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Summer Selections: Scenes and Citizens of the Early Republic in Watercolor
Sunday, June 2, 2002, 4:00 a.m.
Early 19th–century America will be the focus of this year's Summer Selections, the second annual installation drawn from the Metropolitan Museum's collection of works on paper created by American artists between 1710 and 1920. This summer's exhibition — which coincides with the Metropolitan's presentation of the landmark traveling exhibition Thomas Eakins — will feature the work of two artists active in Philadelphia, Eakins's hometown, in the decades preceding his birth. Some 50 watercolors — including genre scenes, landscapes, and portraits — primarily by the Russian diplomat Pavel Petrovich Svinin (1787/88–1839), along with several works recently attributed to the German émigré John Lewis Krimmel (1786–1821), will be shown. Many of the works document street life in Philadelphia, where Krimmel lived and where Svinin was headquartered for two–and–a–half years.
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The Age of Impressionism: European Painting from the Ordrupgaard Collection, Copenhagen
Sunday, June 2, 2002, 4:00 a.m.
Eighty–four paintings — including landmark works of Impressionism and Post-Impressionism, as well as masterpieces from the Golden Age of Danish painting — all from the Ordrupgaard Collection in Copenhagen, Denmark, are featured in this exhibition at The Metropolitan Museum of Art. On view June 18 through September 8, 2002,
The Age of Impressionism: European Painting from the Ordrupgaard Collection, Copenhagen offers a dazzling survey of this remarkable collection, including works by Cézanne, Corot, Courbet, Degas, Delacroix, Eckersberg, Gauguin, Købke, Manet, Monet, Pissarro, Renoir, and Sisley, among others. Assembled by the Danish insurance magnate Wilhelm Hansen (1868-1936), both the collection and the country house from which it derives its name were bequeathed to the Danish State upon the death of Hansen's wife, Henny, in 1951.
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Nomadic Art from the Eastern Eurasian Steppes: The Eugene V. Thaw and Other New York Collections
Sunday, June 2, 2002, 4:00 a.m.
An exhibition focusing on the extraordinary art of the Eastern Eurasian steppes from the first millennium BC will open at The Metropolitan Museum of Art on October 1. Featuring more than 200 objects, Nomadic Art from the Eastern Eurasian Steppes: The Eugene V. Thaw and Other New York Collections will explore the dynamic art of the nomads who left an indelible impression on the arts of all nomadic societies in Eurasia through subsequent periods and inspired the art of the sedentary cultures that came in contact with them.
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Portraits
Sunday, June 2, 2002, 4:00 a.m.
Forty masterworks of photographic portraiture will be on view at The Metropolitan Museum of Art from September 10, 2002, through January 12, 2003. Drawn from the collections of the Metropolitan and the Gilman Paper Company, the installation will accompany the landmark exhibition Richard Avedon: Portraits and will highlight classic images of artists and writers, actors and composers by Nadar, Edward Steichen, and Berenice Abbott, among others.
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Significant Objects: Selections from the Modern Design and Architecture Collection
Sunday, June 2, 2002, 4:00 a.m.
A rotating selection of important designs in all media, dating from the late 19th to the early 21st century will be on view at The Metropolitan Museum of Art from fall 2002 through April 2004. Significant Objects: Selections from the Modern Design and Architecture Collection will feature furniture, metalwork, ceramics, glass, textiles and jewelry, all drawn from the Metropolitan's holdings. The exhibition will highlight the diversity and depth of the Metropolitan's modern design collection, demonstrating the aesthetic value of the works on view within the Museum's collection and within the larger context of art history.
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Blithe Spirit: The Windsor Set
Sunday, June 2, 2002, 4:00 a.m.
The rapturous elegance of café society in the years immediately preceding World War II will be captured in a new exhibition opening at the Metropolitan Museum on November 1, Blithe Spirit: The Windsor Set. Dating from 1935 to 1940, this extraordinary collection of French couture—featuring works by Chanel, Lanvin, Vionnet, and Schiaparelli—was donated to the Metropolitan Museum's Costume Institute in 1946. The gowns were originally part of the exhibition Paris Openings: 1932-1940, which was organized by Lady Mendl and chaired by the Duchess of Windsor to benefit French War Charities in 1940. Drawn mainly from the collection of The Costume Institute, with loans from the Victoria and Albert Museum in London, the exhibition celebrates a period in fashion history that is unsurpassed in terms of beauty, elegance, and craftsmanship.
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Metropolitan Museum Opens Gallery Devoted to the Works of Louis Comfort Tiffany
Sunday, June 2, 2002, 4:00 a.m.
The Metropolitan Museum of Art will open a new permanent exhibition space this fall, devoted to the full range of work by Louis Comfort Tiffany (1848-1933), who was one of the most versatile and talented American artists of his time. Part of the recently named Deedee Wigmore Galleries, the installation will highlight the Museum's preeminent Tiffany collection and will feature some 70 stunning examples of his windows, lamps, furniture, mosaics, blown Favrile glass vases, pottery, enamelwork, and jewelry. Works from the early 1890s to the early 1920s will be on view. A selection of design drawings from the Museum's holdings of more than 400 works on paper by the Tiffany Studios will be shown. Because of their fragile nature and sensitivity to light, the drawings will be displayed on a rotating schedule.
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The Prints of Vija Celmins
Monday, May 27, 2002, 4:00 a.m.
Prints of ocean surfaces, star-filled night skies, and desert floors, among other images, by the contemporary artist Vija Celmins will be on view at The Metropolitan Museum of Art from October 15 through December 29, 2002.
The Prints of Vija Celmins, the first-ever print retrospective by this Latvian-born American artist, will feature some 50 works including a selection of drawings and artist's books.
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New York, New York: Photographs from the Collection at The Metropolitan Museum of Art
Tuesday, May 14, 2002, 4:00 a.m.
Some sixty photographs of New York City from the 1850s to the 1970s—including many landmarks of American photography—will be on view at The Metropolitan Museum of Art from May 7 through August 25, 2002. Since September 1839, when the painter Samuel F. B. Morse put aside his brushes for a camera, photography has been integral to the life and art of New York City. This celebration of the city as muse includes 19th-century photographs by Edward Anthony, Silas Holmes, and anonymous artists, and 20th-century works by Berenice Abbott, Ralston Crawford, Walker Evans, Walter Gropius, Lewis Hine, Helen Levitt, Edward Steichen, and James VanDerZee, among others. With the exception of Chatham Square (1853), a rare daguerreotype street scene on loan from the renowned Gilman Paper Company Collection, all of the photographs in the exhibition are drawn from the collection of the Metropolitan's Department of Photographs.
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The New Violin Family: Augmenting the String Section
Tuesday, May 14, 2002, 4:00 a.m.
The mysteries behind making a violin sound like a violin is explored in The New Violin Family: Augmenting the String Section, now on view at The Metropolitan Museum of Art through March 30, 2003. Featuring 13 instruments, including a famous Hutchins Violin Octet, the exhibition chronicles the work of Dr. Carleen Maley Hutchins (b. Springfield, Massachusetts, 1911), a luthier and acoustical scientist who pioneered modern techniques of violin making. In order to demonstrate the scientific approach she employed to create ideal acoustics, a model depicting her process of plate tuning is on display.