October 20, 2015–July 31, 2016 (rotation in early February)

Exhibition Location: Arts of Japan, The Sackler Wing Galleries, second floor, Galleries 223–231

A spectacular array of Japanese works of art will be on view at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, in a special exhibition featuring works of art drawn from the recent landmark gift to the Museum by the Mary and Jackson Burke Foundation. Opening on October 20, Celebrating the Arts of Japan: The Mary Griggs Burke Collection is a tribute to the discerning New York City collector who built what is widely regarded as the finest and most encompassing private collection outside Japan.

Beginning in the 1960s, over the course of nearly 50 years, Mary Griggs Burke (1916–2012) assembled an unparalleled art collection. It was exhibited by the Tokyo National Museum in 1985, the first-ever Japanese art collection from abroad to be shown there. The themes selected for the current exhibition, including numerous works added to the collection since the Bridge of Dreams exhibition at the Met in 2000, reflect Mrs. Burke’s own collecting interests.

The works on view will include masterpieces—paintings, sculpture, ceramics, calligraphy, lacquerware, and more—dating from the 10th to the 20th century. Among the highlights are a powerful representation of the Buddhist deity Fudō Myōō from the studio of the celebrated sculptor Kaikei (active 1185–1223), a sumptuous set of early 17th-century screens showing Uji Bridge in Kyoto, and Itō Jakuchū’s (1716–1800) tour-de-force ink painting of plum blossoms in full bloom illuminated by moonlight. Organized by theme and presented in two sequential rotations, the exhibition will reveal, through a single, distinguished collection, the full range of topics, techniques, and styles that are distinctive to Japanese art.

Sublime Buddhist Art: The first gallery of the exhibition, flanking the entrance to the Buddhist altar room, will feature a pair of wood and lacquer sculptures of the protective deity Fudō Myōō and the compassionate bodhisattva Jizō. Both are from the atelier of the master sculptor Kaikei, who, like his contemporary Unkei, is renowned for tempering the powerful realism of the Kamakura period (1185–1333) to create universally compelling sculptures.

Kaikei, active ca. 1183–1223, Fudō Myōō
Japan, Kamakura period (1185–1333), early 13th century. Lacquered Japanese cypress (hinoki), color, gold, and kirikane, inlaid with crystal. H. 20 1/4 in. (51.5 cm)
The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Mary Griggs Burke Collection, Gift of The Mary and Jackson Burke Foundation, 2015. Photo: Courtesy of The Metropolitan Museum of Art

Shinto Icons: Traditions of the Shinto religion that are indigenous to Japan are captured in rare, 10th-century examples of male and female Shinto deities carved from single blocks of sacred wood. A highlight in this group of rare early sculptures and paintings is the late 14th-century Deer Mandala of the Kasuga Shrine, which expresses the magical powers of the animal that served as a messenger for Shinto deities.

Court Calligraphy: In the ninth century, the creation of the kana script to inscribe vernacular Japanese led to a flowering of literature, painting, and calligraphy. Mrs. Burke, who had a special interest in Japanese courtly literature, was drawn to fine examples of kana, which in ancient times was often referred to as onna-de (literally, the “women’s hand”), since it was practiced and perfected by female calligraphers at a time when courtiers were expected to master Chinese-style calligraphy. Several outstanding examples of kana calligraphy from the 11th to the 13th century will be included in the exhibition.

Shibata Zeshin, Japanese, 1807–1891, Jūbako with Taro Plants and Chrysanthemums
Japan, late Edo (1615–1868)–Meiji (1868–1912) period, 19th century. Colored lacquer with gold and silver maki-e. H. 16 1/2 in. (41.9 cm); W. 9 in. (22.9 cm); D. 9 5/8 in. (24.4 cm)
The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Mary Griggs Burke Collection, Gift of The Mary and Jackson Burke Foundation, 2015. Photo: Courtesy of The Metropolitan Museum of Art

Zen Ink Painting: At first shown exclusively in temples, ink paintings with Zen themes soon moved to the secular world. A highlight of this section will be a painted handscroll, Ten Oxherding Songs (dated 1278), in which the actions of a young herdsman and the powerful ox he tends serve as metaphors for the quest for enlightenment. The Burke Collection is renowned for its strong representation of evocative ink landscapes by Zen monk-painters of the medieval period.

Soga Shohaku, Japanese, 1730–1781, Lions at the Stone Bridge of Tendaisan
Japan, Edo period (1615–1868), 1779. Hanging scroll; ink on silk
Image: 44 7/8 in. × 20 in. (114 × 50.8 cm). Overall with mounting: 79 × 25 1/2 in. (200.7 × 64.8 cm)
The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Mary Griggs Burke Collection, Gift of The Mary andJackson Burke Foundation, 2015. Photo: Courtesy of The Metropolitan Museum of Art

The Great Stylistic Transition: This section will demonstrate Mrs. Burke’s fascination with a critical juncture in the history of Japanese art, the period of radical transformation in stylistic tendencies between the 16th and early 17th centuries. The new tendency can be detected through the many magnificent examples—not only in painting, but also in the decorative arts, especially lacquer—that will be on view in this section. Another of the great strengths of the Burke Collection is its array of screen paintings, and the Metropolitan Museum has received some 30 spectacular examples. The screen paintings on view will include a dramatic evocation of Uji Bridge in Kyoto, famed for its literary associations, and the six-panel screen Women Casting Fans from a Bridge, a rare and important example of the rise of genre painting.

Literature in Art: The Mary Griggs Burke Collection is also significant for its works in every medium that illustrate scenes from traditional Japanese narratives, especially the courtly classic of the early 11th century, The Tale of Genji. A painting based on an episode from the 10th-century Tales of Ise, by the celebrated 17th-century Kyoto painter Tawaraya Sōtatsu (died ca. 1640), will be featured in the second rotation.

Willows and Bridge, Japan, Momoyama period (1573–1615)
Pair of six-panel folding screens; ink, color, gold, and copper on gilded paper. Each 67 x 136 in. (170.2 x 345.4 cm)
The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Mary Griggs Burke Collection, Gift of The Mary and Jackson Burke Foundation, 2015. Photo: Courtesy of The Metropolitan Museum of Art

Willows and Bridge, Japan, Momoyama period (1573–1615)
Pair of six-panel folding screens; ink, color, gold, and copper on gilded paper. Each 67 x 136 in. (170.2 x 345.4 cm)
The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Mary Griggs Burke Collection, Gift of The Mary and Jackson Burke Foundation, 2015. Photo: Courtesy of The Metropolitan Museum of Art

Tea and Austere Beauty: The vibrant quality and tactile surfaces of ceramics produced for use in the tea ceremony, first codified in the 16th century, also illustrate the aesthetics of the period. Outstanding examples of Ko Seto, Black Seto, White Shino, and Kyō-yaki ware will be presented in this section, juxtaposed with paintings and calligraphy resonating with the wabi aesthetic, which prioritizes unaffected, serene, and even rustic qualities of rough-hewn tea wares.

Literati Painting: The development of the Nanga School provides another example of the way in which Japanese artists were open to new themes, techniques, and ways of seeing during the Edo period. Artists in this school based their work on the art of Chinese literati masters. Works on view will include the renowned screen painting Gathering at the Orchard Pavilion, by Ike Taiga (1723–1776).

Ideals of Feminine Beauty: The final section of the exhibition will focus on sumptuously colored paintings of beauties by artists of the Ukiyo-e school. Paintings in this genre were among the first objects acquired by Mrs. Burke and her husband, Jackson Burke, when they began collecting seriously in 1963. The late-17th-century Beauty of the Kanbun Era, illustrating changes in fashion during this period, is just one of the exquisite works in this group that will be on view.

Celebrating the Arts of Japan: The Mary Griggs Burke Collection is organized by John T. Carpenter, Mary Griggs Burke Curator of Japanese Art, with Monika Bincsik, Assistant Curator of Japanese art, and Aaron M. Rio, Jane and Morgan Whitney Fellow, all from the Metropolitan Museum’s Department of Asian Art. The exhibition is made possible by the Mary Griggs Burke Fund, Gift of the Mary Livingston Griggs and Mary Griggs Burke Foundation, 2015. In conjunction with the exhibition, the Museum will offer a variety of education programs.

The publication Art through a Lifetime: The Mary Griggs Burke Collection, a catalogue raisonné edited by Miyeko Murase, includes illustrations of all of the works given to the Metropolitan Museum by the Mary and Jackson Burke Foundation. An earlier Met publication, Bridge of Dreams: The Mary Griggs Burke Collection of Japanese Art, also includes many works that will be on view in the exhibition.

The exhibition will be featured on the Museum’s website, as well as on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter via the hashtags #ArtsofJapan and #AsianArt100.

The Metropolitan Museum of Art held a press briefing at the Palace Museum in Beijing, China, about its spring 2015 Costume Institute exhibition, China: Through the Looking Glass. The exhibition, on view at the Met from May 7 to August 16, will explore how Chinese art and film have influenced Western fashion design for centuries.  Thomas P. Campbell, Director and CEO of the Metropolitan Museum; Shan Jixiang, Director of the Palace Museum; Max Baucus, U.S. Ambassador to the People’s Republic of China; Andrew Bolton, Curator in The Costume Institute; Maxwell K. Hearn, Douglas Dillon Chairman, Department of Asian Art; Anna Wintour, Artistic Director of Condé Nast and Editor-in-Chief of American Vogue; and renowned filmmaker Wong Kar Wai, Artistic Director of the exhibition, all attended the press briefing.  

1. Yves Saint Laurent by Tom Ford, 2004
2. From left: Chen Zhang, Silas Chou, Wendi Murdoch, Emily Rafferty, Thomas P. Campbell,
Anna Wintour, Max Baucus, Andrew Bolton and Maxwell K. Hearn
3. Andrew Bolton, Curator, The Costume Institute
4. Artistic Director of China: Through the Looking Glass, renowned filmmaker Wong Kar Wai
(All Photos courtesy of The Metropolitan Museum of Art)

Director Shan welcomed guests to the Palace of Established Happiness (Jianfu Palace) in the Forbidden City, Ambassador Baucus delivered remarks, and Mr. Campbell highlighted the importance of cultural and artistic exchange between China and the Met.  Andrew Bolton discussed how the exhibition will juxtapose Chinese art and historic costumes with high fashion to demonstrate the West’s fascination with Chinese imagery.  Wong Kar Wai discussed the role of film in the exhibition and showed a montage of the film clips that will be used in the exhibition to illuminate the impact of the cinematic arts on Western fashion. 

“It is an honor for the Met to host a press presentation at the Palace Museum for many reasons, chief among them our long, collaborative relationship with our Chinese colleagues,” said Mr. Campbell.  “We are particularly delighted to share early details about The Costume Institute’s spring exhibition focusing on the history of Chinese imagery in art, film, and fashion.  We hope that many Chinese visitors will come experience the exhibition in our galleries this spring alongside fellow art lovers from around the globe.”

During the press briefing, a display in the Jianfu Palace featured images and objects to be included in the Met exhibition: an Yves Saint Laurent gown (by Tom Ford, 2004) inspired by the dragon robe worn by Puyi (1906-1967), the last Chinese emperor, for his inauguration in 1908; and a blue-and-white Chanel beaded gown (by Karl Lagerfeld, 1984) and a Roberto Cavalli gown (2005) whose patterns reflect those on Chinese export porcelains.  This interchange between art and fashion complements the Palace Museum’s mission to highlight the essence of Chinese art and culture formed over thousands of years, as well as The Costume Institute’s commitment to exploring the connection between art and fashion. The Costume Institute became part of the Met in 1946, and subsequently built a world-class collection including more than 35,000 garments from five continents, with some dating back to the 15th century.

Mr. Shan Jixiang, director of the Palace Museum of China, said: “The close cooperation between the Palace Museum and The Metropolitan Museum of Art in developing this exhibition has enhanced mutual understanding, formed new friendships and led to brilliant new and exciting ideas. We believe that in the near future, we can look forward to more collaboration opportunities and learn from each other by sharing our expertise and experiences in exhibition design and curating.”

Andrew Bolton, curator of the exhibition, noted:  “From the earliest period of European contact with China in the 16th century, the West has been enchanted with enigmatic objects and imagery from China, providing inspiration for fashion designers from Paul Poiret to Yves Saint Laurent.  Through the looking glass of fashion, designers conjoin disparate stylistic references into a pastiche of Chinese aesthetic and cultural traditions.”

China: Through the Looking Glass will be on view in the Met’s Chinese Galleries and in the Anna Wintour Costume Center.  It will feature more than 130 haute couture and ready-to-wear fashions juxtaposed with traditional Chinese masterpieces in jade, lacquer, cloisonné, and blue-and-white porcelain. Chinese imagery will be used throughout the exhibition, presenting a series of “mirrored reflections” that focus on the evolution of art, fashion, and culture from Imperial China through to the present-day People’s Republic of China.     

Maxwell K. Hearn added, “China has long been an intriguing source of inspiration for Western artists. As the Met’s Asian Art Department embarks on its 100th year, our permanent collection continues to celebrate the genius of China’s ancient traditions.  This collaboration between two curatorial departments will demonstrate how Western designers have responded creatively to those traditions in ways that are both provocative and insightful.”

“William Chang and I are pleased to be working in collaboration with The Costume Institute and the Asian Art Department of The Metropolitan Museum of Art on this exciting cross-cultural show,” commented Wong Kar Wai. “Historically, there have been many cases of being ‘lost in translation’–with good and revealing results. As Chinese filmmakers, we hope to create a show that is an Empire of Signs–filled with meaning for both East and West to discover and decipher.”

In celebration of the exhibition opening, the Museum’s Costume Institute Benefit will take place on Monday, May 4, 2015.  Silas Chou will serve as Honorary Chair.  The evening’s co-chairs will be Jennifer Lawrence, Gong Li, Marissa Mayer, Wendi Murdoch, and Anna Wintour.  This event is The Costume Institute’s main source of annual funding for exhibitions, publications, acquisitions, and capital improvements.  

A major exhibition (Exhibition location: Iris and B. Gerald Cantor Exhibition Hall, Second Floor, Gallery 999) featuring extraordinary works created by Native American people of the Plains region will go on view at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, beginning March 9. Bringing together more than 150 iconic works from European and North American collections—many never before seen in a public exhibition in North America—The Plains Indians: Artists of Earth and Sky (made possible by the Enterprise Holdings Endowment, an Anonymous Foundation, and the Diane W. and James E. Burke Fund and organized by the Musée du quai Branly, Paris, in collaboration with The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, and in partnership with The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City ) will explore the beauty, power, and spiritual resonance of Plains Indian art.  Ranging from an ancient stone pipe and painted robes to drawings, paintings, collages, photographs, and a contemporary video installation, the exhibition will reflect the significant place that Plains Indian culture holds in the heritage of North America and in European history. Many nations are represented—Osage, Quapaw, Omaha, Crow, Cheyenne, Arapaho, Lakota, Blackfeet, Pawnee, Kiowa, Comanche, Mesquakie, Kansa and others. It will also convey the continuum of hundreds of years of artistic tradition, maintained against a backdrop of monumental cultural change. A selection of modern and contemporary works not seen at other venues of the exhibition will provide a compelling narrative about the ongoing vitality of Plains art.  The exhibition is accompanied by a fully illustrated catalogue, The Plains Indians: Artists of Earth and Sky.

The exhibition was previously on view at Musée du quai Branly, Paris (April 7–July 20, 2014) and The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City (September 19, 2014–January 11, 2015) before arriving in New York City. In New York, the walls of the galleries –as a special feature of the exhibition–will be decorated with panoramic photographs of earth and sky printed on theatrical scrim. The photographs were taken by Shania Hall, an enrolled member of the Blackfeet tribe, on Molly’s Nipple Road on the Blackfeet Indian Reservation. Ms. Hall lives in Missoula, Montana.

Drawn from 81 institutions and private collections in France, Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Canada, and the United States, the exhibition will represent the art traditions of many Native Nations. The distinct Plains aesthetic will be revealed through an array of forms and media: sculptural works in stone, wood, antler, and shell; porcupine quill and glass-bead embroidery; feather work; painted robes; ornamented clothing; composite works; and ceremonial objects, works on paper, paintings, and photography. 

Organized chronologically, the first gallery will showcase pre-contact works, including important sculptural pieces in stone and shell. One of the highlights in this room will be the 2,000-year-oldHuman Effigy Pipe made of pipestone, depicting a deified ancestor or mythical hero. Influential works from adjacent regions are included in this section.   

The 19th-century works in the exhibition will include key pieces long associated with westward expansion. Among them are calumets, the long and elaborate pipes shared and given as gifts in the systems of protocol that were developed to establish diplomacy and trade between Europeans and the inhabitants of the “New World” whom they encountered on the Plains.

The reintroduction of the horse to North America by the Spanish, beginning at the end of the 16th century, revolutionized Plains Indians cultures in many ways—particularly as a boon to the buffalo hunt. In the exhibition, there will be a section presenting some of the best examples of 19th-century horse gear, weapons, clothing, and shields associated with a florescence of culture in the area. One highlight among them is a Lakota horse effigy, believed to honor and memorialize a horse that died in battle as the result of multiple gunshot wounds.

The substantial changes brought on by reservation life, beginning in the 19th century, engendered various artistic responses, ranging from instances of assimilation to acts of resistance to confinement. They will be conveyed by several masterworks in the exhibition, including important regalia used for the practice of prophetic religions. Among them are an elaborate bead-embroidered Otoe-Missouria Faw Faw coat with symbols, associated with ceremonialism and the desire to restore balance in a world that had become untenable; and a richly painted Arapaho Ghost Dance dress with visionary symbols associated with ritual practices.

Record books, paper, pencils, and ink were introduced on the Plains during the last quarter of the 19th century by settlers and traders. Among many fine examples of those included in the exhibition, the highlight will be The Maffet Ledger, a book consisting of 105 drawings, created by more than 20 Northern and Southern Cheyenne warrior artists to record their exploits in battle.

Modern and contemporary works of art will be exhibited near the end of the exhibition. Traditional-style works were still produced in the early 20th century for Wild West shows, agricultural fairs, and Fourth of July parades, and for the powwow, inter-tribal opportunities for the celebration of culture, dance, and art. Watercolors and “easel paintings” grew from long-standing Plains graphic traditions and through dialogue with other Native North American regions by the mid-20th century. Many fine examples of  paintings from the era will be presented in the exhibition. Brilliantly executed beaded works by such artists as Joyce and Juanita Growing Thunder Fogarty (b. 1950 and b. 1969, both Assiniboine-Sioux), Rhonda Holy Bear (b. 1959), Sans Arc, Two Kettle and Hunkpapa Lakota), and Jodi Gillette (b. 1959, Hunkpapa Lakota) will also be included in the exhibition.

