosity achieved during this period. The exhibition also illustrates the imperial taste for ancient themes, interest in Western motifs, and exacting patronage that contributed to the flourishing of the decorative arts. Among the 60 works on view will be a dazzling selection of rare porcelain wares, decorated with monochrome glaze or enamel colors.
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New Gallery for Art of Native North American Art to Open at Metropolitan Museum in November
Thursday, August 2, 2007, 4:00 a.m.
A new gallery for the exhibition of the art of Native North American peoples will open at The Metropolitan Museum of Art on November 13, 2007. After three years of renovation, the enlarged gallery will display a greater number of Native American works of art than has ever before been on view at the Museum. A select group of approximately 90 works will present the art of various North American peoples, regions, and time periods in which distinct cultural, stylistic, and functional aspects will be shown. The objects range from the beautifully shaped and finished stone tools known as bannerstones that date back several millennia to a mid-1970s tobacco bag made by the well-known Assiniboine/Sioux beadwork artist Joyce Growing Thunder.
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New Galleries for Oceanic Art to Open at Metropolitan Museum November 14
Tuesday, July 31, 2007, 4:00 a.m.
Following an extensive three-year renovation, The Metropolitan Museum of Art will reopen on November 14 its New Galleries for Oceanic Art, a completely redesigned and reinstalled exhibition space for the display of one of the world's premier collections of the arts of the Pacific Islands. Divided into three separate galleries in The Michael C. Rockefeller Wing, the 17,000-square-foot exhibition space will present a substantially larger portion of the Metropolitan's Oceanic collection than was previously on view.
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Two Preeminent 19th-Century American Silversmiths Featured in Fall Exhibition at Metropolitan Museum
Tuesday, July 31, 2007, 4:00 a.m.
Established in Boston in 1808 and relocated to Philadelphia three years later, the silversmithing firm of Thomas Fletcher and Sidney Gardiner produced American silver of unprecedented quality and grandeur. Opening November 20 at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Silversmiths to the Nation: Thomas Fletcher and Sidney Gardiner, 1808-1842 is the first exhibition devoted entirely to their work, which, in its grand scale and patriotic imagery, reflected America's coming of age as a commercial, industrial, political, and artistic center. More than 100 examples in silver – from monumental vessels that celebrate military and civic heroes to domestic, ecclesiastical, and personal items resplendent with neoclassical ornament and displaying sophisticated design and craftsmanship – are arranged chronologically and thematically. A rare group of some 35 related drawings, purchased by the Metropolitan in 1953 and never before exhibited together, will offer important insights into the evolution of Fletcher and Gardiner's designs. Of particular interest will be the display of seven works in silver alongside their corresponding design drawings.
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Metropolitan Museum Offers Rare Viewing of Gates of Paradise, Lorenzo Ghiberti's Magnificent Renaissance Masterpiece
Tuesday, July 31, 2007, 4:00 a.m.
Adored by generations of artists – including Michelangelo, who is reputed to have given them the name "Gates of Paradise" – the magnificent gilded bronze doors of the east portal of the Baptistery in Florence are among the seminal monuments of the Italian Renaissance. The massive 17-feet-high doors were created by the eminent Florentine goldsmith, sculptor, and designer Lorenzo Ghiberti (1378-1455), who decorated them with ten evocative, highly charged, and magically atmospheric scenes from the Old Testament, each superbly carried out in relief ranging from high to low. After more than 25 years of conservation, seven elements of this masterpiece – including three of the narrative reliefs for which they are famous – are in the United States for the first and only time since their creation more than 500 years ago. The once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to view them at The Metropolitan Museum of Art begins October 30. After the conclusion of their four-city United States tour, the works return to Florence, to be reassembled in their original bronze framework and placed in a specially designed, hermetically sealed case in the Museo dell'Opera del Duomo, never to travel again.
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New Galleries for Oceanic Art to Open at Metropolitan Museum November 14
Tuesday, July 31, 2007, 4:00 a.m.
Following an extensive three-year renovation, The Metropolitan Museum of Art will reopen on November 14 its New Galleries for Oceanic Art, a completely redesigned and reinstalled exhibition space for the display of one of the world's premier collections of the arts of the Pacific Islands. Divided into three separate galleries in The Michael C. Rockefeller Wing, the 17,000-square-foot exhibition space will present a substantially larger portion of the Metropolitan's Oceanic collection than was previously on view.
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New Gallery for Art of Native North American Art to Open at Metropolitan Museum in November
Tuesday, July 31, 2007, 4:00 a.m.
A new gallery for the exhibition of the art of Native North American peoples will open at The Metropolitan Museum of Art on November 13, 2007. After three years of renovation, the enlarged gallery will display a greater number of Native American works of art than has ever before been on view at the Museum. A select group of approximately 90 works will present the art of various North American peoples, regions, and time periods in which distinct cultural, stylistic, and functional aspects will be shown. The objects range from the beautifully shaped and finished stone tools known as bannerstones that date back several millennia to a mid-1970s tobacco bag made by the well-known Assiniboine/Sioux beadwork artist Joyce Growing Thunder.
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New Gallery for Modern and Contemporary Photography to be Inaugurated at Metropolitan Museum in September
Tuesday, July 24, 2007, 4:00 a.m.
