Leonard A. Lauder Research Center for Modern Art Team
Leonard A. Lauder
Chairman Emeritus of The Estée Lauder Companies Inc. and the senior member of its Board of Directors, Leonard A. Lauder is also highly involved art, education, politics and philanthropy. He is Chairman Emeritus of the Whitney Museum of American Art, to which he has donated many works of art. He has been a major supporter of the University of Pennsylvania, the Council on Foreign Relations, the Aspen Institute and Memorial Sloan-Kettering Hospital, among other organizations, and is Co-Founder and Co-Chairman of the Alzheimer’s Drug Discovery Foundation. The Lauder Family received the 2011 Carnegie Medal of Philanthropy.
In 2013, Mr. Lauder pledged his collection of Cubism to The Met, and provided significant support for the creation of the Leonard A. Lauder Research Center for Modern Art.
Neil Cox
Prior to joining The Met, Neil was Professor of Modern and Contemporary Art at the University of Edinburgh, and before that Professor of Art History and Theory at the University of Essex. His publications include Cubism (London, 2000) The Picasso Book, (London, 2010), and Marcel Duchamp (with Dawn Ades and David Hopkins, revised edition, London, 2021). He has written articles and catalogue essays on Georges Braque, Pablo Picasso, Surrealism and desire, and on the sculpture and the drawings of Richard Serra. He has curated three exhibitions: A Picasso Bestiary (Croydon, 1995), Constable and Wivenhoe Park: Reality and Vision (Colchester, 2000), and In the Presence of Things: Four Centuries of European Still Life Painting, Part 2: 1840-1955, at the Gulbenkian Museum in Lisbon in 2011.
1. Authored and Edited Books
Cox, N., with D. Povey, A Picasso Bestiary, Academy Editions, London, [March], 1995, 208pp., 240 illustrations. [book published on occasion of exhibition]
Cox, N., with D. Ades and D Hopkins, Marcel Duchamp, Thames and Hudson, London, [Spring] 1999, 228pp., 180 illustrations. (Note: I wrote Chapters 1, 4, and 7). SECOND REVISED EDITION, 2021.
Cox, N., Cubism, Phaidon Press, [November] 2000, 440pp., 265 illustrations [also translated into Greek, Korean and Japanese].
Cox, N., with J. Clarkson, (eds.) Constable and Wivenhoe Park: Reality and Vision, University of Essex, Colchester, [September] 2000, 100pp. 50 illustrations. [book published on occasion of exhibition]
Cox, N., Picasso’s ‘Toys for Adults’: Cubism as Surrealism, The 2008 Watson Gordon Lecture, Edinburgh: National Galleries of Scotland [September] 2009, 48pp., 20 illustrations.
Cox, N., The Picasso Book, London: Tate, [May] 2010, 224pp., 80 illustrations.
Cox, N., Picasso: Q + A, Duncan Baird Publishers, London [November] 2010, foreword by Simon Schama.
Cox, N., In the Presence of Things: Four Centuries of European Still Life Painting, Part 2: The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, 1840-1955, [Exhibition and Catalogue] Calouste Gulbenkian Museum, Lisbon, 20 October 2011-8 Jan 2012; catalogue 247 pp., 120 illustrations.
2. Academic Journal Papers and Essays
Cox, N., ‘Marat/Sade/Picasso’, Art History, 17: 3, (1994), pp.383-417.
Cox, N., ‘La Mort posthume: Maurice Heine and the poetics of decay’, Art History, 23:3, (2000), pp.417-449.
Cox, N., ‘A Painting by Antoine Caron’, Papers of Surrealism, 7, The Use-Value of Documents, November 2007. http://www.surrealismcentre.ac.uk/papersofsurrealism/journal7/index.htm
Cox, N., ‘The Origin of Masson’s Massacres’, Umeni, LV: 5, (2007), pp.387-399.
Cox. N., ‘Braque and Heidegger on the Way to Poetry’, Angelaki: A journal of the theoretical humanities, 12:2, (December 2007), pp. 97-114.