The final gallery will also shed new light on 20th- and 21st-century works by artists of Plains descent, as well as by Native American artists from outside the region who have been inspired by its traditions. On view in this gallery will be one element of Edgar Heap of Bird’s (b. 1954, Cheyenne and Arapaho) site-specific installation Building Minnesota (1990), as well as a captivating four-channel video installation piece by Dana Claxton (b. 1959, Hunkpapa Lakota) called Rattle (2003) that incorporates the rhythmic images, colors, and sounds of artistic and spiritual life on the Plains, a perspective that endures in the exhibition galleries through the application of 21st-century media.

Thomas P. Campbell, Director and CEO of the Metropolitan Museum, said: “Through outstanding works of art from the Plains region, this ambitious exhibition demonstrates the long history of change and creative adaptation that characterizes Native American art. It is an important opportunity to highlight the artistic traditions that are indigenous to North America and to present them in the context of the Met’s global collections.”

The Plains Indians: Artists of Earth and Sky is curated by Gaylord Torrence, Fred and Virginia Merrill Senior Curator of American Indian Art at The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art. In New York, the exhibition is organized by Judith Ostrowitz, Ph.D., Research Associate in the Department of the Arts of Africa, Oceania, and the Americas at the Metropolitan Museum. In conjunction with the exhibition, an array of education programs will be offered, including a Sunday at the Met (March 15) panel discussion with contemporary artists Edgar Heap of Birds and Dana Claxton, moderated by Mario A. Caro. It will be followed by comments from Jodi Gillette, artist and Senior Policy Advisor for Native American Affairs for President Obama’s Domestic Policy Council, as well as by an original performance with video projections composed for the Metropolitan Museum by Ms. Claxton. A gallery talk by Native American artist Brad Kahlhamer (March 13) and a printmaking workshop by Edgar Heap of Birds (March 14) will also be presented. The Audio Guide program (supported by Bloomberg Philanthropies), offers a tour of the exhibition, the curators and contemporary Native artists discuss the rich artistic traditions of Plains culture as seen in painting, drawing, embroidery, and sculpture.

OUTGOING PRESIDENT EMILY KERNAN RAFFERTY NAMED PRESIDENT EMERITA OF THE MUSEUM

The Metropolitan Museum of Art announced today that Daniel H. Weiss, an innovative executive and accomplished art historian serving currently as president of Haverford College, will be the next President of the Museum. He will succeed Emily Kernan Rafferty, who will retire from the Met on March 31 after 10 years in the post, and nearly 40 at the institution. Dr. Weiss’ appointment was announced by Daniel Brodsky, Chairman of the Board, and Thomas P. Campbell, Director and CEO.

Photo Courtesy of The Metropolitan Museum of Art/Don Pollard

Dr. Weiss, who was formally elected to the Museum presidency at today’s regular meeting of the Board of Trustees, was chosen after an extensive national search overseen by a special committee of the board. He will assume his new post at the Metropolitan this summer, following the end of the current semester at Haverford.

In his new role, Dr. Weiss will serve as chief operating officer of the Museum, reporting to Director and CEO Campbell and serving as an ex officio member of the Board of Trustees. As President, he will have direct leadership responsibility for all day-to-day operations of the institution, and will oversee 1,500 employees in all areas of museum administration: facilities and construction, development and membership, finance and investments, information technology, legal affairs, visitor services, human resources, marketing and external relations, merchandising (the Met shops), and government relations. The Museum currently has more than 2,200 full- and part-time employees overall, an operating budget of more than $300 million, and an endowment of approximately $3 billion. Last year, the Museum attracted 6.2 million visitors to its main building and The Cloisters, and more than 40 million visits to its website.

The Board search committee for presidential selection included: Daniel Brodsky, chairman; Candace K. Beinecke, Russell L. Carson, Richard L. Chilton, Jr., Blair Effron, Jeffrey W. Greenberg, Hamilton E. James, Bonnie Sacerdote, Andrew M. Saul, Lulu C. Wang, and Shelby White, with Henry B. Schacht serving in an advisory capacity and Director Thomas P. Campbell ex officio.

Mr. Brodsky and Mr. Campbell joined in expressing their deep appreciation to outgoing President Emily Rafferty, who assumed the Museum presidency on January 15, 2005: “To the entire staff of this institution—from curators and administrators to guards and maintainers—Emily Rafferty has been not only a highly effective leader, but a beloved champion of the institution and of its greatest asset: the men and women who work here. By rising in the ranks over a career spanning four decades, she became and remains a symbol of the opportunity that awaits all the gifted and committed individuals who might launch careers of their own here in the future. Emily has been a remarkable president, colleague, and friend, and we thank her profoundly for her truly historic service to the Met.” Chairman Brodsky and Director Campbell announced that in an unprecedented move, the Board has named Ms. Rafferty President Emerita, effective April 1.

Daniel H. Weiss, who was born in Newark, N.J., and raised on Long Island, earned his B.A. in psychology with a concentration in art history at George Washington University in 1979; his M.A. with concentrations in Medieval and Modern Art from Johns Hopkins University in 1982; his M.B.A. from the Yale School of Management in 1985; and in 1992 his Ph.D. from Hopkins, with concentrations in Western Medieval and Byzantine Art and a minor in Classical Greek Art and Architecture.

He began his career as museum shops manager at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington, and later served as an associate, then a senior associate, at Booz, Allen & Hamilton in New York.

After earning his Ph.D., Dr. Weiss became an assistant professor of art history at Johns Hopkins’ Zanvyl Krieger School of Arts and Sciences, rising over a decade-long academic career there to associate professor (1996), full professor (1999), chair of the History of Art Department (1998-2001), and Dean of the Faculty (2001-2002). From 2002-2005 Dr. Weiss was James B. Knapp Dean of the Krieger School of Arts and Sciences, overseeing 2,700 undergraduates, 1,500 graduate students, and 300 faculty in 23 departments.

From 2005-2013 Dr. Weiss served as President and Professor of Art History at Lafayette College in Easton, Pennsylvania, where he worked to increase the size of the permanent faculty by more than 10%, developed revised curricula, introduced new interdisciplinary programs, and created innovative alliances with the city of Easton. During his tenure, Lafayette became the only college in the nation to receive a collaborative grant from the NEA under its Urban Arts initiative program.

In 2013, Dr. Weiss became president of Haverford, where he has worked to maintain the school’s nearly 200-year-long commitment to a student-centered and ethical learning environment. During his tenure, Dr. Weiss led the effort to prepare a comprehensive strategic plan, and secure the funds to support new interdisciplinary initiatives and major renovations to the library, new facilities for biology, psychology, and music, as well as a new center for visual culture, arts, and media. A professor of Independent College Programs and an affiliated professor in the history of art at Bryn Mawr College, Dr. Weiss has taught courses on liberal arts colleges and the history of art.

During his academic career, Dr. Weiss has published widely, delivered many public lectures, organized and served on conferences and symposia, and earned a number of fellowships and grants. He was, for example, a Junior Fellow at Harvard University’s Dumbarton Oaks Center for Byzantine Studies in 1991-92, an NEH fellow in 1996, and the recipient of a College Art Association Millard Meiss publication subsidy for his 1998 book, Art and Crusade in the Age of Saint Louis (Cambridge University Press, 1998).

Dr. Weiss’ other book is Die Kreuzritterbibel / The Morgan Crusader Bible / La Bible des Croisades (produced in German, English and French, Faksimile Verlag Luzern), and its Italian translation, La Bibbia dei Crociati (Rome: Salerno Editrice, 1999). He has also co-edited three books: Remaking College: Innovation and the Liberal Arts College (Johns Hopkins University Press, 2013); France and the Holy Land: Frankish Culture at the End of the Crusades (Hopkins, 2004); and The Book of Kings: Art, War, and the Morgan Library’s Medieval Picture Bible (Third Millennium Publishing, 2002).

He has also written articles, essays, and reviews for such publications as Art Medievale, Modern Language Notes, Art Bulletin, Holocaust and Genocide Studies, and Jewish Art, has contributed several chapters to books, and has authored pieces on leadership and civic affairs for newspapers and education magazines. With Marcus Sullivan, he is currently at work on the book Gentle Hero: Michael O’Donnell, Vietnam, and America in the 1960s.

Dr. Weiss’ many awards include: an honorary degree in 2013 from Lafayette College; the 2011 Martin Zippel Award from the Boys & Girls Club of Easton for outstanding service to children and community; a 2011 Community Development Award from the Greater Lehigh Valley Chamber of Commerce; a 2006 Aaron O. Hoff People’s Choice Award from Lafayette College; the George E. Owen Teaching Award presented by the 2003 Johns Hopkins senior class; and the Medieval Academy of America’s 1994 Van Courtlandt Elliott Prize for the outstanding first article in the field of Medieval studies.

Dr. Weiss currently serves on the Board of Trustees of the Samuel H. Kress Foundation, the Council for Library and Information Resources, and the Shipley School. He has served previously as a board member of the Lehigh Valley Hospital and Health Network, the Walters Art Museum in Baltimore, the Park School of Baltimore, and the Association of Independent Colleges and Universities of Pennsylvania.

Stated Museum Chairman Brodsky: “Speaking for both our search committee and the entire Board of Trustees, I am most pleased to welcome Daniel Weiss as the next President of the Met. The Museum is fortunate to have attracted such an accomplished, creative, and energetic leader to step into this crucial position. Dan’s proven record in managing areas essential to making large institutions run smoothly—including his especially strong commitment to staff development and academic excellence—will, I am certain, help build for the museum an ever-more secure future.”

“We are delighted to welcome Dan Weiss as the Met’s new President,” commented Mr. Campbell. “Dan’s experience is a rare combination of academic accomplishment in art history and vast management experience in a variety of complex institutions. He will be an ideal partner to help us achieve our ambitious goals for the Met over the next decade, and I look forward to introducing him to our dedicated staff, volunteers, donors, and visitors.”

Commented Dr. Weiss: “It is an honor and privilege to be joining this extraordinary museum at such a special time in its history. I look forward to working closely with Tom Campbell and my new colleagues as we implement the new strategic plan, open the Breuer building, and develop exciting new programs in the years ahead. As a lifelong visitor to the Met I am especially pleased to be joining such an exceptional team.”

Dr. Weiss, who plans on relocating to New York City, is married to Sandra Jarva Weiss, an attorney specializing in health-care law and a member of the firm Norris, McLaughlin & Marcus. They have two sons, Teddy, who is a high school senior at the Lawrenceville School, and Joel, a sophomore at Shipley.

• Thematic exhibition examining the fascination for unfinished works of art, from the Renaissance to the present day
• One-person exhibitions highlighting the Indian modernist artist Nasreen Mohamedi, rarely seen early photographs by Diane Arbus, and a mid-career retrospective of the contemporary painter Kerry James Marshall 
• New performance works by Artist in Residence Vijay Iyer, a newly commissioned sonic experience by Pulitzer Prize-winning composer John Luther Adams, and an all-day staging in the Met’s three locations of the U.S. premiere of Karlheinz Stockhausen’s massive, unfinished electro-acoustic composition Klang
• Interactive, participatory programs for all audiences connecting people directly with art, architecture, and design, across time and cultures

The Metropolitan Museum of Art will launch its first season of programming in the landmark building by Marcel Breuer on Madison Avenue at 75th Street in New York, when The Met Breuer opens to the public on Thursday, March 10, 2016. Encompassing major monographic and thematic exhibitions, new commissions, performances, and an artist-in-residence series, the inaugural season at The Met Breuer will enable visitors to engage with the art of the 20th and 21st centuries through the global breadth and historical reach of the Met’s unparalleled collection and scholarly resources.

The Met will develop and present programming at The Met Breuer for a period of eight years, following a collaborative agreement between the Museum and the Whitney Museum of American Art, which was formerly housed in the building and is relocating to its new museum facility in downtown Manhattan this May. In addition to exhibitions and performance, The Met Breuer will host a wide range of educational and public programming for visitors of all ages, connecting audiences with practicing artists through art-making, talks, and activities in the galleries. A dedicated page on the Met’s website—www.metmuseum.org/MetBreuer—will be updated regularly with detailed information on The Met Breuer’s exhibitions and programs.

The Metropolitan Museum of Art is one of the world’s leading art museums, with a collection spanning more than 5,000 years of world culture, from prehistory to the present. It presents dozens of exhibitions each year, and thousands of events and programs including films, talks, performance, guided tours, and family programs at its main building at Fifth Avenue and 82nd Street, the modern and contemporary art-themed programming at The Met Breuer in spring 2016, and exhibitions and collection displays related to the art and architecture of the medieval world at The Cloisters museum and gardens, its branch in upper Manhattan. A center for art appreciation, scholarship, research, and conservation, the Met also maintains a vibrant program of publishing scholarly and popular catalogues, and utilizes new technologies to enhance the visitor experience and extend the reach and accessibility of its offerings globally.

“The launch of The Met Breuer marks the start of an exciting new chapter for the Museum, allowing us additional space to expand our modern and contemporary visual and performing arts program, as we concurrently redesign and rebuild our Southwest Wing,” said Thomas P. Campbell, Director and CEO of The Metropolitan Museum of Art. “We believe that contemporary art is best understood as an integral part of a broader continuum of creativity—spanning cultures, eras, and genres—and this perspective will continue to infuse our activities in all three of our locations: on Fifth Avenue, at The Cloisters, and at The Met Breuer.”

The two inaugural exhibitions at The Met Breuer will be: a major, cross-departmental curatorial initiative, Unfinished: Thoughts Left Visible including works by some of the greatest artists of all time, ranging from Titian to Louise Bourgeois, who experimented with a non finito style; and the largest exhibition to date dedicated to Indian modernist Nasreen Mohamedi. The 2016 season will also feature an exhibition opening in July of early photographs (1956-1962) by Diane Arbus, primarily drawn from the Museum’s Diane Arbus Archive; and, in October, the first major survey in the U.S. of Kerry James Marshall, whose work asserts the place of the black figure within the narrative of Western painting.

The Met Breuer’s first season will also include performances and installations by Artist in Residence Vijay Iyer, the renowned musician and artistic collaborator. His projects will include a presentation of new work in an 18-day installation in the Lobby Gallery. Two additional contemporary performing art works will interweave visitor experiences across the Met’s three buildings: a newly commissioned sonic composition by John Luther Adams,Soundwalk 9:09, the title of which references the length of the walk between the Met’s main building at Fifth Avenue and 82nd Street and The Met Breuer at Madison Avenue and 75th Street; and the U.S. premiere of the massive, unfinished composition in 21 parts, Klang byKarlheinz Stockhausen, that visitors can hear in the course of a single day at the Museum’s three locations—its Fifth Avenue building, The Met Breuer, and The Cloisters museum and gardens. (See more detailed information on each exhibition and performances below.)

“For our inaugural season at The Met Breuer, we have dug deeply into our own collection and created partnerships to stimulate new scholarship and explore themes that stretch across history, geography, and art forms. Great works of art can transcend both time and place, and our program will powerfully demonstrate that potential,” said Sheena Wagstaff, the Leonard A. Lauder Chairman of the Met’s Department of Modern and Contemporary Art.

Current and upcoming modern and contemporary art exhibitions and initiatives at the Fifth Avenue building include the first survey exhibition of Piotr Uklański’s photography and a concurrent exhibition of objects from the collection curated by the artist (through August 16 and June 14, 2015, respectively); an installation by French conceptual artist Pierre Huyghe on the Met’s Iris and B. Gerald Cantor Roof Garden (May 12–November 1, weather permitting); the first season of The Artist Project, a new online series that shares the perspectives of 100 contemporary artists on works from the Museum’s collection that have inspired them; and the first of an annual series of reinterpretations of the modern and contemporary art collection. Modern and contemporary art activities will continue in the Museum’s Fifth Avenue location, as the conceptual plan is developed for the eventual redesign and rebuilding of the Southwest Wing by recently appointed David Chipperfield Architects.

2016 Exhibitions at The Met Breuer

Unfinished: Thoughts Left Visible
March 10 – September 4, 2016

Unfinished: Thoughts Left Visible examines a subject critical to artistic practice: the question of when a work of art is finished. Beginning with the Renaissance masters, this scholarly exhibition considers the impact of significant works of art that were left incomplete by their makers, but have been preserved and appreciated until today. Just as important, it examines finished works that make a feature of a non finito aesthetic that allowed for the incomplete, the open-ended, and the unresolved. Some of history’s greatest artists explored such an aesthetic, among them Titian, Rembrandt, Turner, Cézanne, Picasso, Louise Bourgeois, Lucian Freud, Jasper Johns, Andy Warhol, and Luc Tuymans, all of whom are represented in this exhibition.

Comprising 140 works dating from the Renaissance to the present, and predominantly drawn from the Museum’s own collection, enhanced by major national and international loans, this exhibition demonstrates the Met’s unique capacity to mine its rich collections and scholarly resources to present modern and contemporary art within a deep historical context. Its catalogue will expand the subject to include the subject of the ‘unfinished’ in literature and film, and the role of the conservator in elucidating a deeper understanding of artistic practice through unfinished works of art. The exhibition is co-curated at the Met by: Andrea Bayer, the Jayne Wrightsman Curator in the Department of European Paintings, and Nicholas Cullinan, former Curator in the Department of Modern and Contemporary Art, under the direction of Sheena Wagstaff. The exhibition will be accompanied by a publication that incorporates both scholarly texts and interviews with contemporary artists. It will be published by The Metropolitan Museum of Art and distributed by Yale University Press.

Nasreen Mohamedi
March 10, 2016 – June 5, 2016

A singular artist to emerge in post-Independence India, Nasreen Mohamedi (1937–90) created a body of work vital to the evolution of international modernism and abstraction. The Met Breuer exhibition marks the largest presentation of her work to date and explores the conceptual complexity and visual subtlety that made her practice unique in its time.

Mohamedi drew upon a range of inspirations in her work, from Paul Klee and Agnes Martin, to Mughal architecture and Indian classical music, the architecture of Louis Kahn, and Italian neorealist cinema. She experimented with organic lines, delicate grids and hard-edged forms in her oeuvre, and this aesthetic informed and infused the photographs she took throughout her life. With more than 130 paintings, drawings, and photographs, the exhibition surveys the different stages of Mohamedi’s career and the development of her aesthetic approach, which made her one the most significant artists of her generation.

The exhibition is curated by Roobina Karode, Director of the Kiran Nadar Museum of Art, New Delhi, with Sheena Wagstaff at The Metropolitan Museum of Art and Manuel J. Borja-Villel, Director of the Museo Reina Sofía, Madrid. The exhibition is organized by the Met in collaboration with the Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofia, with the cooperation of Kiran Nadar Museum of Art. It will be accompanied by a substantial catalogue with essays by international scholars, published by the Museo Reina Sofía.

diane arbus: in the beginning
July 11, 2016 – November 27, 2016

Spotlighting the rarely seen early work of Diane Arbus (1923-71), this exhibition explores the genesis of one of the most influential and controversial artists of the 20th century. The show focuses on Arbus’s first seven years working with the camera on the streets of New York City (1956-62), a dramatic era in American history and the period when the artist developed her idiosyncratic style and subject matter soon recognized, praised, criticized, and copied the world over.

