November 10, 1999 - November 12, 2000
(drawings, watercolors, miniatures, and textiles remain on view until March 26, 2000)
American Wing galleries and The Henry R. Luce Center for the Study of American Art
On November 10, 1924, The Metropolitan Museum of Art's American Wing — the first permanent installation in an American art museum of American colonial and early Federal decorative arts and architecture — opened to the public. Seventy-five years later to the day, in celebration of this landmark anniversary, the Museum will present an exhibition of notable works acquired by gift or purchase since 1980, when spacious additional galleries designed to house American decorative arts, as well as American paintings and sculpture, were opened.
Celebrating The American Wing: Notable Acquisitions 1980-1999 will be on view in the galleries of The American Wing from November 10, 1999, through November 12, 2000. Because of their sensitivity to light, drawings, watercolors, and miniatures will remain on view for a shorter time — through March 26, 2000 — in The Henry R. Luce Center for the Study of American Art; textiles will be shown during the same period in gallery 116.
The exhibition is made possible by The Bank of New York and The George Link, Jr. Foundation.
From its inception in 1870 to the present day, the Metropolitan Museum has acquired important examples of American art. American paintings and sculpture were of
considerable interest to the founding trustees, among whom were contemporary American artists and eager collectors of American works. At first installed with European art, American paintings and sculpture were placed under the aegis of an independent
department beginning in 1948. The completion of a separate American Wing in 1924 — at that time to house only American decorative arts — marked a turning point in the collection, study, and exhibition of such objects. The current configuration of The American Wing — which is jointly occupied and supervised by the departments of American Paintings and Sculpture and American Decorative Arts — occurred in 1980, and comprises the Charles Engelhard Court, 25 period rooms with original woodwork and appropriate furnishings, permanent galleries for the display of paintings, sculpture, and decorative arts, and The Henry R. Luce Center for the Study of American Art. Comprehensive in scope and extraordinary in quality, the collection of The American Wing includes the work of artists from the 17th through the early 20th century. (Paintings and sculpture by artists born after 1876 and decorative arts created after World War I are exhibited by the Department of Modern Art.)
Celebrating The American Wing: Notable Acquisitions 1980-1999 will take the form of an exhibition within the permanent collection. An array of important recent gifts and purchases — furniture, silver, ceramic and glass objects, textiles, paintings, and sculpture — will be featured in their usual settings in the galleries and period rooms, revealing how they complement existing holdings. Newly written labels will describe the significance of these recent acquisitions and the circumstances under which they came into the Museum's collection. Visitors will be guided by an informational kiosk at the entrance to The American Wing, as well as by the colorful new labels throughout the galleries.
Some works, acquired in the early 1980s, are well known to Museum visitors and have become familiar favorites. One such piece is the graceful and sensuous gilded bronze statuette of Diana (1892-94; this cast, 1894 or after) by the prominent American Beaux-Arts sculptor Augustus Saint-Gaudens (1848-1907). Considered the crown jewel of the American sculpture collection, it handsomely complements the life-size version on view in the center of the Charles Engelhard Court. Another example, a beautifully detailed and impressive stair hall designed about 1886 by the New York City firm of McKim Mead & White for the Edwin D. Metcalfe house in Buffalo, was the final addition to The American Wing's unparalleled collection of period rooms. With the acquisition of this work in 1980, the final piece in an installation project that spanned 50 years was put into place.
Other, more recent acquisitions include The Water Garden (1909), an intimate landscape by Childe Hassam (1859-1935). This important painting reveals the modification in Hassam's Impressionist style in response to Post-Impressionism. A Basket of Clams (1873), a charming watercolor by Winslow Homer (1836-1910), is an excellent example of the direct observation, vigorous design, and dazzling light that typify the artist's early work in this medium.
Among the important decorative arts acquisitions are a tea urn made by the patriot silversmith Paul Revere, Jr. (1735-1818) in 1791 — the most monumental piece of early Neoclassical American silver known; a pair of figural card tables, with their original burnished gilt ornament, signed and dated 1817 by the French émigré cabinetmaker Charles-Honoré Lannuier (1779-1819) of New York; and — on view to the public for the first time — a silk autograph quilt made between 1857 and 1863 by Adeline Harris Sears (1839-1930) incorporating the signatures of eight American presidents and luminaries from the worlds of science, religion, and the military, as well as writers, educators, and abolitionists.
Works by noted designers and craftsmen include a number of objects attributed to cabinetmaker Duncan Phyfe (1768-1854), decorator and stained glass artist Louis Comfort Tiffany, ceramics designer Maria Longworth Nichols (1849-1932), furniture
designer Gustav Stickley (1858-1942), architect Frank Lloyd Wright (1869-1959), and sculptor Paul Manship (1885-1966). Paintings, drawings, and watercolors by artists John Singleton Copley (1738-1815), George Inness (1825-1894), James McNeill Whistler (1834-1903), Mary Cassatt (1844-1926), Albert Pinkham Ryder (1847-1917), John Singer Sargent (1856-1925), and Maurice Prendergast (1859-1924) will also be on view.
An illustrated brochure, which features maps of all four floors of The American Wing, will be available in the galleries for the duration of the exhibition.
Educational Programs
A variety of education programs will be offered, including gallery talks for general visitors and classes for students.
The exhibition is organized by Morrison H. Heckscher, the Anthony W. and Lulu C. Wang Curator of American Decorative Arts, and H. Barbara Weinberg, the Alice Pratt Brown Curator of American Paintings and Sculpture. The installations of drawings will be overseen by Kevin J. Avery, Associate Curator, American Paintings and Sculpture; of miniatures by Carrie Rebora Barratt, Associate Curator, American Paintings and Sculpture; and of textiles by Amelia Peck, Associate Curator, American Decorative Arts. Exhibition design is by Daniel Kershaw, Exhibition Designer of the Museum's Design Department.
# # #
November 8, 1999
Press resources