The Metropolitan Museum will inaugurate the Joyce and Robert Menschel Hall for Modern Photography on September 25, 2007, establishing for the first time a gallery dedicated exclusively to photography created since 1960. With high ceilings, clean detailing, and approximately 2,000 square feet of exhibition space, the Menschel Hall is designed specifically to accommodate the large-scale photographs that are an increasingly important part of contemporary art and the Museum's permanent collection. Photographers represented in the collection include such modern masters as Thomas Struth, Andreas Gursky, Thomas Ruff, Jeff Wall, Richard Prince, Cindy Sherman, Doug Aitken, and Sigmar Polke.
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Ancestral Origins of African Masterpieces Explored in Major Metropolitan Museum Exhibition This Fall
Monday, July 16, 2007, 4:00 a.m.
The Metropolitan Museum of Art will present a special exhibition of acclaimed sculptural masterpieces from the heart of Africa's equatorial rainforest, beginning October 2, 2007. The exhibition explores not only the significance of the works presented in their countries of origin but also how their reception in the West led them to enter the mainstream of universal art. Organized thematically, Eternal Ancestors: The Art of the Central African Reliquary explains the sources of cultural and spiritual inspiration that led to their creation in equatorial Africa. Drawn from the most important collections of African art in Europe and the United States, the more than 130 works featured in the exhibition relate to 12 distinct traditions in Cameroon, Equatorial Guinea, Gabon, the Republic of Congo, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo. They were created to celebrate the lives of an extended family's most notable ancestors and to give expression to their ongoing role as advocates with the divine.
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One of a Kind: The Studio Craft Movement
Wednesday, July 11, 2007, 4:00 a.m.
The studio craft movement developed in the U.S. during the years after World War II and has flourished internationally over the past 40 years. During this period, craft artists have experimented with non-traditional materials and new techniques, producing bold, abstract, and sculptural art, as well as continuing to make utilitarian objects. One of a Kind: The Studio Craft Movementon view from December 22, 2006, through December 2, 2007, features approximately 50 works from The Metropolitan Museum of Art's collection and will include furniture, ceramics, glass, metalwork, jewelry, and fiber. Many of these works have never been on view at the Metropolitan before, and several are recent acquisitions by the Museum.
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Bridging East and West: The Chinese Diaspora and Lin Yutang
Wednesday, July 11, 2007, 4:00 a.m.
An exhibition featuring 43 modern Chinese paintings and calligraphies assembled by the noted author Lin Yutang (1895-1976) and his family will go on view to the public for the first time at The Metropolitan Museum of Art on September 15. The collection was recently donated to the Museum by members of the family.
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Monumental Statues of the Female Pharaoh Hatshepsut on View at Metropolitan Museum
Wednesday, July 11, 2007, 4:00 a.m.
Two magnificent statues of Hatshepsut – a woman who ruled ancient Egypt as a pharaoh – are on view at The Metropolitan Museum of Art this summer, in advance of the re-opening of the Museum's Hatshepsut Gallery later this year. It was announced recently in Cairo that Hatshepsut's mummy – long thought to be lost – has been identified.
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New Gallery for Art of Native North America to Open at Metropolitan Museum in November
Tuesday, July 10, 2007, 4:00 a.m.
A new gallery for the exhibition of the art of Native North American peoples will open at The Metropolitan Museum of Art on November 13, 2007. After three years of renovation, the enlarged gallery will display a greater number of Native American works of art than has ever before been on view at the Museum. A select group of approximately 90 works will present the art of various North American peoples, regions, and time periods in which distinct cultural, stylistic, and functional aspects will be shown. The objects range from the beautifully shaped and finished stone tools known as bannerstones that date back several millennia to a mid-1970s tobacco bag made by the well-known Assiniboine/Sioux beadwork artist Joyce Growing Thunder.
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The Metropolitan Museum of Art Announces the 2007-08 Season of Concerts
Wednesday, June 27, 2007, 4:00 a.m.
The 54th Season Features Itzhak Perlman's First New York Chamber Series; Eleven Pianists Including Nelson Freire, Hélène Grimaud, Stephen Kovacevich, and Ingrid Fliter; a Violin Series Featuring Janine Jansen and Hilary Hahn; Patti Smith and Dianne Reeves; and
The Beaux Arts Trio's New York Farewell Concert
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The Ruth and Harold D. Uris Center for Education
Wednesday, June 13, 2007, 4:00 a.m.
Following a three-year renovation and complete reconfiguration, the Ruth and Harold D. Uris Center for Education at The Metropolitan Museum of Art will reopen on October 23, 2007. The new Center will transform Museum experiences for students and teachers, teenagers and families, scholars and all visitors. It will provide an extraordinary range of new, high-tech features to train, inform, and inspire, and beautiful spaces in which to learn, beginning with the majestic and welcoming Diane W. Burke Hall.
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Metropolitan Museum Announces Schedule for Summer and Fall 2007 Met Holiday Mondays
Monday, June 11, 2007, 4:00 a.m.
The main building of The Metropolitan Museum of Art – located at Fifth Avenue and 82nd Street in Manhattan – will be open to the public from 9:30 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. on the following Met Holiday Mondays in summer and fall of 2007:
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A Tribute to Lincoln Kirstein (1907-1996)
Sunday, June 10, 2007, 4:00 a.m.
Although the name of Lincoln Kirstein (1907-1996) today appears most often in the context of dance – specifically ballet – in America, he was also actively involved in theater, writing, and collecting art. Over a span of some 40 years, he donated more than a thousand works from his personal collection to The Metropolitan Museum of Art. These works – found in rare book and print shops around the world – all display some spark of ingenuity, esthetic grandeur, or legerdemain that attracted his eye.