The majority of the photographs will be drawn from the Met’s vast Diane Arbus Archive acquired in 2007 by gift and promised gift from the artist’s estate. More than half of the photographs have never been previously exhibited, or published, offering general visitors and scholars alike an unparalleled opportunity to see the formative work of this evocative and haunting artist.

diane arbus: in the beginning is curated by Jeff L. Rosenheim, Curator in Charge of the Met’s Department of Photographs. It will be accompanied by a fully illustrated catalogue published by The Metropolitan Museum of Art and distributed by Yale University Press.

Kerry James Marshall
October 25, 2016 – January 22, 2017

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, revealing 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 the history of 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 co-curated by Ian Alteveer, Associate Curator in the Department of Modern and Contemporary Art at the Met; Helen Molesworth, Chief Curator at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles; and Dieter Roelstraete, former Manilow Senior Curator, and Abigail Winograd, Research Associate, at the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago.

It is co-organized by the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago, where it debuts in April 2016, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, and the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles. It will be accompanied by a comprehensive and fully illustrated catalogue with essays by the curators, published by the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago.

Spring 2016 Performance at The Met Breuer

Artist in Residence Vijay Iyer

The Met’s 2015-16 Artist in Residence, Vijay Iyer, will occupy The Met Breuer’s Lobby Gallery for 18 days—from March 10, 2016, the first day the Museum will be open to the public, through March 31, 2016. For this residency, Iyer will inhabit the gallery creatively, bringing his encyclopedic breadth of artistic practice to a residency, redefined. While installed there for 18 days, Iyer will highlight his full body of work with performances, continuously, all day throughout Museum hours. He will perform solo, with other musicians, dancers, and poets, and will also curate performances by fellow musicians and performers. Additionally Iyer will create sound installations specifically for the space, resulting in full-day performance experiences.

Vijay Iyer has also been commissioned by the Met to create a new piece specifically to resonate with and accompany the Nasreen Mohamedi exhibition. This work will be presented in The Met Breuer’s second-floor gallery. Throughout the spring season, Iyer will collaborate with performance artists including Wadada Leo Smith, Kyle Abraham, Miranda Cuckson, Okkyung Lee, Michelle Boulé, Tyshawn Sorey, and Jen Shyu. Program details will be announced at a later date.

Soundwalk 9:09 by John Luther Adams
Launch date: March 10, 2016

Commissioned in celebration of the launch of The Met Breuer, the aptly titled Soundwalk 9:09 by Pulitzer Prize-winning composer John Luther Adams is nine minutes and nine seconds in duration, the time it takes to walk between the Met’s building at Fifth Avenue and 82nd Street, and The Met Breuer at Madison Avenue and 75th Street. The composition will be offered online and as a downloadable podcast at www.metmuseum.org/MetBreuer. It will include sounds recorded by the composer as well as around 100 more selected by him from submissions online, offering listeners a unique sonic experience. Details on how to submit sounds for possible inclusion in the final composition may be found atwww.metmuseum.org/MetBreuer and at Q2 Music’s website (www.wqxr.org/#!/series/q2).

Klang by Karlheinz Stockhausen
U.S. Premiere
March 26, 2016

Karlheinz Stockhausen’s fiercely original Klang (meaning “sound” in German) is an acoustic and electronic work so massive that it requires all day and all three of the Met’s iconic buildings to stage. This 21-part, unfinished composition was originally envisioned by Stockhausen as consisting of 24 individual compositions (one for each hour of the day), but the work was left unfinished at the time of his death. This performance will mark the U.S. premiere of Klang in its entirety, and will be performed at the Metropolitan Museum’s Fifth Avenue building, The Met Breuer, and The Cloisters museum and gardens. More details will follow.

The most eye-opening take-away I got from attending the preview of (both) the new Whitney Museum of American Art in downtown Manhattan (99 Gansevoort Street, New York, NY 10014, (212) 570-3600, info@whitney.org) and the inaugural exhibit, America is Hard to See, is, as much as I love art (and how much I have read on the subject over the years), it was astonishing how much I DID NOT know.

We all know Jackson Pollack, but how much do we know about his wife, Lee Krasner, an accomplished artist in her own right whose own career often was seriously compromised by her role as supportive wife to Pollock, arguably the one of the most significant postwar American painter, as well as by the male-dominated art world? We know Mark Rothko, Andy Warhol, Jasper Johns and Georgia O’Keefe, but we should also know more about Arthur Dove, Imogene Cunningham, Florine Stettheimer, James Daugherty, Eldzier Cortor, Raphael Montanez Ortiz, Eva Hesse, Lari Pitmman, and Nam June Park, and so many others, all among the 400 artists represented in more than 600 works of arts in “America is Hard to See“.

The Whitney Museum of American Art was borne out of sculptor Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney’s advocacy on behalf of living American artists. At the beginning of the twentieth century, artists with new ideas found it nearly impossible to exhibit or sell their work in the United States. Recognizing the obstacles these artists faced, Mrs. Whitney began purchasing and showing their work, thereby becoming the leading patron of American art from 1907 until her death in 1942.

In 1914, Mrs. Whitney established The Whitney Studio in Greenwich Village, where she presented exhibitions by living American artists whose work had been disregarded by the traditional

Archibald John Motley Jr. (1891-1981)

academies. By 1929 she had assembled a collection of more than 500 works, which she offered with an endowment to The Metropolitan Museum of Art. When the offer was refused, she set up her own museum, one with a new and radically different mandate: to focus exclusively on the art and artists of this country. The Whitney Museum of American Art was founded in 1930, and opened in 1931 on West Eighth Street in Greenwich Village.

Since its inception in 1931, the Whitney has championed American art and artists by assembling a rich permanent collection and featuring a rigorous and varied schedule of exhibition programs, which is why the upcoming exhibition, Archibald Motley: Jazz Age Modernist, (October 2, 2015–January 17, 2016) is so important. It introduces us to yet another artist we should know and whose work defined the life and times in America.

Archibald J. Motley Jr., Blues, (detail), 1929. Oil on canvas, 36 x 42 inches (91.4 x 106.7 cm). Collection of Mara Motley, MD, and Valerie Gerrard Browne. Image courtesy of the Chicago History Museum, Chicago, Illinois. © Valerie Gerrard Browne.

Archibald Motley was one of the most important figures associated with the Harlem Renaissance (although he never lived in Harlem) and is best known as both a master colorist and a radical interpreter of urban culture.First shown at the Nasher Museum at Duke University in early 2014 and organized and curated by Professor Richard J. Powell (John Spencer Bassett Professor of Art, Art History & Visual Studies at Duke University), Archibald Motley: Jazz Age Modernist is the first full-scale survey of his paintings in two decades, featuring mesmerizing portraits and vibrant cultural scenes painted between 1919 to 1961. The installation at the Whitney Museum will be overseen by Carter E. Foster, Steven and Ann Ames Curator of Drawing.

Archibald J. Motley Jr., Barbecue, (detail), c. 1934. Oil on canvas, 39 x 44 inches (99.1 x 111.76 cm). Collection of the Howard University Gallery of Art, Washington, DC. © Valerie Gerrard Browne.

Archibald J. Motley Jr., Tongues (Holy Rollers), (detail), 1929. Oil on canvas, 29.25 x 36.125 inches (74.3 x 91.8 cm). Collection of Mara Motley, MD, and Valerie Gerrard Browne. Image courtesy of the Chicago History Museum, Chicago, Illinois. © Valerie Gerrard Browne.

The exhibition will offer an unprecedented opportunity to carefully examine Motley’s dynamic depictions of modern life in his home town, Chicago, as well as in Jazz Age Paris and Mexico. Specifically, it will highlight his unique use of both expressionism and social realism and will resituate this underexposed artist within a broader, art historical context. The exhibition will be presented in the sky-lit eighth floor galleries of the new Whitney during its inaugural year.

Motley is one of the most significant yet least visible 20th-century artists, despite the broad appeal of his paintings. Many of his most important portraits and cultural scenes remain in private collections; few museums have had the opportunity to acquire his work. With a survey that spans 40 years, Archibald Motley introduces the artist’s canvases of riotous color to wider audiences and reveals his continued impact on art history.

According to Powell in a previous interview, ” There was a major retrospective of Archibald Motley that was done in the early 1990s by the Chicago Historical Society, now known as the Chicago History Museum. Why are we looking at him again? The show that was done in 1991 was a broad introduction to his art and career. It was less focused and broad and general. I had a chance to see that show and enjoyed it immensely. But as we have moved beyond that moment and into the 21st century and as we have moved into the era of post-modernism, particularly that category post-black, I really felt that it would be worth revisiting Archibald Motley to look more critically at his work, to investigate his wry sense of humor, his use of irony in his paintings, his interrogations of issues around race and identity.”

Archibald J. Motley Jr., Mending Socks, 1924. Oil on canvas, 43.875 x 40 inches (111.4 x 101.6 cm). Collection of the Ackland Art Museum, The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Burton Emmett Collection, 58.1.2801. © Valerie Gerrard Browne.

Archibald John Motley, Junior (September 2, 1891, New Orleans, Louisiana – January 16, 1981, Chicago, Illinois) was an American painter. He studied painting at the Art Institute of Chicago during the 1910s and is most famous for his colorful chronicling of the African-American experience during the 1920s and 1930s, and considered one of the major contributors to the Harlem Renaissance.

Archibald J. Motley, Jr., Black Belt, (detail), 1934. Oil on canvas, 33 x 40.5 inches (83.8 x 102.9 cm). Collection of the Hampton University Museum, Hampton, Virginia. © Valerie Gerrard Browne.

Unlike many other Harlem Renaissance artists, Archibald Motley, Jr. never lived in Harlem—-he was born in New Orleans and spent the majority of his life in Chicago. His was the only black family in a fairly affluent, white, European neighborhood. His social class enabled him to have the benefit of classical training at the Art Institute of Chicago. He was awarded the Harmon Foundation Award in 1928, and then became the first African-American to have a one-man exhibit in New York City. He sold twenty-two out of the twenty-six exhibited paintings–an impressive feat for an emerging black artist.

Archibald J. Motley Jr., Self-Portrait (Myself at Work), 1933. Oil on canvas, 57.125 x 45.25 inches (145.1 x 114.9 cm). Collection of Mara Motley, MD, and Valerie Gerrard Browne. Image courtesy of the Chicago History Museum, Chicago, Illinois. © Valerie Gerrard Browne.

In 1927 he had applied for a Guggenheim Fellowship and was denied, but he reapplied and won the fellowship in 1929. He studied in France for a year, and chose not to extend his fellowship another six months. While many contemporary artists looked back to Africa for inspiration, Motley was inspired by the great Renaissance masters available at the Louvre. He found in the artwork there a formal sophistication and maturity that could give depth to his own work, particularly in the Dutch painters and the genre images of Delacroix, Hals, and Rembrandt. Motley’s portraits take the conventions of the Western tradition and update them–allowing for black bodies, specifically black female bodies, a space in a history that had traditionally excluded them.

Archibald J. Motley Jr., Brown Girl After the Bath, 1931. Oil on canvas, 48.25 x 36 inches (122.6 x 91.4 cm). Collection of the Columbus Museum of Art, Ohio. Gift of an anonymous donor, 2007.015. © Valerie Gerrard Browne.

Archibald J. Motley Jr., The Octoroon Girl, 1925. Oil on canvas, 38 x 30.25 inches (96.5 x 76.8 cm). Courtesy of Michael Rosenfeld Gallery, LLC, New York, New York. © Valerie Gerrard Browne.

Motley was incredibly interested in skin tone, and did numerous portraits documenting women of varying blood quantities (“octoroon,” “quadroon,” “mulatto”). These portraits celebrate skin tone as something diverse, inclusive, and pluralistic. The also demonstrate an understanding that these categorizations become synonymous with public identity and influence one’s opportunities in life. It is often difficult if not impossible to tell what kind of racial mixture the subject has without referring to the title. These physical markers of blackness, then, are unstable and unreliable, and Motley exposed that difference.

As Powell later reiterated, “Motley [was] very attuned to the racial politics of his time. He knows that African Americans during this time struggled around issues of class and race and identity and that he can get a rise out of audiences and viewers when he explores a range of subjects that might be viewed by some people as stereotypic. He is consciously doing this. He is willfully doing this to get people to engage with the work, but also ultimately to move beyond a simplistic representation or a simplistic sense of what black people should or shouldn’t look like. He wants to mix things up to make you come to terms with the richness of the subject as it is represented from one painting to another.”

Archibald J. Motley Jr., The Picnic, 1936. Oil on canvas, 30 x 36 inches (76.2 x 91.4 cm). Collection of the Howard University Gallery of Art, Washington, DC. © Valerie Gerrard Browne.

His night scenes and crowd scenes, heavily influenced by jazz culture, are perhaps his most popular and most prolific. He depicted a vivid, urban black culture that bore little resemblance to the conventional and marginalizing rustic images of black Southerners so popular in the cultural eye. It is important to note, however, that it was not his community he was representing–he was among the affluent and elite black community of Chicago. He married a white woman and lived in a white neighborhood, and was not a part of that urban experience in the same way his subjects were.

Archibald J. Motley Jr., The Liar, 1936. Oil on canvas, 32 x 36 inches (81.3 x 91.4 cm). Collection of the Howard University Gallery of Art, Washington, DC. © Valerie Gerrard Browne.

Archibald Motley: Jazz Age Modernist opened at the Nasher Museum of Art at Duke University in January 2014 and traveled to the Amon Carter Museum of American Art in Fort Worth, Texas (June 14–September 7, 2014); the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (October 19, 2014–February 1, 2015); the Chicago Cultural Center (March 6–August 31, 2015) before it will arrive at the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York in October 2015.

Archibald Motley: Jazz Age Modernist is accompanied by a richly illustrated exhibition catalogue with critical texts by scholars Davarian L. Baldwin, David C. Driskell, Olivier Meslay, Amy M. Mooney and critically acclaimed poet, essayist and novelist Ishmael Reed. The catalogue is published by the Nasher Museum and distributed by Duke University Press.

Cover image caption: Archibald J. Motley, Jr., Black Belt, (detail), 1934. Oil on canvas, 33 x 40 ½ inches (12.9 x 15.8 cm). Collection of the Hampton University Museum, Hampton, Virginia. Catalogue Specs: 176 pages; approx. 200 full color illustrations; 11 x 9 inch soft cover with flap, date of publication: January 2014, Print run: 3,500, Price: $39.95, ISBN: 978-0-938989-37-0.

Throughout his career, the celebrated American painter John Singer Sargent (1856–1925) created exceptional portraits of artists, writers, actors, dancers, and musicians, many of whom were his close friends. As a group, these portraits—many of which were not commissioned—are often highly charged, intimate, witty, idiosyncratic, and more experimental than his formal portraiture. Brilliant works of art and penetrating character studies, they are also records of relationships, influences, aspirations, and allegiances.

John Singer Sargent (American, 1856–1925). The Fountain, Villa Torlonia, Frascati, Italy, 1907. Oil on canvas; 28 1/8 x 22 1/4 in. (71.4 x 56.5 cm). The Art Institute of Chicago, Friends of American Art Collection

Sargent: Portraits of Artists and Friends (June 30–October 4, 2015) brings together about ninety of the artist’s paintings and drawings of members of his impressive artistic circle. The individuals seen through Sargent’s eyes represent a range of leading figures in the creative arts of the time such as artists Claude Monet and Auguste Rodin, writers Robert Louis Stevenson and Henry James, and the actor Ellen Terry, among others. The exhibition features some of Sargent’s most celebrated full-length portraits (Dr. Pozzi at Home, Hammer Museum), his dazzling subject paintings created in the Italian countryside (Group with Parasols, The Middleton Family Collection), and brilliant watercolors (In the Generalife, The Metropolitan Museum of Art) alongside lesser-known portrait sketches of his intimate friends (Vernon Lee, 1881, Tate). The exhibition explores the friendships between Sargent and his artistic sitters, as well as the significance of these relationships to his life and art.

John Singer Sargent (American, Florence 1856–1925 London)
In the Generalife, 1912
American,
Watercolor, wax crayon, and graphite on white wove paper; 14 3/4 x 17 7/8 in. (37.5 x 45.4 cm)
The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, Purchase, Joseph Pulitzer Bequest, 1915 (15.142.8)
(http://www.metmuseum.org/Collections/search-the-collections/12116)

The exhibition is made possible by The Marguerite and Frank A. Cosgrove Jr. Fund and is organized by the National Portrait Gallery, London in collaboration with The Metropolitan Museum of Art. Accompanied by a catalogue and an Audio Guide

The Atelier with Alina Cho Continues with a Conversation Featuring Alber Elbaz at The Metropolitan Museum of Art

The Atelier with Alina Cho will conclude its inaugural season with Alber Elbaz, Artistic Director of Lanvin, in conversation with style journalist Alina Cho on Tuesday, June 9 at 6:00 p.m.  On The Metropolitan Museum of Art’s stage, Cho’s series has presented candid conversations about the fashion industry as it relates to art and visionary thinkers, launched with Anna Wintour on November 17, 2014, followed by Donatella Versace on April 30, 2015. Tickets start at $40.

The series has been part of the 2014-15 season of Met Museum Presents, which offers innovative talks and performances at the Metropolitan Museum, and will continue next season. Programs in the 2015-16 season will be announced at a later date.

Met Museum Presents is a wide-ranging series of performances and talks at The Metropolitan Museum of Art that explores contemporary issues and innovations through the lens of the Museum’s exhibitions and unparalleled gallery spaces. Met Museum Presents creates a platform for curators, thought-leaders, and artists to come together and explore the Met as a generative force.

Alina Cho is currently Editor-at-Large at Ballantine Bantam Dell, responsible for curating, co-editing, and co-writing books on style and fashion. Cho is perhaps best known for her fashion coverage on CNN.  Since 2001, Alber Elbaz has served as the artistic director of Lanvin Paris. Under his tenure, the brand has experienced tremendous growth, due in large part to his “industrial couture” approach to fashion.

For tickets, visit www.metmuseum.org/tickets or call 212-570-3949. Tickets are also available at the Great Hall Box Office, which is open Monday-Saturday, 11 a.m.—3:30 p.m. Tickets include admission to the Museum on day of performance.