Cox, N., ‘Picasso: (In)human face’, Angelaki: A journal of the theoretical humanities, 16: 1 (May 2011), pp.199-222.
Cox, N., and Greengrass, M., ‘Painting Power: Antoine Caron’s Massacres of the Triumvirate’, in G Murdock et al (eds.) ‘Ritual and Violence: Natalie Zemon Davis and Early Modern France’, Past and Present, Supplement Series, Oxford: OUP, 2012, pp.241-274.
Cox, N., ‘Out in “The Open” with Braque and Saint-John Perse: L’ordre des oiseaux, 1962’, in Kathryn Brown (ed.), Picturing Language: The Art Book Tradition in Twentieth-Century Europe, Ashgate, 2013, pp.45-58.
Cox, N., ‘A is for Aesthetics’, ENCLAVE online review 13, [October] 2015
Cox, N., ‘Desire Bound: Violence, Body, Machine’ in David Hopkins (ed.) The Wiley Blackwell Companion to Dada and Surrealism, London: Wiley Blackwell, 2016, pp. 334-351.
3. Exhibition Catalogue Essays
Cox, N., ‘One mile under the mountain’, [Exhibition catalogue essay] Michael Dan Archer: Passing Through, University of Hertfordshire Gallery, February 2000. (Also available on-line at www.archersculpture.co.uk.)
Cox, N., ‘Critique of Pure Desire, Or When the Surrealists were Right’, in J Mundy (ed.) Surrealism: Desire Unbound, London: Tate Publishing, September 2001, pp. 245-273.
Cox, N. ‘Histoire de l’oeil’, in J Mundy (ed.) Surrealism: Desire Unbound, London: Tate Publishing, September 2001, p.232.
Cox, N., ‘Picasso’s Mirrors: The Mobility of Thoughts’ and ‘Catalogue Entries’, Picasso: Eleven Paintings from International Collections, Vancouver B.C.: Vancouver Art Gallery, October 2005, pp. 3-36.
Cox, N. ‘Sacrifice’, Undercover Surrealism: Georges Bataille and Documents, Hayward Gallery 2006, pp.106-114.
Cox, N., ‘Ultra-barbaric: Gauguin, Picasso and Modernist Primitivism’, Picasso: Small Figure, Museo Picasso, Málaga, 2007, pp.3-63.
Cox, N., ‘Dunkle Materie: Braques Schwarz’, exhibition catalogue essay, Georges Braque, Bank Austria Kunstforum Vienna/Hatje Kantz, November 2008, pp.70-81
Cox, N. ‘The Sur-reality effect: the 1930s’ in Picasso: Challenging the Past, National Gallery, London, February 2009, pp.87-93.
‘Paragraphs on Five Painters’, in Simon Carter (ed.), New East Anglian Painting, Ipswich, 2012, pp.5-11.
Cox, N., ‘Landscape’ and ‘The Cast of Characters’, Picasso in the Nahmad Collection, Monaco: Grimaldi Forum/Paris: Hazan, 2013, pp.330-337 & 348-354.
‘After Nature’, essay on Picasso’s still-life paintings of the 1920s for exhibition on Picasso en el Taller, Madrid, Fundacion Mapfre, February 2014, pp.25-39 (also available as digital version)
Cox, N., ‘The Question of Centering’, Richard Serra 2014, Gagosian/Rizzoli: London and New York, September 2015
Cox, N., ‘Europe after the Rain: Cubism and the New Spirit, 1918-25’, in Christopher Green, ‘Cubism and War. The Crystal in the Flame’, Museu Picasso, Barcelona, 2016, pp.64-80.
Cox, N., ‘Sexuality’ and ‘Violence’, Alberto Giacometti, Tate: London, 2017, pp.97-8 and 115-6.
Cox, N., ‘The Shape of Feeling’, Richard Serra: Drawings 2015-17, Museum Boijmans van Beunigen/Steidl/Gagosian, New York 2017, pp.11-21.
Cox, N., ‘Picasso in his Element? An Autumn of Surrealism’, Picasso 1932: Love, Fame, Tragedy, Tate: London, 2018, pp.176-183.
