SCHEDULE OF EXHIBITIONS MAY 2008–APRIL 2009

Jeff Koons on the Roof
April 22–October 26, 2008 (weather permitting)

On view is an installation of sculptures by American artist Jeff Koons (b. 1955), featuring several of the artist's meticulously crafted works. The works are set in the most dramatic outdoor space for sculpture in New York City: The Iris and B. Gerald Cantor Roof Garden, which offers a spectacular view of Central Park and the Manhattan skyline. Beverage and sandwich service is available from 10:00 a.m. until closing, including Friday and Saturday evenings.
The exhibition is made possible by Bloomberg.
Additional support is provided by Cynthia Hazen Polsky and Leon B. Polsky.
Press preview: Monday, April 21, 10:00 a.m.–noon

Superheroes: Fashion and Fantasy
May 7–September 1, 2008

This exhibition explores the symbolic and metaphorical associations between fashion and the superhero. Featuring approximately 60 ensembles including movie costumes, avant-garde haute couture, and high-performance sportswear, it reveals how the superhero serves as the ultimate metaphor for fashion and its ability to empower and transform the human body. The superhero's iconic costume of cape, mask, and bodysuit finds many fashionable permutations on today's runways, but fashion's embrace of the superhero extends beyond iconography to issues of identity, sexuality, and nationalism. Fashion also shares with the superhero an inherent metaphorical malleability, which fuels designers' fascination with the idea and the ideal of the superhero. Objects are organized thematically around particular superheroes, whose movie costumes and superpowers are catalysts for the discussion of key concepts of superheroism and their expression in fashion.
The exhibition and its accompanying book are made possible by Giorgio Armani.
Additional support is provided by Condé Nast.
Press preview: Monday, May 5, 10:00 a.m.–1:00 p.m.

Medieval and Renaissance Treasures from the Victoria and Albert Museum
May 20–August 17, 2008

The Victoria and Albert Museum in London has one of the world's finest collections of European decorative arts. As the institution undergoes extensive renovations, it generously lends 35 of its medieval and Renaissance treasures, most never before on view in New York. Included in the exhibition are the Carolingian ivory cover of the Lorsch Gospels, an ivory statuette of the crucified Christ by Giovanni Pisano, Donatello's bronze Winged Putto with Fantastic Fish, and a pair of gilt-bronze statuettes of prophets by Hubert Gerhard.
The exhibition was organized by the Victoria and Albert Museum, London.
The exhibition is made possible by The David Berg Foundation.
It is supported by an indemnity from the Federal Council on the Arts and the Humanities.
Accompanied by a publication.
Press preview: Monday, May 19, 10:00 a.m.–noon

Framing a Century: Master Photographers, 1840–1940
June 3–September 1, 2008

The exhibition tells the story of photography's first 100 years through the work of key figures who helped shape the aesthetic and expressive course of the medium: Gustave Le Gray, Roger Fenton, Carleton Watkins, William Henry Fox Talbot, Julia Margaret Cameron, Nadar, Édouard Baldus, Charles Marville, Eugène Atget, Walker Evans, Man Ray, Henri Cartier-Bresson, and Brassaï. The presentation of 10 to 12 iconic works by each of these artists conveys a broad sense of their contributions to photography. Many of the works are drawn from the Museum's 2005 acquisition of the Gilman Collection.

J. M. W. Turner
July 1–September 21, 2008

The first American retrospective of the work of J. M. W. Turner (1775–1851) in more than 40 years, this international exhibition highlights approximately 140 paintings and watercolors—more than half of them from Tate Britain's Turner Bequest—along with works from other collections in Europe and North America. The artist's extensive iconographic range is represented, from seascapes and topographical views to historical subjects and scenes from his imagination.
Bank of America is proud to be the national sponsor.
Additional support is generously provided by Access Industries.
The exhibition is also made possible in part by the Gail and Parker Gilbert Fund
and The Horace W. Goldsmith Foundation.
It was organized by The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, the National Gallery of Art, Washington, and the Dallas Museum of Art, in association with Tate Britain, London. The exhibition is supported by an indemnity from the Federal Council on the Arts and the Humanities.
Accompanied by a catalogue.
Press preview: Monday, June 23, 10:00 a.m.–noon

Art of the Royal Court: Treasures in Pietre Dure from the Palaces of Europe
July 1–September 21, 2008

This is the most comprehensive exhibition on the tradition of hardstone carving and mosaic inlay (pietre dure) that developed in Italy in the 16th century and subsequently spread throughout Europe. Roman masters cut colored semiprecious stones and marble and laid them in geometrically patterned tabletops, such as the celebrated Farnese Table in The Metropolitan Museum of Art, while Milanese artisans preferred to cut designs in rock crystal, lapis lazuli, and other precious materials. In Florence, the passion of the Medici for importing precious hardstones led to Ferdinando I de' Medici's founding of the court workshops that still survive as the Opificio delle Pietre Dure. Royal patronage encouraged Florentine craftsmen to migrate to Prague, and their practices gradually spread to such centers as Augsburg, Paris, Madrid, and St. Petersburg. Some 150 tables, cabinets, caskets, jewelry, vases, and sculptures represent the range of this brilliant art form of the courts of Europe through four centuries.
The exhibition is made possible by Mercedes and Sid Bass and Frank Richardson and the Honorable Kimba Wood.
Additional support is generously provided by Mr. and Mrs. J. Tomilson Hill III.
The catalogue is made possible by The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation and the
Friends of European Sculpture and Decorative Arts.
Additional support is provided by the Mary C. and James W. Fosburgh Publications Fund.
Press preview: Monday, June 30, 10:00 a.m.–noon

Landscapes Clear and Radiant: The Art of Wang Hui (1632–1717)
September 9, 2008–January 4, 2009