The Metropolitan Museum of Art announced today that the exhibition China: Through the Looking Glass, which closed yesterday, attracted 815,992 visitors during its run from May 7 to September 7, putting it in fifth place among the Museum’s most visited exhibitions. Joining blockbusters such as Treasures of Tutankhamun (1978), Mona Lisa (1963), and Painters in Paris (2000), the popular show exceeded the number of visitors to The Costume Institute‘s prior most popular exhibition, Alexander McQueen: Savage Beauty (2011), which was the Met’s eighth most visited exhibition, with 661,509 visitors.

The exhibition explored the impact of Chinese aesthetics on Western fashion and how China has fueled the fashionable imagination for centuries. High fashion was juxtaposed with Chinese costumes, paintings, porcelains, and other art, including films, to reveal enchanting reflections of Chinese imagery.

The exhibition, which was originally set to close on August 16, was extended by three weeks, and then hours were added on September 4 and 5, when it stayed open until midnight, three hours past the Museum’s usual 9:00 p.m. Friday and Saturday night closing time.

The exhibition, curated by Andrew Bolton, was a collaboration between The Costume Institute and the Department of Asian Art. Wong Kar Wai was artistic director and Nathan Crowley served as production designer.

Encompassing approximately 30,000 square feet in 16 separate galleries in the Museum’s Chinese and Egyptian Galleries and Anna Wintour Costume Center, it was The Costume Institute‘s largest special exhibition ever, and also one of the Museum’s largest. With gallery space three times the size of a typical Costume Institute spring show, China accommodated the high numbers of visitors without lines.

“We are thrilled that so many visitors from around the world experienced this exploration of the impact of Chinese art on Western fashion,” said Thomas P. Campbell, Director and CEO of The Metropolitan Museum of Art. “The exhibition is one of the most ambitious the Museum has ever mounted, requiring an extraordinary collaboration across departments with unprecedented results. There are certain projects that only the Met can do, and this was certainly one of them.”

The exhibition was made possible by Yahoo. Additional support was provided by Condé Nast and several Chinese donors. The exhibition is featured on the Museum’s website, as well as on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter using #ChinaLookingGlass and #AsianArt100.

Costume Institute Benefit May 2 with Co-Chairs Idris Elba, Jonathan Ive, Taylor Swift, and Anna Wintour, and Honorary Chairs Nicolas Ghesquière, Karl Lagerfeld, and Miuccia Prada

Exhibition Dates: May 5–August 14, 2016
Member Previews: May 3−May 4
Exhibition Locations: Robert Lehman Wing and Anna Wintour Costume Center

The Metropolitan Museum of Art announced today that The Costume Institute’s spring 2016 exhibition will be manus x machina: fashion in an age of technology, on view from May 5 through August 14, 2016 (preceded on May 2 by The Costume Institute Benefit). Presented in the Museum’s Robert Lehman Wing and Anna Wintour Costume Center, the exhibition will explore the impact of new technology on fashion and how designers are reconciling the handmade and the machine-made in the creation of haute couture and avant-garde ready-to-wear.

Ensemble, Sarah Burton (British, born 1974) for Alexander McQueen (British, founded 1992), fall/winter 2012–13. Courtesy of The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Photo by Catwalking

“Fashion and technology are inextricably connected, more so now than ever before,” said Thomas P. Campbell, Director and CEO of the Met. “It is therefore timely to examine the roles that the handmade and the machine-made have played in the creative process. Often presented as oppositional, this exhibition proposes a new view in which the hand and the machine are mutual and equal protagonists.”

manus x machina will feature more than 100 examples of haute couture and avant-garde ready-to-wear, dating from an 1880s Worth gown to a 2015 Chanel suit. The exhibition will reflect on the founding of the haute couture in the 19th century, when the sewing machine was invented, and the emergence of a distinction between the hand (manus) and the machine (machina) at the onset of industrialization and mass production. It will explore the ongoing rhetoric of this dichotomy in which hand and machine are presented as discordant instruments in the creative process, and will question this oppositional relationship as well as the significance of the time-honored distinction between the haute couture and ready-to-wear.

Wedding dress, Karl Lagerfeld, (French, born Hamburg, 1938) for House of Chanel (French, founded 1913), fall/winter 2014–15 haute couture, front view. Courtesy of The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Photo by Catwalking

Wedding dress, Karl Lagerfeld, (French, born Hamburg, 1938) for House of Chanel (French, founded 1913), fall/winter 2014–15 haute couture, back view. Courtesy of The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Photo by Catwalking

The Robert Lehman Wing galleries on the Museum’s first floor and court level will present a series of pairings of handmade haute couture garments and their machine-made ready-to-wear counterparts. The galleries will be arranged enfilade (an axial arrangement of doorways connecting a suite of rooms with a vista down the whole length of the suite.), with a suite of rooms reflecting the traditional structure of a couture atelier and its constituent petites mains workshops for embroidery, feathers, pleating, knitting, lacework, leatherwork, braiding, and fringe work. These will be contrasted with ensembles incorporating new technologies including 3D printing, laser cutting, thermo shaping, computer modeling, circular knitting, ultrasonic welding, and bonding and laminating.

Evening dress, Yves Saint Laurent (French, 1936-2008), 1969–70; The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Gift of Baron Philippe de Rothschild, 1983 (1983.619.1a, b)
© The Metropolitan Museum of Art

Dress, Silicon feather structure and moldings of bird heads on cotton base, Iris van Herpen (Dutch, born 1984), fall/winter 2013–14. Courtesy of The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Photo by Jean-Baptiste Mondino

In a departure from previous exhibits, The Anna Wintour Costume Center galleries will present a series of “in process” workshops, including a 3D-printing workshop where visitors will witness the creation of 3D-printed garments during the course of the exhibition.

Coat, Paul Poiret, (French, 1879–1944), ca. 1919; The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Gift of Mrs. David J. Colton, 1961 (C.I.61.40.4). © The Metropolitan Museum of Art

Designers in the exhibition will include Gilbert Adrian, Azzedine Alaïa, Christopher Bailey (Burberry), Cristobal Balenciaga, Boué Soeurs, Sarah Burton (Alexander McQueen), Pierre Cardin, Hussein Chalayan, Gabrielle “Coco” Chanel, Giles Deacon, Christian Dior, Alber Elbaz (Lanvin), Mariano Fortuny, John Galliano (Christian Dior, Maison Margiela), Nicolas Ghesquière (Balenciaga, Louis Vuitton), Hubert de Givenchy, Madame Grès, Lazaro Hernandez and Jack McCollough for Proenza Schouler, Yoshiki Hishinuma, Marc Jacobs (Louis Vuitton), Charles James, Christopher Kane, Mary Katrantzou, Rei Kawakubo (Comme des Garçons), Karl Lagerfeld (Chanel), Helmut Lang, Mary McFadden, Issey Miyake, Miuccia Prada, Paul Poiret, Paco Rabanne, Noa Raviv, Yves Saint Laurent (Christian Dior, Yves Saint Laurent), Mila Schön, Raf Simons (Jil Sander, Christian Dior), Maiko Takeda, Riccardo Tisci (Givenchy), threeASFOUR, Philip Treacy, Iris van Herpen, Madeleine Vionnet, Alexander Wang, Junya Watanabe, and others.

“Traditionally, the distinction between the haute couture and prêt-à-porter was based on the handmade and the machine-made, but recently this distinction has become increasingly blurred as both disciplines have embraced the practices and techniques of the other,” said Andrew Bolton, Curator in The Costume Institute. “manus x machina will challenge the conventions of the hand/machine dichotomy, and propose a new paradigm germane to our age of digital technology.”

Jonathan Ive, Apple’s Chief Design Officer, said, “Both the automated and handcrafted process require similar amounts of thoughtfulness and expertise. There are instances where technology is optimized, but ultimately it’s the amount of care put into the craftsmanship, whether it’s machine-made or hand-made, that transforms ordinary materials into something extraordinary.” (Apple is the main sponsor of manus x machina.)

In celebration of the exhibition opening, the Museum’s Costume Institute Benefit, also known as the Met Gala, will take place on Monday, May 2, 2016. The evening’s co-chairs will be Idris Elba, Jonathan Ive, Taylor Swift, and Anna Wintour. Nicolas Ghesquière, Karl Lagerfeld, and Miuccia Prada will serve as Honorary Chairs. This event is The Costume Institute’s main source of annual funding for exhibitions, publications, acquisitions, and capital improvements.

manus x machina is organized by Andrew Bolton, Curator of The Costume Institute. Shohei Shigematsu, Director of OMA New York, will lead the exhibition design in collaboration with the Met’s Design Department. Raul Avila will produce the Benefit décor, which he has done since 2007. The exhibition is made possible by Apple. Additional support is provided by Condé Nast.

A publication by Andrew Bolton will accompany the exhibition. It will be published by The Metropolitan Museum of Art and distributed by Yale University Press, and will be available in early May 2016.

A special feature on the Museum’s website, www.metmuseum.org/manusxmachina, provides information about the exhibition. (Follow on Facebook.com/metmuseum,
Instagram.com/metmuseum, and Twitter.com/metmuseum to join the conversation about the exhibition and gala benefit. Use #manusxmachina, #CostumeInstitute, and #MetGala on Instagram and Twitter.)

October 20, 2015–July 31, 2016 (rotation in early February)

Exhibition Location: Arts of Japan, The Sackler Wing Galleries, second floor, Galleries 223–231

A spectacular array of Japanese works of art will be on view at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, in a special exhibition featuring works of art drawn from the recent landmark gift to the Museum by the Mary and Jackson Burke Foundation. Opening on October 20, Celebrating the Arts of Japan: The Mary Griggs Burke Collection is a tribute to the discerning New York City collector who built what is widely regarded as the finest and most encompassing private collection outside Japan.

Beginning in the 1960s, over the course of nearly 50 years, Mary Griggs Burke (1916–2012) assembled an unparalleled art collection. It was exhibited by the Tokyo National Museum in 1985, the first-ever Japanese art collection from abroad to be shown there. The themes selected for the current exhibition, including numerous works added to the collection since the Bridge of Dreams exhibition at the Met in 2000, reflect Mrs. Burke’s own collecting interests.

The works on view will include masterpieces—paintings, sculpture, ceramics, calligraphy, lacquerware, and more—dating from the 10th to the 20th century. Among the highlights are a powerful representation of the Buddhist deity Fudō Myōō from the studio of the celebrated sculptor Kaikei (active 1185–1223), a sumptuous set of early 17th-century screens showing Uji Bridge in Kyoto, and Itō Jakuchū’s (1716–1800) tour-de-force ink painting of plum blossoms in full bloom illuminated by moonlight. Organized by theme and presented in two sequential rotations, the exhibition will reveal, through a single, distinguished collection, the full range of topics, techniques, and styles that are distinctive to Japanese art.

Sublime Buddhist Art: The first gallery of the exhibition, flanking the entrance to the Buddhist altar room, will feature a pair of wood and lacquer sculptures of the protective deity Fudō Myōō and the compassionate bodhisattva Jizō. Both are from the atelier of the master sculptor Kaikei, who, like his contemporary Unkei, is renowned for tempering the powerful realism of the Kamakura period (1185–1333) to create universally compelling sculptures.

Kaikei, active ca. 1183–1223, Fudō Myōō
Japan, Kamakura period (1185–1333), early 13th century. Lacquered Japanese cypress (hinoki), color, gold, and kirikane, inlaid with crystal. H. 20 1/4 in. (51.5 cm)
The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Mary Griggs Burke Collection, Gift of The Mary and Jackson Burke Foundation, 2015. Photo: Courtesy of The Metropolitan Museum of Art

Shinto Icons: Traditions of the Shinto religion that are indigenous to Japan are captured in rare, 10th-century examples of male and female Shinto deities carved from single blocks of sacred wood. A highlight in this group of rare early sculptures and paintings is the late 14th-century Deer Mandala of the Kasuga Shrine, which expresses the magical powers of the animal that served as a messenger for Shinto deities.

Court Calligraphy: In the ninth century, the creation of the kana script to inscribe vernacular Japanese led to a flowering of literature, painting, and calligraphy. Mrs. Burke, who had a special interest in Japanese courtly literature, was drawn to fine examples of kana, which in ancient times was often referred to as onna-de (literally, the “women’s hand”), since it was practiced and perfected by female calligraphers at a time when courtiers were expected to master Chinese-style calligraphy. Several outstanding examples of kana calligraphy from the 11th to the 13th century will be included in the exhibition.

Shibata Zeshin, Japanese, 1807–1891, Jūbako with Taro Plants and Chrysanthemums
Japan, late Edo (1615–1868)–Meiji (1868–1912) period, 19th century. Colored lacquer with gold and silver maki-e. H. 16 1/2 in. (41.9 cm); W. 9 in. (22.9 cm); D. 9 5/8 in. (24.4 cm)
The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Mary Griggs Burke Collection, Gift of The Mary and Jackson Burke Foundation, 2015. Photo: Courtesy of The Metropolitan Museum of Art

Zen Ink Painting: At first shown exclusively in temples, ink paintings with Zen themes soon moved to the secular world. A highlight of this section will be a painted handscroll, Ten Oxherding Songs (dated 1278), in which the actions of a young herdsman and the powerful ox he tends serve as metaphors for the quest for enlightenment. The Burke Collection is renowned for its strong representation of evocative ink landscapes by Zen monk-painters of the medieval period.

Soga Shohaku, Japanese, 1730–1781, Lions at the Stone Bridge of Tendaisan
Japan, Edo period (1615–1868), 1779. Hanging scroll; ink on silk
Image: 44 7/8 in. × 20 in. (114 × 50.8 cm). Overall with mounting: 79 × 25 1/2 in. (200.7 × 64.8 cm)
The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Mary Griggs Burke Collection, Gift of The Mary andJackson Burke Foundation, 2015. Photo: Courtesy of The Metropolitan Museum of Art

The Great Stylistic Transition: This section will demonstrate Mrs. Burke’s fascination with a critical juncture in the history of Japanese art, the period of radical transformation in stylistic tendencies between the 16th and early 17th centuries. The new tendency can be detected through the many magnificent examples—not only in painting, but also in the decorative arts, especially lacquer—that will be on view in this section. Another of the great strengths of the Burke Collection is its array of screen paintings, and the Metropolitan Museum has received some 30 spectacular examples. The screen paintings on view will include a dramatic evocation of Uji Bridge in Kyoto, famed for its literary associations, and the six-panel screen Women Casting Fans from a Bridge, a rare and important example of the rise of genre painting.

Literature in Art: The Mary Griggs Burke Collection is also significant for its works in every medium that illustrate scenes from traditional Japanese narratives, especially the courtly classic of the early 11th century, The Tale of Genji. A painting based on an episode from the 10th-century Tales of Ise, by the celebrated 17th-century Kyoto painter Tawaraya Sōtatsu (died ca. 1640), will be featured in the second rotation.

Willows and Bridge, Japan, Momoyama period (1573–1615)
Pair of six-panel folding screens; ink, color, gold, and copper on gilded paper. Each 67 x 136 in. (170.2 x 345.4 cm)
The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Mary Griggs Burke Collection, Gift of The Mary and Jackson Burke Foundation, 2015. Photo: Courtesy of The Metropolitan Museum of Art

Willows and Bridge, Japan, Momoyama period (1573–1615)
Pair of six-panel folding screens; ink, color, gold, and copper on gilded paper. Each 67 x 136 in. (170.2 x 345.4 cm)
The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Mary Griggs Burke Collection, Gift of The Mary and Jackson Burke Foundation, 2015. Photo: Courtesy of The Metropolitan Museum of Art

Tea and Austere Beauty: The vibrant quality and tactile surfaces of ceramics produced for use in the tea ceremony, first codified in the 16th century, also illustrate the aesthetics of the period. Outstanding examples of Ko Seto, Black Seto, White Shino, and Kyō-yaki ware will be presented in this section, juxtaposed with paintings and calligraphy resonating with the wabi aesthetic, which prioritizes unaffected, serene, and even rustic qualities of rough-hewn tea wares.

Literati Painting: The development of the Nanga School provides another example of the way in which Japanese artists were open to new themes, techniques, and ways of seeing during the Edo period. Artists in this school based their work on the art of Chinese literati masters. Works on view will include the renowned screen painting Gathering at the Orchard Pavilion, by Ike Taiga (1723–1776).

Ideals of Feminine Beauty: The final section of the exhibition will focus on sumptuously colored paintings of beauties by artists of the Ukiyo-e school. Paintings in this genre were among the first objects acquired by Mrs. Burke and her husband, Jackson Burke, when they began collecting seriously in 1963. The late-17th-century Beauty of the Kanbun Era, illustrating changes in fashion during this period, is just one of the exquisite works in this group that will be on view.

Celebrating the Arts of Japan: The Mary Griggs Burke Collection is organized by John T. Carpenter, Mary Griggs Burke Curator of Japanese Art, with Monika Bincsik, Assistant Curator of Japanese art, and Aaron M. Rio, Jane and Morgan Whitney Fellow, all from the Metropolitan Museum’s Department of Asian Art. The exhibition is made possible by the Mary Griggs Burke Fund, Gift of the Mary Livingston Griggs and Mary Griggs Burke Foundation, 2015. In conjunction with the exhibition, the Museum will offer a variety of education programs.

The publication Art through a Lifetime: The Mary Griggs Burke Collection, a catalogue raisonné edited by Miyeko Murase, includes illustrations of all of the works given to the Metropolitan Museum by the Mary and Jackson Burke Foundation. An earlier Met publication, Bridge of Dreams: The Mary Griggs Burke Collection of Japanese Art, also includes many works that will be on view in the exhibition.

The exhibition will be featured on the Museum’s website, as well as on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter via the hashtags #ArtsofJapan and #AsianArt100.

“Style is what makes you different; it’s your own stamp, a message about yourself.” – Countess Jacqueline de Ribes.

The Costume Institute’s Fall 2015 exhibition, Jacqueline de Ribes: The Art of Style, focuses on the internationally renowned style icon Countess Jacqueline de Ribes, whose originality and elegance established her as one of the most celebrated fashion personas of the 20th century.

Jacqueline de Ribes in Christian Dior, 1959. Courtesy of The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Photograph by Roloff Beny, Roloff Beny Estate

“A close study of de Ribes’s life of creative expression yields illuminating insights into her strategies of style,” said Harold Koda, Curator in Charge of The Costume Institute, who organized the exhibition. “Her approach to dress as a statement of individuality can be seen as a kind of performance art. When she established her own fashion house, her friend Yves Saint Laurent gave his blessing to the venture as a welcome projection of her elegance.”

The press preview for Jacqueline de Ribes: The Art of Style, was a somber affair. The guest of honor and the exhibition’s subject, Countess Jacqueline de Ribes, was not in attendance for obvious reasons. The Costume Institute released the following statement:

“Following the tragic events in Paris, Jacqueline de Ribes has canceled her trip to New York for the opening of Jacqueline de Ribes: The Art of Style at The Metropolitan Museum of Art. Her thoughts and prayers are with the victims and their families. She would like to express her gratitude to all her friends at the Met with whom she has collaborated for so many months, and hopes that they will understand her decision.