Cox, N., ‘Drawing Fascism: 6 February 1934’ Jose Lebrero Stals and Pepe Karmel (eds.), Picasso e historia, Museo Picasso, Malaga, 2021, pp.63-82.
‘Pre-Socratic Surrealism: Bataille and Masson with Nietzsche, Sade and Herakleitos’, in Dimitrios Yatromanolakis, (ed.) Archaic Ontological Past: Pre-Socratic Philosophy and European Avant-Garde Art, Institut de livre, Athens, 2021, pp. 63-98
4. Review Articles
Cox, N., ‘Review of D. Judovitz, Unpacking Duchamp: Art in Transit, University of California Press, 1995; and J. Seigel, The Private Worlds of Marcel Duchamp, University of California Press, 1995;’ The British Journal of Aesthetics, 37: 2, (April 1997) pp.181-183.
Cox, N., ‘Putrefying Individuality: Picasso’s Masks’ Review Article of W.Rubin (ed.), Picasso and Portraiture, Thames and Hudson, 1996; and J. Brown (ed.), Picasso and the Spanish Tradition, Yale University Press, 1996; Art History, 21: 1, (March 1998), pp.129-134.
5. Reviews of Single Academic Books
Cox, N., ‘Review of R. Hughes, Frank Auerbach, Thames and Hudson, London, 1990’, The British Journal of Aesthetics, 31: 4, (October 1991), pp. 385-387.
Cox, N., ‘Review of T. de Duve, Pictorial Nominalism, On Marcel Duchamp's Passage from Painting to the Readymade, University of Minnesota Press, Oxford, 1991’, The British Journal of Aesthetics, 32: 4, (October 1992), pp. 375-377.
Cox, N., ‘Review of J. M. Bernstein, The Fate of Art: Aesthetic Alienation from Kant to Derrida and Adorno, Polity Press, Cambridge, 1992’, The British Journal of Aesthetics, 33: 3, (June 1993), pp. 299-301.
Cox, N., ‘Review of K. Kleinfelder, The Artist, his Model, her Image, his Gaze: Picasso's Pursuit of the Model, University of Chicago Press, Chicago and London, 1993’, The British Journal of Aesthetics, 35: 3, (June 1995), p.304.
Cox, N., ‘Surrealism is born’, review of P. Read, Apollinaire et les Mamelles de Tirésias: le revanche d’éros, Press Universitaires de Rennes, 2000, Art History, 25:2 (April 2002), pp.268-270.
Cox, N., ‘T J Clark, Picasso and Truth’, The Burlington Magazine, August 2014, Vol. CLVI, No. 1337 (August 2014), pp.541-543.
6. Other
Cox, N., ‘Translation of a Poem by Maurice Heine’, 491: Art Fragments, Issue 1 1996
Cox, N., ‘Arturo Duclos, University Gallery, University of Essex’ [exhibition review] Untitled, 18, spring 1999, p.31.
Cox., N., ‘Material Worlds Apart - Matisse and Picasso’, Tate Magazine, No 29, Summer 2002, pp.22-28
Cox, N., ‘Cubism, Ferrara’ [exhibition review], The Burlington Magazine CXLVI: 1121 (December 2004) pp.842-843.
[As editor for posthumous publication, with Kate Dunton] Puttfarken, T., ‘Caravaggio and the Representation of Violence’ Umeni, LV: 3 (2007), pp.183-195.
[As editor for posthumous publication] Puttfarken, T., ‘Vasari and Renaissance Art History’, in Elkins, J. and R. Williams (eds.), Renaissance Theory, London: Routledge [Spring] 2008.
