MET receives 700 artworks.
2020 marks an anniversary date for the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. Founded in 1870 to " create a museum that brings art and education to the American people,» The MET is celebrating its 150th anniversary this year. On this occasion, the MET received a pharaonic pledge from Philip and Jennifer Maritz. The couple gave the Met more than 700 photographs (daguerreotype, ambrotype, prints on salted paper, etc.), dating from the 1840s to the 1910s, from the collection of Drew Knowlton and William L. Schaeffer. The museum also acquires 70 photographs, testifying to the American Civil War, which comes from the same collection, thanks to the gift of Joyce Frank Menschel. The entry of these two sets of works into the collections of the institution will illustrate little-known American masters whose lives and works have yet to be fully studied and presented to the general public. These shots of all formats from the birth of the medium to modern times will allow the MET to rewrite a complete history of American photography in its rooms.
An anniversary exhibition
Who says gifts, or here donations, birthday, also says festivities. From March 30 to August 2, the exhibition <Making The Met, 1870-2020 > will present more than 250 varied works from the museum's collection, including fragile treasures that can only be shown to the public on an ad hoc basis. It will notably present a statue of the Egyptian queen Hatshepsut (circa 1479-1458 BC), sheets of Studies for the Libyan Sibyl by Michelangelo, a bronze of the Little Dancer by Degas as well as the work monumental Dusasa II (2007) by El Anatsui. Using archival photographs and digital devices, visitors will travel immersed in the history of the Met to understand the aspirations of its founders, its role in wartime, and the challenges of archaeological discoveries.
The celebration of the museum's new donations and acquisitions
The year 2020 will also mark the reopening of the Decorative Arts and English Design galleries located in the Annie Laurie Aitken and Josephine Mercy Heathcote galleries from March 2. These rooms will present 700 sculptures, works of art and design, created between 1500 and 1900, as well as three artworks reproducing interiors from the 18th century. This new route will highlight the Met's new acquisitions, including pieces from the 19th century bought to complete this latest scenography.
Always to celebrate its 150 candles, the various Met sites (Met Fifth Avenue, Met Breuer, Met Cloisters) will highlight in their collections, which cover 5,000 years of art from around the world, the latest acquisitions of the institution. The MET will show, for example, The Denial of Saint Pierre by Carrache, painted around 1616, a Greek statue representing a marble panther or a female nude by Picasso. Le Journal des Arts