Comtesse de Ribes also knows how much Americans share the deep sadness felt in France, which confirms the enduring bond between the two countries. She hopes the exhibition will represent the joy associated with the freedom of creation.”

Jacqueline de Ribes in her own design, 1983
Courtesy of The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Photograph by Victor Skrebneski, Skrebneski
Photograph © 1983

As reported by Vanessa Friedman of The New York Times, the planned dinner on Wednesday, hosted by the House of Dior, in honor of the exhibition was downgraded to a cocktail reception in business dress.

While I was looking forward to seeing the Countess in person (having read so much about her in magazines and newspapers since the early 1980’s), I must also say that, even without her there, the exhibition fully represented her far-reaching talents, self-assuredness and strong belief in her own sense of what works for her and how her public life (and charitable works) changed the world around her. In a time when “style icons” are anointed based on the work of their Svengali-like stylists who tell them what to wear (usually obscenely expensive designer dresses borrowed for the night, including the jewelery AND the shoes), where to wear them (most often than not to red-carpet events) and how to wear them, the Countess is the REAL DEAL. Most everyone else is a pale imitation.

Jacqueline de Ribes, 1955, Courtesy of The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Photograph by Richard Avedon,
©The Richard Avedon Foundation

“Elegance. It’s an attitude. A frame of mind. An intuition, a refusal, a rigor, a research, a knowledge. The attitude of elegance is also a way of behaving.”

Countess Jacqueline de Ribes (born 1929 in Paris to aristocratic parents) is seen by many as the ultimate personification of Parisian elegance. She was, with the American and Italian beauties Gloria Vanderbilt and Marella Agnelli, among the small flock of “Swans” photographed by Richard Avedon and written about by Truman Capote in 1959.

Married at age 19 to the late Édouard, Vicomte de Ribes (he became the Count de Ribes upon the death of his father in 1981), the traditions of her in-laws precluded her from becoming a career woman. However, as an independent spirit, she channeled her creativity into a series of ventures linked by fashion, theater, and style. In 1956, de Ribes was nominated for Eleanor Lambert’s Best-Dressed List. At the time, she had only a handful of couture dresses, as most of her wardrobe was comprised of her own designs, which she made herself or with a dressmaker. Four more nominations followed, and resulted in her induction into the International Best-Dressed List Hall of Fame in 1962.

Jacqueline de Ribes in her own design, 1986
Courtesy of The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Photograph by Francesco
Scavullo, The Francesco Scavullo Foundation and The Estate of Francesco
Scavullo

“When I was a small child, there were two women I admired. One was a friend of my mother’s who was an ambassadress. The other was Coco Chanel. It seems I always wanted to be a designer.”

Photographed by the world’s leading talents including Slim Aarons, Richard Avedon, David Bailey, Cecil Beaton, Robert Doisneau, Horst, Jean Baptiste Mondino, Irving Penn, Francesco Scavullo, Victor Skrebneski, and Juergen Teller, her image came to define an effortless elegance and a sophisticated glamour, something you cannot say about so many of the women today that defines the term, “modern style icons.” As Carolina Herrera recently remarked in a newspaper interview (and I am paraphrasing here), “How can someone be a style icon when they are not wearing any clothes?” in reference to the trio of music and Hollywood stars who attended the recent Met Ball in “dresses” that left almost nothing to the imagination. And Mrs. Herrera is right. If you want to see what a TRUE style icon is, run, don’t walk, to The Met to see Jacqueline de Ribes: The Art of Style.”

“You must remember that you’re never going to be sexy for everyone. You are sexy for someone and for someone else you are not. Being totally nude is not sexy. The art of being sexy is to suggest. To let people have fantasy.”

Gallery View, Evening Wear
© The Metropolitan Museum of Art

The thematic exhibition features approximately 60 ensembles of haute couture and ready-to-wear primarily from de Ribes’s personal archive, dating from 1962 to the present. Also included are her creations for fancy dress balls, which she often made by cutting up and cannibalizing her haute couture gowns to create unexpected, thematic, and conceptually nuanced expressions of her aesthetic. These, along with photographs, video, and ephemera, tell the story of how her interest in fashion developed over decades, from childhood “dress-up” to the epitome of international style.

A muse to haute couture designers, they placed at her disposal their drapers, cutters, and fitters in acknowledgment of their esteem for her taste and originality. Ultimately, she used this talent and experience to create her own successful design business, which she directed from 1982 to 1995.

Gallery View, Evening Wear
© The Metropolitan Museum of Art

“My mirror, my only truthful advisor.”

While the exhibition explores her taste and style methodology, extensive documentation from her personal archives illustrates the range and depth of her professional life, including her roles as theatrical impresario, television producer, interior designer, and director and organizer of international charity events.

Designers in the exhibition include Giorgio Armani, Pierre Balmain, Bill Blass, Marc Bohan for House of Dior, Roberto Cavalli, Jacqueline de Ribes, John Galliano, Madame Grès (Alix Barton), Valentino Garavani, Jean-Paul Gaultier, Norma Kamali, Guy Laroche, Ralph Lauren, Yves Saint Laurent, Fernando Sanchez for Révillon Frères, and Emanuel Ungaro.

Gallery View, Black and White for Night
© The Metropolitan Museum of Art

Gallery View, Black and White for Night
© The Metropolitan Museum of Art

In 1999, Jean Paul Gaultier dedicated his haute couture collection to her with the title “Divine Jacqueline,” and in 2010, she received the Légion d’Honneur from then-French President Nicolas Sarkozy for her philanthropic and cultural contributions to France.

Gallery View, Flights of Fantasy
© The Metropolitan Museum of Art

Jacqueline de Ribes: The Art of Style : Ensemble, autumn/winter 1962–63 haute couture, Suit of beige wool herringbone tweed; cape of beige wool herringbone tweed trimmed with lynx fur. Roberto Cavalli (Italian, b. 1940) Turtleneck, 1995, Black, brown, and cream printed silk- cashmere knit. Photo Credit: PDJ/www.fashionpluslifestyle.wordpress.com

Because I am a true fan and very much appreciate “classic” clothing (My #1 favorite New York Fashion Week collection was, and remains to this day, Michael Kors’ “Palm Bitch” collection), this exhibition spoke to me. I enjoyed seeing how she—a woman well before her time—paired “high” with “low”, how she didn’t allow her clothes to “wear” her. An excellent example of this is the pairing of a Pierre Balmain autumn/winter 1962–63 haute couture ensemble (suit of beige wool herringbone tweed; cape of beige wool herringbone tweed trimmed with lynx fur) with a (ready-to-wear) Black, brown, and cream printed silk- cashmere knit turtleneck from Roberto Cavalli from 1995. She also paired Banana Republic with Yves Saint Laurent autumn/winter 1969–70 haute couture.

“The Pierre Balmain ensemble still reflects the postwar femininity of the elegant woman who likes fur even with the tweed. The outfit has nothing really sporty about it, but it has a kind of Hollywood glamour which had reached Paris by that time,” said Countess de Ribes

De Ribes is well known as an early advocate of mixing up her couture runway looks. For example, she was emphatic in rejecting the styling of a traditional loden cloth coat with another earlier garment, a culotte suit by Christian Dior. “Impossible!” she declared when she saw the conventional coordination done by her staff, later explaining that she ultimately “wore it [the culotte suit] with a Portuguese peasant’s cape.” This ensemble from the mid-1960s, however, is something of an exception to her approach to styling. Only the incorporation of her own sweater, stockings, and other accessories personalize the effect of an outfit essentially worn as the designer, Balmain, intended.

Gallery View, The Masked Ball
© The Metropolitan Museum of Art

Everywhere you looked, in every room, you saw the vision of a woman who really knew herself. You saw the marvelous end result, but not the effort that went into it. Everyone should take the time to visit The Met and see this exhibition. It’s an education.

“I totally disagree with Christian Dior, who once said that one could never look sexy and be elegant at the same time. It is just more difficult, that’s all.”

Jacqueline de Ribes: The Art of Style is on view in The Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Anna Wintour Costume Center from November 19, 2015 through February 21, 2016. The exhibition’s catalog is available at The Met store. With text by Harold Koda; forward by Diane von Furstenberg; art direction by Jacqueline de Ribes; and photographs by Patricia Canino, this book catalogs the “eye” of one of the 20th century’s most photographed women of style through a selection of her couture collection, personal designs, fashion “collages,” and fancy dress costumes. Featuring striking photographs specially commissioned for this publication, it illustrates the tremendous sartorial creativity of a woman who has come to embody the notion of French elegance. The catalog is only found at The Metropolitan Museum of Art.

Vigée Le Brun: Woman Artist in Revolutionary France

Exhibition dates: February 15–May 15, 2016

Exhibition Location: Special Exhibition Gallery, first floor, Gallery 199

Elisabeth Louise Vigée Le Brun (1755-1842) is one of the finest 18th-century French painters and among the most important of all women artists. An autodidact with exceptional skills as a portraitist, she achieved success in France and abroad during one of the most eventful, turbulent periods in European history. Vigée Le Brun: Woman Artist in Revolutionary France is the first retrospective and only the second exhibition devoted to this artist in modern times. The 80 works on view at the Metropolitan Museum will be paintings and a few pastels from European and American public and private collections.

All portraits by Elisabeth Louise Vigée Le Brun (French, Paris 1755-1842 Paris): Self-portrait, 1790. Oil on canvas. Galleria degli Uffizi, Corridoio Vasariano, Florence (1905)

The exhibition is organized by The Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Réunion des Musées Nationaux – Grand Palais, and the National Gallery of Canada, with the exceptional participation of the Château de Versailles.

The exhibition is made possible by the Gail and Parker Gilbert Fund, the William Randolph Hearst Foundation, and the Diane W. and James E. Burke Fund. Corporate support provided by Bank of America. Additional support is provided by gifts made in memory of Parker Gilbert.

Born in Paris during the reign of Louis XV, Elisabeth Louise Vigée Le Brun was the daughter of a professional pastel portraitist who died when she was 12 years old. Precocious and largely self-taught, in her teens Mademoiselle Vigée, chaperoned by her mother, was already working independently as a portraitist and contributing to the support of her family. It became necessary for her to join the artisanal guild in 1774, and she exhibited publicly for the first time at age 19 at the SALON OF THE ACADÉMIE DE SAINT-LUC.

All portraits by Elisabeth Louise Vigée Le Brun (French, Paris 1755-1842 Paris): Marie Antoinette with a Rose, 1783. Oil on canvas. Lynda and Stuart Resnick

In 1776 she married the principal art dealer and expert in 18th-century Paris, JEAN BAPTISTE PIERRE LE BRUN, with whom she had a daughter, Julie. Theirs was largely a marriage of convenience, beneficial to both, although his profession at first kept her from being accepted into the prestigious ACADÉMIE ROYALE DE PEINTURE ET DE SCULPTURE. At 23, Vigée Le Brun was summoned to Versailles to paint Marie Antoinette (1755-1793), who was a few months younger than she. The earliest of three full-length life-size portraits of the queen in the exhibition will be Marie Antoinette in Court Dress (1778, Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna), which was delivered to her mother, Empress Maria Theresa of Austria, in 1779. The most important painting of the queen, commissioned as a propaganda piece for the monarchy and shown at the Salon of 1787, is Marie Antoinette and Her Children (Musée National des Châteaux de Versailles et de Trianon), in which she is presented as a regal mother with the dauphin and his two siblings.

The art of painting was fostered in France by the ACADÉMIE ROYALE DE PEINTURE ET DE SCULPTURE, established in Paris in 1648 under the leadership of Charles Le Brun (1619–1690). Women were barred from the school of the Académie because the students learned anatomy and the principles of drawing by studying and sketching from the nude male model. The Académie royale also controlled access to the Académie de France in Rome, where young male artists were afforded the opportunity to study the sculpture and monuments of antiquity. Women were afforded only the most limited access to the Salons of the Académie, where members brought their work before connoisseurs, critics, and potential patrons. (Of the 550 members of that organization during its 150-year history, only 14 were women.) Denied entry to this august organization because her husband was a dealer and association with the trade was prohibited, Vigée Le Brun was able to gain access only when Marie Antoinette and Louis XVI intervened.

All portraits by Elisabeth Louise Vigée Le Brun (French, Paris 1755-1842 Paris): Baronne de Crussol Florensac, 1785. Oil on wood. Musée des Augustins, Toulouse

Vigée Le Brun submitted Peace Bringing Back Abundance (1780, Musée du Louvre, Paris) as her reception piece, becoming one of the Académie’s last four female members, and she exhibited the picture at the Salon of 1783. She flourished, showing close to 40 works in the four Salons to which she had access (1783, 1785, 1787, 1789). Balancing innovation with tradition, she created intimate as well as public portraits, including, for example, the Duchesse de Polignac (1782, Versailles) and Emmanuel de Crussol-Florensac (1787, The Metropolitan Museum of Art). Simply dressed in white with loose, unpowdered hair, several of her female sitters exemplify the move from formality to the newly fashionable mode of sensibility. Vigée Le Brun was remarkable not only for her technical gifts, but for her understanding of and sympathy with her sitters.

In 1789, Vigée Le Brun was forced to flee France because of her association with the queen. She traveled with her daughter to Italy where, in 1790, she was elected to membership in the Accademia di San Luca, Rome. Independently, she worked in Florence, Naples, Vienna, St. Petersburg, and Berlin. She amassed a fortune painting, among many others, the Queen of Naples and her children (a 1790 portrait of her daughter, Maria Louisa, will be on view), Louis XVI’s aunts (Madame Victoire, 1791, Phoenix Art Museum, and Madame Adélaïde, 1791, Musée Jeanne d’Aboville, La Fère), and Napoleon’s sister Caroline, who became queen of Naples (1807, Versailles). She spent three successful years in Vienna (Princess von und zu Liechtenstein, 1793, private collection, New York) and more than six years in Russia, where she took sittings from members of the family of Catherine the Great and from the former king of Poland (1797, Versailles). Her work was also exhibited in the Paris Salons while she was in exile. Vigée Le Brun finally returned to France in 1805 for good and later published her memoirs (1835 and 1837), giving voice to details about her art and life in late 18th-century Europe. She died in Paris in 1842 at age 86.

All portraits by Elisabeth Louise Vigée Le Brun (French, Paris 1755-1842 Paris): Charles Alexandre de Calonne, 1784. Oil on canvas. Royal Collection Trust and H. M. Queen Elizabeth II

The exhibition at the Metropolitan Museum of Art is greatly indebted to the Musée National des Châteaux de Versailles et de Trianon, the Musée du Louvre, the Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna, and Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II for their generous loans. Other works have been lent by 22 private collectors, several of whom are descendants of the sitters. The Metropolitan Museum is privileged to show seven paintings from European and American collections, some of the finest the artist created under the influence of Peter Paul Rubens (1577–1640) in the years 1782 to 1787. Portraits from all of the Salons at which Vigée Le Brun exhibited in the 1780s will also be presented in the exhibition.

Vigée Le Brun: Woman Artist in Revolutionary France is organized at the Metropolitan Museum by Katharine Baetjer, Curator in the Museum’s Department of European Paintings. A larger version of the exhibition is currently on view at the Grand Palais in Paris through January 11, 2016. After its presentation at the Metropolitan Museum, the exhibition will be on view at the National Gallery of Canada in Ottawa from June 10 to September 11, 2016.

The exhibition will be accompanied by a catalog written by Joseph Baillio, Katharine Baetjer, and Paul Lang with contributions by Ekaterina Deryabina, Gwenola Moulin Firmin, Stéphane Guégan, Anabelle Kienle Poňka, Xavier Salmon, and Anna Sulimova. The catalog will be published by The Metropolitan Museum of Art and will be available in the Museum’s book shop. The catalog is made possible by The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.

A Sunday at the Met program will take place on April 10, 2016. There will also be a series of exhibition tours, including one on February 26 in American Sign Language, and a Picture This! program for visitors who are blind or partially sighted on March 24. A concert on April 8, In the Salon of Vigée Le Brun, will feature fortepianist Jory Vinikour, soprano Jolle Greenleaf, and violinist Robert Mealy presenting works by Haydn, Beethoven, Grétry, and Gluck.

Education programs are made possible by The Georges Lurcy Charitable and Educational Trust. An audio tour, part of the Museum’s Audio Guide program, will be available for rental ($7, $6 for Members, $5 for children under 12). The Audio Guide is sponsored by Bloomberg Philanthropies.

Exhibition Location: The Met Breuer, 3rd and 4th floors, Madison Avenue and 75th Street

Unfinished: Thoughts Left Visible examines a subject that is critical to artistic practice: the question of when a work of art is finished. Opening March 18, 2016, this landmark exhibition inaugurates The Met Breuer, ushering in a new phase for the Met’s expanded engagement with modern and contemporary art, presented in Marcel Breuer’s iconic building on Madison Avenue (formerly the home of The Whitney Museum of American Art). With over 190 works dating from the Renaissance to the present—nearly forty percent of which are drawn from the Museum’s collection, supplemented with major national and international loans—the exhibition demonstrates the type of groundbreaking show that can result when the Museum mines its vast collection and curatorial resources to present modern and contemporary art within a deep historical context.

Alice Neel (American, 1900–1984). James Hunter Black Draftee, 1965. Oil on canvas_ 60 x 40 in. (152.4 x 101.6 cm). COMMA Foundation, Belgium. © The Estate of Alice Neel

The exhibition examines the term “unfinished” across the visual arts in the broadest possible way; it includes works left incomplete by their makers, a result that often provides insight into the artists’ creative process, as well as works that engage a non finito—intentionally unfinished—aesthetic that embraces the unresolved and open-ended. Featured artists who explored such an aesthetic include some of history’s greatest practitioners, among them Titian, Rembrandt, Turner, and Cézanne, as well as modern and contemporary artists, including Janine Antoni, Lygia Clark, Jackson Pollock, and Robert Rauschenberg, who have taken the unfinished in entirely new directions, alternately blurring the distinction between making and un-making, extending the boundaries of art into both space and time, and recruiting viewers to complete the objects they had begun.

“Unfinished is a cornerstone of The Met Breuer’s inaugural program and a great example of the Met’s approach to presenting the art of today,” said Thomas P. Campbell, Director and CEO of the Metropolitan Museum. “Stretching across history and geography, the exhibition is the result of a cross-departmental collaboration, drawing on the expertise of the Met’s outstanding faculty of curators. We hope the exhibition will inspire audiences to reconsider the artistic process as they connect to experiences shared by artists over centuries.”