Cox, N., ‘Picasso in 1932: uncanny eroticism?’, ULEMHAS Review, London, 2010
Cox, N., ‘Picasso and the Politics of Freedom’, Tate Etc., Issue 19, summer 2010, pp.102-105
Cox, N., and Demori, L., ‘Interpreting Ungaretti: 21 Works of Art’ in Carlo Pirozzi and Katherine Lockton (eds.), Like Leaves in Autumn: Responses to the War Poetry of Guiseppe Ungaretti, Edinburgh: Luath Press, [March] 2015, pp.30-32
Cox, N., ‘Dali/Duchamp’, [exhibition review], Burlington Magazine, CLX, 1, pp.51-52
Cox, N., ‘Maurice Heine’ The International Encyclopaedia of Surrealism, Surrealists A-L, Ades, D, et al, (eds), 2019, London: Bloomsbury Academic, vol 2, pp.352-4
Jen Begazo
Jen Begazo is the Digital Programs Associate of the Leonard A. Lauder Research Center for Modern Art. She holds a B.A. in Anthropology from Lehman College, CUNY, and an M.A. in Social Design and Innovation from the Maryland Institute College of Art. Prior to joining The Met, Jen has applied her human-centered design methodologies across the globe in countries such as Kenya, France, India, Belgium, and the Netherlands. With particular interests in communication and intentional design, Jen seeks to broaden the reach of understanding and thinking across all boundaries and borders. At the Research Center, she manages the Instagram account, website, and external communications.
Laura James
Laura joined the research center in November 2020 having previously fulfilled the role of Assistant Administrator in the Department of Paper Conservation. Prior to joining The MET, Laura gained years of fine art administration experience in multiple New York City art galleries and auction houses. At the research center she assists with managing the fellowship application and onboarding processes for the research center, and facilitating the research center’s activities including lectures, programs, and new initiatives. Laura holds a BFA in art history with MA coursework in fine arts administration from Savannah College of Art and Design.
Heather Read
Heather Read is a research associate at the Leonard A. Lauder Research Center for Modern Art. A specialist in modern art history and provenance research, Read completed her Ph.D. in Art History from Washington University in St. Louis in 2018, then served as the AAMD/Samuel H. Kress Foundation Fellow for Provenance Research Fellowship from 2018-19. Prior to joining the Met, Read held teaching positions at the University of Oklahoma, University of Vermont, and Washington University in St. Louis and conducted collections research for museums across the United States, including the Mildred Lane Kemper Art Museum in St. Louis and the National Museum of Women in the Arts in Washington D.C.
Lauren Rosati
Prior to joining The Met in 2018, Rosati held curatorial positions at the Whitney Museum of American Art, the Museum of Modern Art, the National Academy Museum, and Exit Art.
Her writing has appeared in books, edited volumes, exhibition catalogs, peer-reviewed journals (The Journal of Curatorial Studies, The Journal of Media Art Study and Theory, Leonardo), magazines (Art in America, Artforum), and online.
In the Research Center, she manages the Modern Art Index Project, organizes public programs, including the Center’s annual film series, and contributes to departmental research initiatives and exhibitions. Her own work focuses on the relation of visual art to sound, performance, media, science, and technology. Rosati holds a Ph.D. from the City University of New York, Graduate Center.
Books (edited)
Alternative Histories: New York Art Spaces, 1960 to 2010. Edited with Mary Anne Staniszewski. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 2012.
Books (chapters)
“‘Listen My Heart’: Sound Art, Cinema, and the Possibilities of Surround Sound.” Indian Sound Cultures, Indian Sound Citizenship, eds. Laura Brueck, Jacob Smith, and Neil Verma, pp. 297–310. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2020. Co-authored with Alexis Bhagat.
“John Cage’s Cinema for the Ear.” Radio as Art: Concepts, Spaces, Practices, eds. Anne Thurmann-Jajes, Ursula Frohne, Jee-Hae Kim, Maria Peters, Franziska Rauh, and Sarah Rothe, pp. 243–54. Cologne: Salon Verlag, 2019.
“Clifford Owens: Studio Visits at the Studio Museum in Harlem.” PERFORMA: New Visual Art Performance, ed. Roselee Goldberg, pp. 154–59. New York: PERFORMA, 2007.
Peer-Reviewed Journals
“Framing Thomas Wilfred’s Lumia: Intermedia and the Problem with Painting.” Journal of Curatorial Studies 12, no. 2 (Fall 2023): 100–19.