Using works of art as well as the words of artists and critics as a guide, Unfinished: Thoughts Left Visible strives to answer four questions: When is a work of art finished? To what extent does an artist have latitude in making this decision? During which periods in the history of art since the Renaissance have artists experimented most boldly with the idea of the unfinished or non finito? What impact has this long trajectory had on modern and contemporary art?

The exhibition features works that fall into two categories. The first includes works of art that are literally unfinished—those whose completion was interrupted, usually because of an accident, such as the artist’s death. In some instances, notably Jan van Eyck’s Saint Barbara (1437), there is still debate about whether the artist meant the work to be a finished drawing, which would have been considered unusual at the time, or if it was meant to be a preparation for a painting. Because such works often leave visible the underlying skeleton and many changes normally effaced in the act of completion, they are prized for providing access to the artist’s thoughts, as well as to his or her working process.

The second category includes works that appear unfinished—open-ended, unresolved, imperfect—at the volition of the artist, such as Janine Antoni’s Lick and Lather (1993–1994). Antoni used a mold to create a series of self-portrait busts, half from chocolate and half from soap, fragile materials that tend to age quickly. After finishing the busts, she set to work unfinishing them, licking those in chocolate and bathing with those in soap, stopping once she had arrived at her distinctive physiognomy.

The unfinishedness of objects in this second category has been debated and appreciated at definite times, in definite places. Unlike the historical art presented in the exhibition, which includes a significant number of truly unfinished objects, art from the mid- to late 20th and 21st centuries is represented almost entirely through the lens of non finito.

The exhibition is organized chronologically, spanning the third and fourth floors of The Met Breuer. The works are subdivided thematically, with each group representing a specific case-study in unfinishedness—corresponding to specific times (such as the Renaissance, Baroque, and Modern periods), media (prints and sculpture), artists (including Turner, Cézanne, and Picasso), and genres (most importantly portraiture).

A new, light-based installation by Tatsuo Miyajima, created especially for Unfinished, will be on view in the Lobby Gallery of The Met Breuer (late April through mid-October).

Sheena Wagstaff, Leonard A. Lauder Chairman of Modern and Contemporary Art added: “It is rare that an exhibition covering such a broad time span can trace a theme as intimate and essential to the creative process. This sweep of art history throws into sharp focus the ongoing concern of artists about the ‘finishedness’ of their work—which, in the 20th century, they co-opt as a radical tool that changes our understanding of Modernism.”

Unfinished: Thoughts Left Visible is curated by Andrea Bayer, Jayne Wrightsman Curator of European Paintings in the Department of European Paintings; Kelly Baum, Curator of Postwar and Contemporary Art in the Department of Modern and Contemporary Art, both at the Metropolitan Museum; and Nicholas Cullinan, former curator in the Met’s Department of Modern and Contemporary Art and current Director of the National Portrait Gallery in London, all working under the direction of Sheena Wagstaff,.

Many curators, conservators, fellows, and research assistants at the Met contributed to this exhibition and its accompanying catalogue, including experts from the Museum’s departments of American Paintings and Sculpture, Drawings and Prints, European Paintings, European Sculpture and Decorative Arts, Paintings Conservation, and Modern and Contemporary Art.

The exhibition is made possible by Leonard A. Lauder. Additional support is provided by the Jane and Robert Carroll Fund, Howard I. Hoffen & Sandra Hoffen, Kenneth and Rosalind Landis, Ann M. Spruill and Daniel H. Cantwell, and Northern Trust.

The exhibition is accompanied by a 336-page fully illustrated catalogue that constitutes the most exploratory, yet also comprehensive, introduction to date of the long history of the unfinished in the visual arts, film, and literature. The book is divided into two main sections that roughly correspond to the periods 1435–1900 and 1900–2015. It contains essays by 13 curators, scholars, and a conservator on a range of artists and subjects related to the theme of the unfinished. The catalogue also features interviews with five contemporary artists—Vija Celmins, Marlene Dumas, Brice Marden, Luc Tuymans, and Rebecca Warren—whose work is represented in the exhibition; and a section of brief catalogue entries on each of the objects featured in the exhibition that explores the significance of the work, with an emphasis on its place in the broader narrative and, frequently, an account of its reception. The catalogue will be published by The Metropolitan Museum of Art and distributed by Yale University Press.

The catalogue is made possible by the Samuel I. Newhouse Foundation, Inc. and the Roswell L. Gilpatric Publications Fund.

Related Programs

A series of experimental films made by many of the 20th and 21st century’s most innovative filmmakers will be shown in conjunction with the exhibition. Organized by Thomas Beard, founder and director of Light Industry, a venue for film and electronic art in Brooklyn, these screenings, which will take place on The Met Breuer’s second floor, will address the unfinished in cinematic terms. Details on screening times will be available at a later date.

In collaboration with the Met, The Orchestra Now (TŌN) will present “The Unfinished,” a performance at Carnegie Hall of two unfinished works: Schoenberg’s Chamber Symphony No. 2 and Mozart’s Great Mass in C minor.

The concert will include a panel discussion with the Museum’s Sheena Wagstaff and Andrea Bayer; TŌN’s music director Leon Botstein; Columbia University’s Elaine Sisman, Anne Parsons Bender Professor of Music; and others. Friday, May 13, 2016, 7:30–9:45 p.m.; tickets start at $25.

The Metropolitan Museum of Art’s modern and contemporary art program is expanding to include a new series of exhibitions, performances, artist commissions, residencies, and educational initiatives in the building designed by Marcel Breuer on Madison Avenue and 75th Street. Opening to the public on March 18, 2016, The Met Breuer provides additional space to explore the art of the 20th and 21st centuries through the global breadth and historical reach of the Met’s unparalleled collection.

Other programs featured as part of the inaugural season of The Met Breuer include the largest exhibition to date dedicated to Indian modernist Nasreen Mohamedi; and a month-long performance installation, by Resident Artist Vijay Iyer. Upcoming exhibitions include a presentation of Diane Arbus’s rarely seen early photographic works (July 12– November 27, 2016), and the first museum retrospective dedicated to Kerry James Marshall (October 25, 2016 – January 30, 2017).

Hours for The Met Breuer Inaugural Weekend, March 18–20

Friday, March 18, 10:00 a.m.–10:00 p.m.

Saturday, March 19, 10:00 a.m.–10:00 p.m.

Sunday, March 20, 10:00 a.m.–5:30 p.m.

Regular Hours for The Met Breuer (as of March 21)

Tuesday and Wednesday, 10:00 a.m.–5:30 p.m.

Thursday and Friday, 10:00 a.m.–9:00 p.m.

Saturday and Sunday, 10:00 a.m.–5:30 p.m.

Closed Monday

Inaugural Season Features Mix of Visual Arts and Performance, Including:

• Unfinished: Thoughts Left Visible, major thematic survey featuring unfinished works of art from the Renaissance to the present day;
• Monographic exhibition of Indian modernist artist Nasreen Mohamedi;
• Continuous in-gallery performances by Artist in Residence Vijay Iyer (through March 31, 2016), a newly commissioned sonic experience by Pulitzer Prize-winning composer John Luther Adams, and an all-day performance in The Met’s three locations of the U.S. premiere of Karlheinz Stockhausen’s composition KLANG;
• Forthcoming exhibitions in 2016 season include rarely seen, early photographs by Diane Arbus (opening July 2016);
• Mid-career retrospective of the contemporary painter Kerry James Marshall (opening October 2016), with a complementary “artist’s choice” installation of works from The Met collection;
• Inhabiting Marcel Breuer’s Architecture, an exhibition of newly commissioned architectural photographs of four iconic Marcel Breuer-designed buildings (opening November 2016)

Since it was founded in 1870, The Met has always aspired to be more than a treasury of rare and beautiful objects. Every day, art comes alive in the Museum’s galleries and through its exhibitions and events, revealing both new ideas and unexpected connections across time and across cultures. Furthermore, millions of people also take part in The Met experience online. The Met presents over 5,000 years of art from around the world for everyone to experience and enjoy. The Museum now lives in three iconic sites in New York City—The Met Fifth Avenue, The Met Breuer, and The Met Cloisters.

The new Met logo (www.metmuseum.org)

On March 18, 2016, The Metropolitan Museum of Art will launch its inaugural season at The Met Breuer, its new space dedicated to modern and contemporary art. Housed in the landmark building designed by the renowned Bauhaus architect Marcel Breuer, The Met Breuer program invites visitors to engage with the art of the 20th and 21st centuries through a range of exhibitions, commissions, performances, and artist residencies all uniquely presented through the global breadth and historical reach of The Met’s unparalleled collection and resources.

“The reopening of Marcel Breuer’s iconic building on Madison Avenue represents an important chapter in the cultural life of New York City,” said Thomas P. Campbell, Director and CEO of The Met. “Whether frequent or first-time visitors to our Fifth Avenue building or The Met Cloisters, we look forward to welcoming everyone to The Met Breuer, which provides an unparalleled opportunity to experience modern and contemporary art through the lens of the global breadth and historical reach of The Met’s collection.”

The Met Breuer (www.metmuseum.org)

Sheena Wagstaff, the Leonard A. Lauder Chairman of The Met’s Department of Modern and Contemporary Art, added: “With the launch of The Met Breuer, we are honoring the history of this beloved building and embracing its significance to the cultural landscape of our city as we infuse it with The Met’s curatorial spirit for the public to enjoy. For our inaugural season, we have developed a far-reaching program that explores themes that stretch across history, geography, and art forms. Great works of art can transcend both time and place, as our program powerfully demonstrates.”

Under the direction of Campbell, Wagstaf has developed the curatorial program at The Met Breuer in partnership with departments from across the Museum, including Photographs; European Paintings; European Sculpture and Decorative Arts; Drawings and Prints; Arts of Africa, Oceania, and the Americas; the American Wing; and Concerts & Lectures.

The Met Breuer’s program will spotlight modern and contemporary art in dialogue with historic works that encompass the full range of The Met’s vast collection. The building will host both monographic and thematic exhibitions, as well as new commissions and performances. The two inaugural exhibitions at The Met are Unfinished: Thoughts Left Visible, a cross-departmental curatorial initiative that brings together works by some of the greatest artists of all time, from Titian to Louise Bourgeois, who experimented with a non finito style; and the largest exhibition to date dedicated to Indian modernist Nasreen Mohamedi. Additionally, a music installation by Artist in Residence Vijay Iyer will activate The Met Breuer’s Tony and Amie James Gallery in the lobby throughout March.

Photography is also a cornerstone of the program at The Met Breuer, including a presentation of early photographs by Diane Arbus, opening in July that will be drawn from The Met’s Diane Arbus Archive; and a series of commissioned architectural photographs that will document four seminal public buildings designed by Marcel Breuer, opening in the fall. Culminating The Met Breuer’s inaugural season, the first major survey in the United States of Kerry James Marshall, whose work asserts the place of the black figure within the narrative of Western painting, will go on view in October.

These programs will take place within an iconic building that has been restored with architect Marcel Breuer’s original vision in mind, supporting an integrated experience of art and architecture. Restoration work was completed under the guidance of Beyer Blinder Belle Architects & Planners LLC to maintain the unique character of the building’s signature attributes—including the textured concrete surfaces, bluestone floors, and bronze fixtures—with special consideration given to respecting the patina of history within the space by preserving the aesthetic of weathered areas. In addition to undertaking this extensive cleaning and restoration work, The Met also collaborated with the Whitney Museum of American Art to upgrade the building’s infrastructure systems. To enhance the building’s sunken garden, The Met commissioned landscape architect Günther Vogt to create a site-specific design and installation that includes Quaking Aspen trees planted along the west perimeter.

The Met gratefully acknowledges the following lead contributors to The Met Breuer: Daniel and Estrellita Brodsky and Howard S. and Nancy Marks; The Carson Family Charitable Trust, Tony and Amie James, and Anthony W. and Lulu C. Wang; Cheryl and Blair Effron, Mark Fisch and Rachel Davidson, Mr. and Mrs. J. Tomilson Hill, Eliot C. and Wilson Nolen, Samantha Boardman Rosen and Aby J. Rosen, Bonnie J. Sacerdote, and Alejandro Santo Domingo; Stephanie and Peter Brant, The Eli and Edythe Broad Foundation, Ann Cox Chambers, Mr. and Mrs. Jeffrey W. Greenberg, Mary and Michael Jaharis, Michael B. Kim and Kyung Ah Park, Leonard A. Lauder, Ann Tenenbaum and Thomas H. Lee, The Dr. Mortimer and Theresa Sackler Foundation, Barrie and Deedee Wigmore, and two anonymous donors.

Major corporate support for The Met Breuer is provided by Sotheby’s. A detailed history of the Breuer building is available on The Met’s website.

The Met Breuer Inaugural Season 2016 Exhibition Program

Unfinished: Thoughts Left Visible, March 18–September 4, 2016

This exhibition examines a subject critical to artistic practice: the question of when a work of art is finished. Beginning with Renaissance masters, this scholarly and innovative exhibition examines the term “unfinished” in the broadest possible way, encompassing not only works left incomplete by their makers, which often give insight into the process of their creation, but also those that partake of a non finito—intentionally unfinished—aesthetic that embraces the unresolved and open-ended. Some of history’s greatest artists explored such an aesthetic, among them Titian, Rembrandt, Turner, and Cézanne. The unfinished has been taken in entirely new directions by modern and contemporary artists, including Janine Antoni, Lygia Clark, Jackson Pollock, and Robert Rauschenberg, who alternately blurred the distinction between making and un-making, extended the boundaries of art into both space and time, and recruited viewers to complete the objects they had begun.

With over 190 works dating from the Renaissance to the present—nearly 40 percent of which are drawn from The Met’s collection, supplemented with major national and international loans—this exhibition demonstrates The Met’s unique capacity to mine its rich collections and scholarly resources to present modern and contemporary art within a deep historical context.

The exhibition is co-curated at The Met by: Andrea Bayer, Jayne Wrightsman Curator in the Department of European Paintings, Kelly Baum, Curator in the Department of Modern and Contemporary Art, and Nicholas Cullinan, former Curator in the Department of Modern and Contemporary Art, under the direction of Sheena Wagstaff, Leonard A. Lauder Chairman, Department of Modern and Contemporary Art. The exhibition is accompanied by a publication that incorporates both scholarly texts and interviews with contemporary artists. The catalogue expands the subject to consider the “unfinished” in both literature and film, and the role of the conservator in elucidating a deeper understanding of artistic thought on the subject of the unfinished. It is published by The Metropolitan Museum of Art and distributed by Yale University Press.

A program featuring unfinished films accompanies the exhibition. Curated by Thomas Beard, co-founder and director of Light Industry, the films will be presented in The Met Breuer’s second floor audio-visual gallery, beginning on April 9 and extending through June 4.

The exhibition is made possible by Leonard A. Lauder and The Dr. Mortimer and Theresa Sackler Foundation. Additional support is provided by the Jane and Robert Carroll Fund, Howard I. Hoffen & Sandra Hoffen, Kenneth and Rosalind Landis, Ann M. Spruill and Daniel H. Cantwell, and Northern Trust. It is supported by an Indemnity from the Federal Council on the Arts and the Humanities. The catalogue is made possible by the Samuel I. Newhouse Foundation, Inc. and the Roswell L. Gilpatric Publications Fund.

Nasreen Mohamedi, March 18–June 5, 2016

A singular artist to emerge in post-Independence India, Nasreen Mohamedi (1937–90) created a body of work vital to the evolution of international modernism and abstraction. The Met Breuer exhibition marks the largest presentation of Mohamedi’s work to date and explores the conceptual complexity and visual subtlety that made her practice unique in its time.

Mohamedi drew upon a range of inspirations in her work, from Paul Klee and Agnes Martin to Mughal architecture and Indian classical music to the architecture of Louis Kahn and Italian neorealist cinema. She experimented with organic lines, delicate grids, and hard-edged forms in her oeuvre, and this aesthetic informed and infused the photographs she took throughout her life. With more than 130 paintings, drawings, and photographs, the exhibition surveys the different stages of Mohamedi’s career and the development of her aesthetic approach, which made her one of the most significant artists of her generation.

The exhibition was initiated and curated for the Museo Reina Sofía, Madrid, by Roobina Karode, Director of the Kiran Nadar Museum of Art, New Delhi; the exhibition at The Met Breuer is curated by Sheena Wagstaff, Leonard A. Lauder Chairman of the Department of Modern and Contemporary Art, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, with assistance from Brinda Kumar, Research Associate in the Department of Modern and Contemporary Art. Nasreen Mohamedi is accompanied by a substantial catalogue with essays by international scholars, published by the Museo Reina Sofía.

The exhibition is made possible by Nita and Mukesh Ambani and the Reliance Foundation.

The exhibition is organized by The Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía, Madrid, with the collaboration of the Kiran Nadar Museum of Art, New Delhi.

Relation: A Performance Residency by Vijay Iyer, March 18–31, 2016

The Met’s 2015-16 Resident Artist, Vijay Iyer, occupies The Met Breuer’s Tony and Amie James Gallery in March, bringing his astonishing range of artistic practice to redefine what a residency can be. Iyer highlights his full body of work with continuous performances throughout Museum hours. He will perform solo as well as with other musicians, dancers, and poets, and will also curate performances by fellow musicians and performers. Additionally Iyer has created sound installations specifically for the space, resulting in full-day performance experiences. They include the film Radhe Radhe: Rites of Holi by Prashant Bhargava and Vijay Iyer, and a new sound installation Fit (The Battle of Jericho) by Mendi + Keith Obadike. Throughout the spring season, Iyer will collaborate with performance artists including Wadada Leo Smith, Miranda Cuckson, Okkyung Lee, Michelle Boulé, Tyshawn Sorey, and Rajna and Anjna Swaminathan.

Vijay Iyer has also been commissioned by The Met to create a piece that accompanies and resonates with the exhibition Nasreen Mohamedi. In homage to Mohamedi’s devotion to Indian classical music and her improvisatory imagery that at times evokes an abstracted rhythmic notation, Iyer will present the world premiere of a new composition in honor of Mohamedi. A Cosmic Rhythm with Each Stroke premieres on Wednesday, March 30, at 7 pm, followed by a performance on Thursday, March 31, at 7 pm. Tickets start at $50.

A Cosmic Rhythm with Each Stroke is made possible through the Saroj Jhaveri Foundation, sponsored by the R. & S. Nanavati Charitable Trust No.2. The Vijay Iyer Artist Residency is made possible by Cynthia Hazen Polsky and Leon B. Polsky, with additional support from the Chester Dale Fund.

diane arbus: in the beginning, July 12–November 27, 2016

Spotlighting the rarely seen early work of Diane Arbus (1923–71), this exhibition will explore the genesis of one of the most influential and controversial artists of the 20th century. The show focuses on Arbus’s first seven years working with the camera on the streets of New York City (1956–62), a dramatic era in American history and the period when the artist developed her idiosyncratic style and subject matter that was soon recognized, praised, criticized, and copied the world over.

The majority of the photographs will be drawn from The Met’s vast Diane Arbus Archive acquired in 2007 by gift and promised gift from the artist’s estate. More than two-thirds of the photographs have never been exhibited, or published, offering visitors and scholars alike a rare opportunity to see the formative work of this evocative and influential artist.&

diane arbus: in the beginning is curated by Jeff L. Rosenheim, Curator in Charge of The Met’s Department of Photographs. The exhibition is accompanied by a fully illustrated catalogue published by The Metropolitan Museum of Art and distributed by Yale University Press.

Kerry James Marshall: Mastry, October 25, 2016–January 29, 2017

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 the history of 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 co-curated by Ian Alteveer, Associate Curator in the Department of Modern and Contemporary Art at The Met; Helen Molesworth, Chief Curator at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles; and Dieter Roelstraete, former Manilow Senior Curator; and Abigail Winograd, Research Associate, at the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago. It is accompanied by a comprehensive and fully illustrated catalogue with essays by the curators, published by the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago and distributed by Skira Rizzoli.

The exhibition is made possible by The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts. The exhibition is organized by The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago, and The Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles.

Inhabiting Marcel Breuer’s Architecture: Four Public Buildings Photographed by Luisa Lambri and Bas Princen

Opening November 29, 2016

The Met is commissioning photographers Luisa Lambri and Bas Princen to document a central concern that defined Marcel Breuer’s architectural practice: the state of “post-occupancy,” a term architects use to describe the evolution of a building and its enduring architectural relevance. The exhibition will examine four key public buildings designed by Breuer, capturing the qualities and nuances of change the spaces have absorbed through the years. Depicting the passing of time and how the buildings are being activated in 2016, the exhibition highlights the role of modern architecture in today’s built environment and celebrates Breuer’s contributions to the field. The four public buildings by Breuer that were selected for this exhibition are the Headquarters of UNESCO (Paris, 1958); Saint Francis de Sales (Minneapolis, 1959); The Met Breuer (New York City, 1966); and his hotel and ski resort in Flaine, Geneva (1968).

Inhabiting Marcel Breuer’s Architecture: Four Public Buildings Photographed by Luisa Lambri and Bas Princen is curated by Beatrice Galilee, The Met’s Daniel Brodsky Associate Curator of Architecture and Design, Department of Modern and Contemporary Art. The exhibition is made possible by The Daniel and Estrellita Brodsky Foundation.

Spring 2016 Performance

Soundwalk 9:09 by John Luther Adams

Commissioned to celebrate the launch of The Met Breuer, the aptly titled Soundwalk 9:09 by Pulitzer Prize-winning composer John Luther Adams lasts nine minutes and nine seconds, the time it takes to walk between The Met Fifth Avenue and The Met Breuer (from Fifth Avenue and 82nd Street to Madison Avenue and 75th Street). Offering listeners a unique sonic experience, it includes sounds recorded by the composer as well as some selected by him from submissions online. The composition in two parts, “Downtown” and “Uptown,” is available online to download to your mobile device at www.metmuseum.org/MetBreuer and at Q2 Music’s website (www.wqxr.org/#!/series/q2).

This program is made possible by Cynthia Hazen Polsky and Leon B. Polsky.

KLANG by Karlheinz Stockhausen

U.S. Premiere

Karlheinz Stockhausen’s deftly original KLANG (meaning “sound” in German) is an acoustic and electronic work so massive that it requires all day and all three of The Met’s iconic buildings to stage. This 21-part, unfinished composition was originally envisioned by Stockhausen to consist of 24 individual compositions (one for each hour of the day), but the work was left unfinished at the time of his death. This performance marks the U.S. premiere of KLANG in its entirety, and will be performed at The Met Fifth Avenue, The Met Breuer, and The Met Cloisters.

This program is made possible by the Stavros Niarchos Foundation and

Barbaralee Diamonstein-Spielvogel and Carl Spielvogel, with additional support from the New York State Council on the Arts and the Samuel White Patterson Lecture Fund.

It is presented in collaboration with Analog Arts.

Program Credits

Exhibition design by Brian Butterfield, Senior Exhibition Designer (Unfinished: Thoughts Left Visible), and Zoe Florence, Exhibition Designer (Nasreen Mohamedi), in collaboration with the graphic design team, and under the direction of The Met’s Head of Design, Susan Sellers.

Restoration planning and oversight by Beyer Blinder Belle Architects & Planners.

Regular Hours for The Met Breuer (as of March 21)

Tuesday and Wednesday, 10 am–5:30 pm

Thursday and Friday, 10 am–9 pm

Saturday and Sunday, 10 am–5:30 pm

Closed Monday

Hours for The Met Breuer Inaugural Weekend, March 18–20

Friday, March 18, 10 am–10 pm

Saturday, March 19, 10am–10 pm

Sunday, March 20, 10 am–5:30 pm

The Met Breuer is featured on the Museum’s website at www.metmuseum.org/Breuer as well as on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter via the hashtag #MetBreuer.

Lower Level Gallery View: Tailleur and Flou © The Metropolitan Museum of Art

Manus x Machina: Fashion in an Age of Technology at The Metropolitan Museum of Art has been extended by three weeks through Labor Day, Monday, September 5. The exhibition, organized by The Costume Institute, opened to the public on May 5, and has drawn more than 350,000 visitors in its first nine weeks. Originally scheduled to close on August 14, the exhibition explores how designers reconcile the handmade and the machine-made in the creation of haute couture and avant-garde ready-to-wear. It addresses the distinction between the hand (manus) and the machine (machina) as discordant tools in the creative process, and questions the changing delineation between the haute couture and ready-to-wear. 

Upper Level Gallery View: Embroidery © The Metropolitan Museum of Art

Ensemble, Raf Simons (Belgian, born 1968) for House of Dior (French, founded 1947), spring/summer 2015 haute couture; Courtesy of Christian Dior Haute Couture Courtesy of The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Photo © Nicholas Alan Cope

Dress, Iris van Herpen (Dutch, born 1984), autumn/winter 2013– 14 haute couture; The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Purchase, Friends of The Costume Institute Gifts, 2015 (2016.14) Courtesy of The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Photo © Nicholas Alan Cope

“With the transformation of the Robert Lehman Wing into a breathtaking cathedral to couture, we want to give as many people as possible the chance to experience this exhibition,” said Thomas P. Campbell, Director and CEO of The Met. “The show invites visitors to explore the artistry of over 170 haute couture and ready-to-wear ensembles. It is a wonderful way to discover the magic behind the making of fashion.”

Upper Level Gallery View: Artificial Flowers © The Metropolitan Museum of Art

Upper Level Gallery View: Embroidery © The Metropolitan Museum of Art

Upper Level Gallery View: Embroidery © The Metropolitan Museum of Art

To date, the exhibition’s attendance is just behind China: Through the Looking Glass (2015) and Alexander McQueen: Savage Beauty (2011), the Met’s fifth and eighth most popular exhibitions respectively, both of which were also extended. All three were curated by Andrew Bolton, now Curator in Change of The Costume Institute. China: Through the Looking Glass attracted 815,992 visitors in total, and Alexander McQueen: Savage Beauty drew 661,509.

“Traditionally, the distinction between the haute couture and prêt-à-porter was based on the handmade and the machine-made, but recently this distinction has become increasingly blurred as both disciplines have embraced the practices and techniques of the other,” said Bolton. “Manus x Machina challenges the conventions of the hand/machine dichotomy and proposes a new paradigm germane to our age of technology.”

Manus x Machina features more than 170 examples of haute couture and avant-garde ready-to-wear, dating from the early 1900s to the present. The exhibition addresses the founding of the haute couture in the 19th century, when the sewing machine was invented, and the emergence of a distinction between the hand (manus) and the machine (machina) at the onset of industrialization and mass production. It explores this ongoing dichotomy, in which hand and machine are presented as discordant tools in the creative process, and questions this relationship and the significance of the long-held distinction between haute couture and ready-to-wear.

Wedding ensemble, Karl Lagerfeld (French, born Hamburg, 1938) for House of Chanel (French, founded 1913), autumn/winter 2014–15 haute couture, back view; Courtesy of CHANEL Patrimoine Collection Courtesy of The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Photo © Nicholas Alan Cope

Wedding ensemble, Karl Lagerfeld (French, born Hamburg, 1938) for House of Chanel (French, founded 1913), autumn/winter 2014–15 haute couture, back view; Courtesy of CHANEL Patrimoine Collection Courtesy of The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Photo © Nicholas Alan Cope

The Robert Lehman Wing galleries, on the Museum’s first floor and ground level, have been transformed into a building-within-a-building using white scrims. The space houses a series of case studies in which haute couture and ready-to-wear ensembles are decoded to reveal their hand/machine DNA. A 2014 haute couture wedding dress by Karl Lagerfeld for Chanel with a 20-foot train occupies a central cocoon, with details of its embroidery projected onto the domed ceiling. The scuba knit ensemble, one of the inspirations for the exhibition, stands as a superlative example of the confluence between the handmade and the machine-made–the pattern on the train was hand-painted with gold metallic pigment, machine-printed with rhinestones, and hand-embroidered with pearls and gemstones.

Upper Level Gallery View: Artificial Flowers Case Study Wedding Ensemble, Karl Lagerfeld (French, born Hamburg, 1938) for House of Chanel (French, founded 1913), autumn/winter 2005–6 haute couture, back view; Courtesy of CHANEL Patrimoine Collection © The Metropolitan Museum of Art

Dress, Nicolas Ghesquière (French, born 1971) for House of Balenciaga (French, founded 1937), spring/summer 2003 prêtà- porter; Courtesy of Balenciaga Archives, Paris Courtesy of The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Photo © Nicholas Alan Cope

Wedding Ensemble, Karl Lagerfeld (French, born Hamburg, 1938) for House of Chanel (French, founded 1913), autumn/winter 2005–6 haute couture; Courtesy of CHANEL Patrimoine Collection Courtesy of The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Photo © Nicholas Alan Cope

The exhibition is structured around the traditional métiers of the haute couture. The first floor unfolds as a series of alcoves, examining the petites mains workshops of embroidery, featherwork, and artificial flowers. The ground floor space is arranged as an enfilade, examining pleating, lacework, and leatherwork. A room dedicated to toiles and the ateliers of tailoring (tailleur) and dressmaking (flou)—the traditional division of a maison de couture—anchors the ground-floor gallery. On both floors, traditional hand techniques are discussed alongside innovative technologies such as 3-D printing, computer modeling, bonding and laminating, laser cutting, and ultrasonic welding.

Designers in the exhibition include Cristobal Balenciaga, Boué Soeurs, Sarah Burton (Alexander McQueen), Pierre Cardin, Hussein Chalayan, Gabrielle “Coco” Chanel, Maria Grazia Chiuri and Pierpaolo Piccioli (Valentino), André Courrèges, Giles Deacon, Christian Dior, Alber Elbaz (Lanvin), Mariano Fortuny, John Galliano (Christian Dior, Maison Margiela), Jean Paul Gaultier, Nicolas Ghesquière (Balenciaga, Louis Vuitton), Hubert de Givenchy, Madame Grès, Halston, Lazaro Hernandez and Jack McCollough (Proenza Schouler), Iris van Herpen, Marc Jacobs (Louis Vuitton), Charles James, Christopher Kane, Mary Katrantzou, Rei Kawakubo (Comme des Garçons), Junko Koshino, Karl Lagerfeld (Chanel), Helmut Lang, Louise Boulanger, Mary McFadden, Alexander McQueen (Givenchy), Issey Miyake, Noir Kei Ninomiya (Comme des Garçons), Norman Norell, Jean Patou, Miuccia Prada, Paul Poiret, Gareth Pugh, Paco Rabanne, Noa Raviv, Yves Saint Laurent (Christian Dior, Yves Saint Laurent), Raf Simons (Christian Dior), Maiko Takeda, Riccardo Tisci (Givenchy), threeASFOUR, Madeleine Vionnet, Catherine Wales, Junya Watanabe (Comme des Garçons), Yohji Yamamoto, and others.

Dress, Christopher Kane (British, born 1982), spring/summer 2014 prêt-à-porter; Courtesy of Christopher Kane. Courtesy of The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Photo © Nicholas Alan Cope

On July 22, MetFridays: Extreme Measures (5–9 pm) will include a number of related activities, including a special Drop-in Drawing session featuring live models wearing clothing inspired by the exhibition, a wearable art-making program on creating extreme hair accessories, and a participatory nail art workshop.

Manus x Machina is organized by Bolton. Shohei Shigematsu, Director of OMA New York, led the exhibition design in collaboration with The Met’s Design Department. The exhibition is made possible by Apple. Additional support is provided by Condé Nast.

Exhibition Dates: August 22–November 28, 2016

Exhibition Location: The Met Fifth Avenue, European Paintings, Gallery 624, 2nd floor

Several works depicting the brilliant writer, inventor, politician, patriot, and statesman Benjamin Franklin (1706–1790), who has been the subject of hundreds of portraits, will go on view at The Metropolitan Museum of Art in a focused exhibition opening on August 22. The most famous of these was painted by Joseph Siffred Duplessis (1725–1802), Louis XVI’s official portraitist, after Franklin arrived in Paris in 1776 to seek French support for the American war of independence. Portraying Franklin in a red coat with a fur collar, and with an astonishingly elaborate frame decorated with his attributes, the oval painting was greatly admired when Duplessis exhibited it at the 1779 Paris Salon.

Joseph Siffred Duplessis (French, Carpentras 1725–1802 Versailles). Benjamin Franklin (1706–1790). 1778. Oil on canvas. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, The Friedsam Collection, Bequest of Michael Friedsam, 1931.

The painting, which has been in The Met collection for 85 years, will be a focal point of the installation Benjamin Franklin: Portraits by Duplessis, along with the preliminary pastel portrait of Franklin, a life study by Duplessis. The pastel, which is rarely exhibited and will be on loan from the New York Public Library, shows Franklin in the same pose as the painting but wearing a gray, collarless jacket and waistcoat. The image will be familiar to many: it is the same likeness that is replicated on the current one-hundred-dollar bill. The installation will also explore the processes of image transfer and replication in the 18th century.

Franklin arrived in Paris on December 21, 1776, as a commissioner of the American Continental Congress, and lived in nearby Passy until he returned to America in 1785. He promoted the treaty of alliance between the fledgling nation and the government of Louis XVI that was signed on February 6, 1778. The American Revolutionary War was an enormously popular cause in France, where the elderly statesman’s simplicity of dress and manner were admired. The “Fur Collar Portrait,” or “VIR Portrait,” by Duplessis was commissioned by the entrepreneur Jacques Donatien Le Ray de Chaumont. The oval canvas, exhibited in the frame in which it is still displayed, became the object of extravagant praise. Versions from the artist’s workshop and by other hands were in demand and the portrait was replicated dozens of times. A fine replica by or after Duplessis, also belonging to The Met, is so close in design that the contours must have been transferred from the 1778 picture.

Franklin understood the importance of circulating his image and gave sittings to some half-dozen French artists, but he did not enjoy doing so. He did not wish to sit for the same painter twice, sending away in later years those who applied to him for an original and suggesting that they instead commission a copy. An X-radiograph of the “Fur Collar Portrait” reveals that Franklin’s coat was originally much simpler, with small buttons and a narrow collar. In this connection, the exhibition will draw attention to the Duplessis pastel portrait of Franklin that was given to the New York Public Library in 1896. For more than a century, the pastel has been conscientiously protected from damage due to overexposure to light and thus has rarely been exhibited. Traditionally, the pastel had been assigned to the early 1780s, but technical examination reveals that it dates to 1777 or early 1778 and is preliminary to the “Fur Collar Portrait“—its design precisely matches the composition revealed in the painting’s X-radiograph. Pastel is a portable medium, and Duplessis probably took his pastel crayons to Passy to set down the direct likeness of Franklin.

Benjamin Franklin: Portraits by Duplessis is organized by Katharine Baetjer, Curator in the Department of European Paintings at The Met.

September 26, 2016–January 8, 2017

Exhibition Location: The Tisch Galleries, Gallery 899

Beginning around the year 1000, Jerusalem attained unprecedented significance as a location, destination, and symbol to people of diverse faiths from Iceland to India. Multiple competitive and complementary religious traditions, fueled by an almost universal preoccupation with the city, gave rise to one of the most creative periods in its history.

Opening at The Metropolitan Museum of Art on September 26, the landmark exhibition Jerusalem 1000–1400: Every People Under Heaven will demonstrate the key role that the Holy City, sacred to the three Abrahamic faiths, played in shaping the art of this period. In these centuries, Jerusalem was home to more cultures, religions, and languages than ever before. Through times of peace as well as war, Jerusalem remained a constant source of inspiration that resulted in art of great beauty and fascinating complexity.

Jerusalem 1000–1400: Every People Under Heaven is the first exhibition to unravel the various cultural traditions and aesthetic strands that enriched and enlivened the medieval city. The exhibition will feature some 200 works of art from 60 lenders worldwide. More than four dozen key loans come from Jerusalem’s diverse religious communities, some of which have never before shared their treasures outside their walls.

The Virgin and Apostle Capital, Early 1170s, Limestone a. 24 7/16 × 28 3/8 × 13 3/8 in. (62 × 72 × 34 cm) b. 16 9/16 × 21 1/4 × 18 1/2 in., 355 lb. (42 × 54 × 47 cm, 161 kg) Terra Sancta Museum, Basilica of the Annunciation, Nazareth. Image: © Marie-Armelle Beaulieu /Custodia Terræ Sanctæ

The exhibition represents a collaborative partnership between Barbara Drake Boehm, the Paul and Jill Ruddock Senior Curator for The Met Cloisters, and Melanie Holcomb, Curator, Department of Medieval Art and The Cloisters and will examine six specific factors that made medieval Jerusalem an exceptional source of artistic inspiration:

The Pulse of Trade and Tourism: Often understood as the crossroads of the known world, Jerusalem was a thriving urban center, teeming with locals and tourists, new arrivals and long-timers, merchants and artists, soldiers and scholars. The exhibition will evoke the many wares of the marketplace, including ceramics produced locally and imported from as far away as China. Textiles on view will reconstruct the fashion sensibilities of Jerusalem’s residents, including, surprisingly perhaps, their predilection for printed cottons from the Indian subcontinent. The shared taste of the region’s wealthy inhabitants confounds efforts to distinguish the owners’ identities, let alone their ethnic or religious heritage. Jewels that are recognizably Islamic in technique correspond to contemporary descriptions of the trousseaux of Jewish brides. A remarkable gathering of Cross reliquaries speak to the links between Jerusalem and Europe.