“Mapping the Field of Sound Art: René Block’s Diagrammatic Modernism.” Leonardo 55, no. 5 (October 2022): 533–41.
“‘Civilizing’ Noise: An Introduction to the Special Issue on Sound, Colonialism, and Power.” In special issue, MAST: The Journal of Media Art Study and Theory 2, no. 2 (November 2021): 3–14.
Exhibition Catalogues
Lorna Simpson: Source Notes. New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2025.
The Great Hall Commission: Jennie C. Jones—Ensemble. New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2025.
“Chronology of the Commission.” Picasso: A Cubist Commission in Brooklyn, ed. Anna Jozefacka, pp. 88–95. New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art; New Haven: Yale University Press, 2023.
“Surrealism in the Air.” Surrealism Beyond Borders, eds. Stephanie D’Alessandro and Matthew Gale, pp. 56–59, 342–43. New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art; New Haven: Yale University Press, 2021.
R. Luke DuBois: In Real Time. Middletown, Conn.: Wesleyan University, 2015.
Make/Do: Contemporary Artists Perform Craft. Amherst: University of Massachusetts, Amherst, 2014.
Articles (print)
“Sound Machines: Lauren Rosati on Evgeny Sholpo’s Variophone.” Artforum (October 2024): pp. 94–99.
“Aural History: Lauren Rosati on Raven Chacon,” Artforum (May 2024): pp. 20–21.
Articles (online)
“The Sounds of The Block.” Perspectives. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, February 22, 2024, https://www.metmuseum.org/perspectives/articles/2024/02/romare_bearden_the_block.
“Keeping Score: ‘With Womens Work’ at Issue Project Room.” Art in America (April 21, 2021). https://www.artnews.com/art-in-america/aia-reviews/with-womens-work-issue-project-room-1234590445/.
“Georges Braque’s Still Life with Metronome, late 1909.” A Closer Look. The Leonard A. Lauder Research Center for Modern Art, Metropolitan Museum of Art. October 21, 2020. https://www.metmuseum.org/perspectives/articles/2015/1/georges-braques-still-life-with-metronome-still-life-with-mandola-and-metronome-late-1909.
“Sounds from Outer Space: The Moog at MoMA.” Inside/Out. Museum of Modern Art Magazine. March 10, 2015.Republished in MoMA Magazine, August 28, 2019. https://www.moma.org/magazine/articles/144.
Catalogue Entries
“Pablo Picasso: Man with a Guitar.” Recent Acquisitions: A Selection, 2016–2018: The Metropolitan Museum of Art Bulletin 76, no. 2 (Fall 2018): pp. 68–69.
Other Texts
“List of Works.” Picasso: A Cubist Commission in Brooklyn, ed. Anna Jozefacka, pp. 82–87. New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art; New Haven: Yale University Press, 2023.
“Selected Artists’ Biographies.” Surrealism Beyond Borders, eds. Stephanie D’Alessandro and Matthew Gale, pp. 322–27. New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art; New Haven: Yale University Press, 2021.
“Bibliography.” Why Pictures Now: Louise Lawler. New York: Museum of Modern Art, 2017.
“In Conversation: Oliver Beer’s Vessel Orchestra and the Democracy of Sound.” Interview with Oliver Beer. Perspectives. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, August 2, 2019. https://www.metmuseum.org/perspectives/articles/2019/8/oliver-beer-lauren-rosati-vessel-orchestra.
Johnny Tran
Johnny Tran is the Associate for Administration at the Leonard A. Lauder Research Center for Modern Art. He graduated with a B.Arch from Cal Poly Pomona and an M.S. in Critical, Curatorial, and Conceptual Practices in Architecture from Columbia University. Johnny's interests explore the intersections of food cultures, architecture/design, and political media in the 60s and 70s. Before joining the MET, Johnny honed his skills as an assistant in the curatorial department at the Getty Research Institute, collaborating on exhibitions, acquisitions, and special projects on architecture collections.