Chasse of Ambazac, From the Treasury of Grandmont, Limoges, ca. 1180 – 90; Gilded copper, champlevé enamel, rock crystal, semiprecious stones, faience, and glass H. 23⅛ in. (58.6 cm), W. 31⅛ in. (79 cm), D. 10¼ in. (26.2 cm) Mairie d ’Ambazac. Image: © Region Aquitaine-Limousin-Poitou-Charentes, Service de l’Inventaire et du Patrimoine Culturel (photograph by Philippe Rivière, 1993)

The Diversity of Peoples: Dozens of denominations and communities contributed to the artistic and spiritual richness of the city. The historical record surrounding medieval Jerusalem—a “city of foreigners”— includes both harmonious and dissonant voices from many lands: Persians, Turks, Greeks, Syrians, Armenians, Georgians, Ethiopians, Indians, and Europeans from each of the Abrahamic faith traditions passed in the narrow streets of the city—not much larger than midtown Manhattan. Visitors will be astonished, for example, by the numerous distinct alphabets and different languages of prayer. Exemplifying this will be Christian Gospel books in Arabic, Greek, Armenian, and Syriac, a Samaritan Bible in a distinctive Hebrew script, and the biblical book of Kings in Ge’ez, the language of Ethiopia, given by that land’s king to his community in Jerusalem.

Incense Box, Egypt or Syria, 14th century, Brass, gold, silver, and black compound. H. 2⅞ in. (7.5 cm), Diam. 4½ in. (11.5 cm), Museum of Islamic Art, Doha (MW.468.2007). Image: The Museum of Islamic Art, Doha

The Air of Holiness: The exhibition will attempt to evoke the city’s sacred iconic monuments, with their layered history and shared spaces. Though Jerusalem can appear eternal, it has undergone enormous change. Seemingly immutable elements of Jerusalem’s sacred topography were understood differently in this period. Medieval maps show us that Christians understood the Muslim Dome of the Rock and the Aqsa Mosque to be the Ancient Temple and the Palace of Solomon, respectively. Manuscripts and rare documents demonstrate that medieval Jewish pilgrims focused most of their attention on the city’s gates and the Mount of Olives, rather than the Western Wall.

Pair of Bracelets, Egypt or Greater Syria, 11th century, Repoussé gold sheet, wire, and granulation. a: W. 1¼ in. (3.2 cm), Diam. 2¾ in. (7 cm); b: W. 1¼ in. (3.2 cm), Diam. 2⅝ in. (6.5 cm). The al-Sabah Collection, Dar al-Athar al- Islamiyyah, Kuwait (LNS 7 J ab) Image: © The al-Sabah Collection, Dar al-Athar al-Islamiyyah, Kuwait

Among the highlights of this section are five sculpted capitals from the Church of the Annunciation in Nazareth belonging to the Franciscan Community of Jerusalem. These pristinely preserved works, unearthed at the beginning of the 20th century, powerfully demonstrate the skill and imagination of the sculptors and the dramatic relationship between faith and art during the brief but exceptionally fertile Crusader period. Met conservator Jack Soultanian has prepared them for exhibition; this is the first time the ensemble has left Nazareth.

Mosque Lamp of Sultan Barquq, Egypt or Syria, 1382 – 99, Glass with gold and enamel. 13¾ × 10½ in. (34.7 × 26.8 cm). Victoria and Albert Museum, London (321-1900). Image: © Victoria and Albert Museum, London

The Drumbeat of Holy War: Intimately bound with the belief in Jerusalem’s sanctity and the sense of exclusive ownership it instilled is the ideology of Holy War. This period witnessed the intensification of both crusade in Christianity and jihad in Islam. The exhibition offers an important opportunity to present these concepts, so charged in our own day. Art was recruited to justify war, presenting it as beautiful and divinely sanctioned. A manuscript depicting weapons created for the great Islamic warrior Saladin presents them as exquisite goldsmith’s work while a sculpted effigy (newly-cleaned for the exhibition) depicts a French nobleman as a crusader in full battle armor for eternity.

Jewish Wedding Ring, Germany, first half of the 14th century, Gold. H. 1⅞ in. (4.8 cm), W. 1 in. (2.5 cm), D. 1 in. (2.5 cm) Thüringisches Landesamt für Denkmalpflege und Archäologie, Weimar (5067/98) Image: Thüringisches Landesamt für Denkmalpflege und Archäologie (photograph by B. Stefan)

The Generosity of Patrons: The exhibition will introduce visitors to some of the real men and women who altered the aesthetic landscape of the city. The name of Melisende, the Frankish-Armenian Queen of Jerusalem, is linked to a celebrated Psalter, which will be presented as a larger witness to her activity as a patron of churches and scriptoria. An unprecedented gathering of luxury metalwork will evoke the patronage of Al-Nasir Muhammad ibn Qala’un; this dazzling display appropriately conjures up the munificence of this most important Mamluk patron of Jerusalem.

Illustration (detail) from The Book of Divine Service, From the Mishneh Torah of Maimonides. Illumination attributed to the Master of the Barbo Missal. Scribe: Nehemiah for Moshe Anau be Yitzchak, Northern Italy, ca. 1457. Tempera, gold leaf and ink on parchment; 346 folios Folio: 9 × 7¼ in. (22.7 × 18.4 cm) Jointly owned by the Israel Museum, Jerusalem, and The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, 2013. Purchased for the Israel Museum through the generosity of an anonymous donor; René and Susanne Braginsky, Zurich; Renée and Lester Crown, Chicago; Schusterman Foundation, Israel; and Judy and Michael Steinhardt, New York. Purchased for The Metropolitan Museum of Art with Director’s Funds and Judy and Michael Steinhardt Gift (2013.495). Image: © The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York

The Promise of Eternity: Finally, this is the first exploration of art that springs from the belief, common to Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, that Jerusalem stands at the gates of heaven. The exhibition will include masterpieces of Persian illumination that bear witness to the key role of the Holy City in the life of Muhammad and in the Muslim faith tradition. Alongside these will be Hebrew manuscripts in which the glittering implements of the Temple symbolize the longing for redemption. An imposing jeweled shrine represents the Heavenly Jerusalem as Christian imagined it.

The exhibition will be accompanied by a variety of education programs at The Met Fifth Avenue. Exhibition tours will be offered throughout the run of the exhibition. A Family Afternoon on the theme of “Daily Life in Jerusalem” and a Met Escapes gallery tour for visitors with dementia and their care companions will also take place. Education programs are made possible by the William S. Lieberman Fund.

Adam Gopnik, critic-at-large at The New Yorker, will be joined by scholars, historians, and other thought leaders in a stimulating discussion series called “Imagining Jerusalem: The Golden City in Art, Lore, and Literature.” Topics to be explored include the city’s many images, poetic uses, and spiritual reverberations. Additional information is available at www.metmuseum.org/gopnik.

The oratorio Al-Quds: Jerusalem by celebrated American composer Mohammed Fairouz was commissioned by MetLiveArts for the exhibition. Including poetry by Naomi Shihab, the world premiere will be performed on Friday, December 9, by the Grammy-nominated Metropolis Ensemble (Andrew Cyr, conductor). Tickets start at $65.

A previously planned event, “Feast of Jerusalem”—two nights of inspired conversation and Hafla (family-style feast) in the Museum’s Petrie Court Café on Friday and Saturday, November 18 and 19, with cookbook authors Laila el-Haddad and Maggie Schmitt (The Gaza Kitchen: A Palestinian Culinary Journey) and chef and restaurateur Yotam Ottolenghi (co-author with Sami Tamimi of Jerusalem: A Cookbook)—is unfortunately sold out.

And, at The Met Cloisters, the vocal ensemble Schola Antiqua of Chicago will perform the sacred repertoire of Jerusalem: Georgian and Armenian hymns; cantorial psalms; Sufi devotional music; and Jewish, Christian, and Muslim calls to prayer. The program, “The Suspended Harp: Sounds of Faith in Medieval Jerusalem,” will take place on Sunday, October 23, at 1 and 3 pm. Tickets start at $40.

“Imagining Jerusalem: The Golden City in Art, Lore, and Literature,” “Feast of Jerusalem,” and “The Suspended Harp: Sounds of Faith in Medieval Jerusalem” are made possible by the William S. Lieberman Fund.

Al-Quds: Jerusalem is made possible by the Doris Duke Foundation for Islamic Art, Sarah Billinghurst Solomon, and the William S. Lieberman Fund.

A lavishly illustrated catalog appropriate for specialists and general readers alike will accompany the exhibition. More than fifty scholars from the United States, Europe, and the Middle East have contributed to the catalogue. Published by The Metropolitan Museum of Art and distributed by Yale University Press, the book will be available in The Met Shop (hardcover, $75.).

(The catalog is made possible by The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation; the Michel David-Weill Fund; Tauck Ritzau Innovative Philanthropy; the Ruddock Foundation for the Arts; Christopher C. Grisanti and Suzanne P. Fawbush; and Helen E. Lindsay.)

An audio tour, part of The Met’s Audio Guide program, is available for rental ($7, $6 for Members, $5 for children under 12). The Audio Guide is supported by Bloomberg Philanthropies.

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.

Exhibition design is by Michael Langley, Exhibition Design Manager; graphics are by Morton Lebigre and Ria Roberts, Graphic Designers; and lighting is by Clint Ross Coller and Richard Lichte, Lighting Design Managers, all of The Met Design Department.

Exhibition to Remain Open until Midnight on Friday and Saturday, September 2 and 3

Attendance Surpasses 2011’s Alexander McQueen: Savage Beauty Exhibition, with 664,328 Visitors to Date

Exhibition Dates: May 5–September 5, 2016 (extended from August 14)

Exhibition Location: The Met Fifth Avenue, Robert Lehman Wing

Ensemble, Raf Simons (Belgian, born 1968) for House of Dior (French, founded 1947), spring/summer 2015 haute couture; Courtesy of Christian Dior Haute Couture Courtesy of The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Photo © Nicholas Alan Cope

The Metropolitan Museum of Art announced today extended hours for the final weekend of the popular Costume Institute exhibition Manus x Machina: Fashion in an Age of Technology. On Friday, September 2, and Saturday, September 3, the exhibition will remain open to the public until midnight. The Museum normally closes at 9 p.m. on Friday and Saturday evenings. The exhibition will end its run on Labor Day, Monday, September 5.

Dress, Iris van Herpen (Dutch, born 1984), autumn/winter 2013– 14 haute couture; The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Purchase, Friends of The Costume Institute Gifts, 2015 (2016.14) Courtesy of The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Photo © Nicholas Alan Cope

The exhibition, which opened on May 5, has already been extended by three weeks-from August 14 to September 5-and has so far drawn more than 664,328 visitors, surpassing 2011’s Alexander McQueen: Savage Beauty to become The Costume Institute‘s second most attended exhibition. Last year’s China: Through the Looking Glass, which drew 815,992 visitors, remains the department’s most popular show and The Met’s fifth most visited exhibition. The McQueen exhibition, the Museum’s ninth most popular show, drew 661,509 visitors. All three were curated by Andrew Bolton, Curator in Charge of The Costume Institute.

Lower Level Gallery View: Tailleur and Flou © The Metropolitan Museum of Art (Far Left) House of CHANEL (French, founded 1913) Gabrielle “Coco” Chanel (French, 1883–1971) Suit 1963–68, haute couture Machine-sewn ivory wool bouclé tweed, hand-applied navy and ivory wool knit trim handbraided with interlocking chain stitch. Gift of Mrs. Lyn Revson, 1975 (1975.53.7a–e) (Middle Left) House of CHANEL (French, founded 1913) Karl Lagerfeld (French, born Hamburg, 1938) Suit Autumn/winter 2015–16, haute couture 3-D-printed (selective laser sintering) “quilted” polyamide by Materialise, hand-painted with blue, gold, and silver trompe l’oeil tweed pattern, hand-embroidered with braided white, blue, and gold wool, silk, and metal trim, and gold metal buttons with pearls. Courtesy of CHANEL Patrimoine Collection (Middle Right) House of CHANEL (French, founded 1913) Karl Lagerfeld (French, born Hamburg, 1938) Ensemble Autumn/winter 2015–16, haute couture 3-D-printed (selective laser sintering) white polyamide overlay by Materialise, with handstitched clear crystals, lining of black silk crepe de chine hand-embroidered by Lesage with gold synthetic sequins Courtesy of CHANEL Patrimoine Collection (Far Right) House of Balenciaga (French, founded 1937) Cristóbal Balenciaga (Spanish, 1895–1972) Suit Winter 1964, haute couture Machine-sewn black silk synthetic gauze and Lurex matelassé Courtesy Cristóbal Balenciaga Museoa, Getaria, Spain

Manus x Machina explores how designers reconcile the handmade and the machine-made in the creation of haute couture and avant-garde ready-to-wear. It addresses the distinction between the hand (manus) and the machine (machina) as discordant tools in the creative process, and questions the changing delineation between haute couture and ready-to-wear.

House of Chanel (French, founded 1913) Karl Lagerfeld (French, born Hamburg, 1938) Wedding Ensemble Autumn/winter 2014–15, haute couture Courtesy of CHANEL Patrimoine Collection. This ensemble, which Lagerfeld has described as “haute couture without the couture,” exemplifies the confluence of the hand (manus) and the machine (machina). Made from scuba knit, a synthetic material, the dress is hand molded, machine sewn, and hand finished. Maison Desrues (founded 1929) hand embroidered the buttons with gold, glass, and crystals, and Atelier Montex (founded 1939) hand embroidered the medallion with glass, crystals, paillettes, anthracite cannetilles, and gold leather leaf motifs. The train of scuba knit and silk satin is machine sewn and hand finished. Lagerfeld’s hand-drawn design was digitally manipulated to give it the appearance of a randomized, pixelated baroque pattern and then realized through a complex amalgam of hand and machine techniques. Atelier Lunas (founded 1993) used a heat press to transfer the rhinestones; Atelier Anne Gelbard (founded 1997) painted the gold metallic pigment by hand; and the pearls and gemstones were hand embroidered by Cécile Henri Atelier (founded 1982).

During the extended hours, the Museum’s Great Hall Balcony Bar will be open until midnight as well, with appetizers, full bar service, and music by the ETHEL and Friends string quartet. The Met Store‘s exhibition shop adjacent to the galleries will also be open, featuring a range of products inspired by the exhibition, including the exhibition catalogue and an exclusive collection of fashion accessories, jewelry, and publications. The Manus x Machina galleries will be the only galleries in the Museum open to the public during the extended hours.

The Metropolitan Museum of Art announced today that Manus x Machina: Fashion in an Age of Technology, which closed yesterday, attracted 752,995 visitors during its run from May 5 to September 5, putting it in seventh place among the Museum’s most visited exhibitions, joining blockbusters such as Treasures of Tutankhamun (1978), Mona Lisa (1963), and Painters in Paris, 1895-1950 (2000). The show also becomes the second most visited Costume Institute exhibition, surpassing Alexander McQueen: Savage Beauty (2011), which had 661,509 visitors. China: Through the Looking Glass (2015) remains the department’s most popular show with 815,992 visitors and The Met’s fifth most visited. All three exhibitions were curated by Andrew Bolton, Curator in Charge of The Costume Institute.

House of Chanel (French, founded 1913) Karl Lagerfeld (French, born Hamburg, 1938) Wedding Ensemble Autumn/winter 2014–15, haute couture Courtesy of CHANEL Patrimoine Collection. This ensemble, which Lagerfeld has described as “haute couture without the couture,” exemplifies the confluence of the hand (manus) and the machine (machina). Made from scuba knit, a synthetic material, the dress is hand molded, machine sewn, and hand finished. Maison Desrues (founded 1929) hand embroidered the buttons with gold, glass, and crystals, and Atelier Montex (founded 1939) hand embroidered the medallion with glass, crystals, paillettes, anthracite cannetilles, and gold leather leaf motifs. The train of scuba knit and silk satin is machine sewn and hand finished. Lagerfeld’s hand-drawn design was digitally manipulated to give it the appearance of a randomized, pixelated baroque pattern and then realized through a complex amalgam of hand and machine techniques. Atelier Lunas (founded 1993) used a heat press to transfer the rhinestones; Atelier Anne Gelbard (founded 1997) painted the gold metallic pigment by hand; and the pearls and gemstones were hand embroidered by Cécile Henri Atelier (founded 1982).

Manus x Machina explored how designers reconcile the handmade and the machine-made in the creation of haute couture and avant-garde ready-to-wear. It addressed the distinction between the hand (manus) and the machine (machina) as discordant tools in the creative process, and questioned the changing delineation between the haute couture and ready-to-wear.

Lower Level Gallery View: Tailleur and Flou © The Metropolitan Museum of Art (Far Left) House of CHANEL (French, founded 1913) Gabrielle “Coco” Chanel (French, 1883–1971) Suit 1963–68, haute couture Machine-sewn ivory wool bouclé tweed, hand-applied navy and ivory wool knit trim handbraided with interlocking chain stitch Gift of Mrs. Lyn Revson, 1975 (1975.53.7a–e) (Next) House of CHANEL (French, founded 1913) Karl Lagerfeld (French, born Hamburg, 1938) Suit Autumn/winter 2015–16, haute couture 3-D-printed (selective laser sintering) “quilted” polyamide by Materialise, hand-painted with blue, gold, and silver trompe l’oeil tweed pattern, hand-embroidered with braided white, blue, and gold wool, silk, and metal trim, and gold metal buttons with pearls Courtesy of CHANEL Patrimoine Collection (Middle Right) House of CHANEL (French, founded 1913) Karl Lagerfeld (French, born Hamburg, 1938) Ensemble Autumn/winter 2015–16, haute couture 3-D-printed (selective laser sintering) white polyamide overlay by Materialise, with handstitched clear crystals, lining of black silk crepe de chine hand-embroidered by Lesage with gold synthetic sequins Courtesy of CHANEL Patrimoine Collection (Far Right) House of Balenciaga (French, founded 1937) Cristóbal Balenciaga (Spanish, 1895–1972) Suit Winter 1964, haute couture Machine-sewn black silk synthetic gauze and Lurex matelassé Courtesy Cristóbal Balenciaga Museoa, Getaria, Spain

“We are thrilled that so many people from around the world experienced this exploration of the artistry of fashion,” said Thomas P. Campbell, Director and CEO of The Met. “The exhibition required the transformation of the Robert Lehman Wing into a domed cathedral-like space that invited people to slow down and contemplate the process and craft of the objects.”

The exhibition, originally set to close on August 14, was extended by three weeks, and hours were added on September 2 and 3, when it stayed open until midnight, three hours past the usual 9:00 p.m. closing time on Friday and Saturday nights.

The exhibition was made possible by Apple. Additional support was provided by Condé Nast.

The exhibition is featured on the Museum’s website, www.metmuseum.org/ManusxMachina, as well as on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter using #ManusxMachina.