Wang Hui, the most celebrated painter of late 17th-century China, played a key role in reinvigorating past traditions of landscape painting as well as in establishing the stylistic foundations for the imperially sponsored art of the Manchu Qing court. An artist of protean talent and immense artistic ambition, Wang developed an all-embracing synthesis of historical landscape styles that constituted one of the greatest innovations in the arts of late imperial China. The exhibition will feature 26 masterpieces by Wang Hui from the Taipei and Beijing Palace Museums, the Shanghai Museum, and several American collections, including five outstanding works from the Metropolitan's permanent collection. These 26 paintings will be complemented by a selection of earlier landscapes from the Song (960–1279), Yuan (1279–1368), and Ming (1368–1644) dynasties, drawn from the Museum's holdings, that will highlight the sources of Wang Hui's inspiration.
The exhibition is made possible by The Miriam and Ira D. Wallach Foundation.
Accompanied by a catalogue.
Press preview: Monday, September 8, 10:00 a.m.–noon

Royal Porcelain from the Twinight Collection, 1800–1850
September 16, 2008–April 19, 2009

The porcelain factories of Berlin, Sèvres, and Vienna achieved a remarkable level of both artistic and technical skill in the first half of the 19th century, and the quality of painted decoration practiced at those factories at that time has never been surpassed. This exhibition will bring together approximately 95 extraordinary examples from these three European porcelain manufactories and will illustrate both the rivalry and the exchange of ideas and styles between the factories that resulted in some of the most remarkable porcelain ever produced. The exhibition was organized by the Prussian Palaces and Gardens Foundation Berlin-Brandenburg in cooperation with the Twinight Collection, New York.
Accompanied by a catalogue.
Press preview: Monday, September 15, 10:00 a.m.–noon

Giorgio Morandi, 1890–1964
September 16–December 14, 2008

This will be a complete survey—the first in this country in three decades—of the career of Giorgio Morandi, one of the greatest 20th-century masters of still-life and landscape painting in the tradition of Chardin and Cézanne. The exhibition will comprise approximately 110 paintings, watercolors, drawings, and etchings from his early "metaphysical" works to his late evanescent still lifes, culled mainly from Italian collections formed by Morandi's friends, either renowned scholars or eclectic collectors.
The exhibition was organized by The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, and the
Museo d'Arte Moderna di Bologna, Italy.
Accompanied by a catalogue.
Press preview: Monday, September 15, 10:00 a.m.–noon

Rhythms of Modern Life: British Prints 1914–1939
September 23–December 7, 2008

Rhythms of Modern Life will be the first major exhibition in the United States to examine the impact of Futurism and Cubism on British modernist printmaking from the beginning of World War I to the beginning of World War II. Featuring the work of 14 artists, Rhythms of Modern Life will showcase selective works inspired by Vorticism, the first radically modern, inherently abstract British art movement of the 20th century. The principal artists represented are the prominent early followers of Futurism and Vorticism and the later color linocut artists of the esteemed Grosvenor School of Art in London. The exhibition will feature more than 100 prime examples of graphic works that celebrate the vitality and dynamism of modern life, from Edward Wadsworth's hard-edged, industrial-inspired woodcuts to C. R. W. Nevinson's
Futurist etchings of the first mechanized war to Cyril Power's vibrantly colored linocuts of London's modern tube stations.
The exhibition was organized by the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, in collaboration with The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York.
Accompanied by a catalogue.
Press preview: Monday, September 22, 10:00 a.m.–noon

New York, N. Why?: Photographs by Rudy Burckhardt, 1937–1940
September 23, 2008–January 4, 2009

In the late 1930s, Rudy Burckhardt—then a recent émigré to America from Switzerland—created a suite of remarkably sophisticated, lively, and poetic images of New York City. This exhibition will present in its entirety a unique album of 67 now-classic images of street furniture, outdoor advertising, and pedestrians, selected and sequenced by Burckhardt in 1940 and acquired by the Museum in 1972.
Accompanied by a facsimile edition of the album.
Press preview: Monday, September 22, 10:00 a.m.–noon

The Essential Art of African Textiles: Design without End
September 30, 2008–March 29, 2009

Dazzling textile traditions have constituted an important form of aesthetic expression throughout Africa's history and cultural landscape. Textiles have long been a focal point of the vast continental trading networks that carried material culture and technological innovations across regional centers and linked Africa to the outside world. Leading contemporary artists reflecting on Africa's distinctive cultural heritage and its relationship to the world at large have drawn upon the imagery of textiles in sculpture, painting, photography, installation art, video, and other media. This exhibition will illustrate the stunningly diverse classical textile genres created by artists across the continent through some of their earliest documented and finest works. Highlights of the Metropolitan's own holdings will be presented along with some 35 works that entered the British Museum's collection by the early 20th century. Selected works, principally from textile centers in West Africa and the Horn, will represent inventive variations on major themes of the influential classical genres. The exhibition will relate these genres to contemporary art forms by affording an appreciation of the cultural context and visual language of these traditions and exploring their synergy and resonance in works by eight living artists.
A publication produced by New York University in conjunction with The Essential Art of African Textiles will also accompany a related exhibition, The Poetics of Cloth: African Textiles/Recent Art, organized by the Grey Art Gallery.
Press preview: Monday, September 29, 10:00 a.m.–noon

The Philippe de Montebello Years: Curators Celebrate Three Decades of Acquisitions
October 24, 2008–February 1, 2009

The Philippe de Montebello Years will present in a single exhibition—for the first time—approximately 160 masterpieces acquired by The Metropolitan Museum of Art during his more than 30 years as director. The Museum's 17 curatorial departments will be represented by works ranging across the centuries from ancient prehistory to today and across the globe from Europe to Asia, Latin America to Africa. Acquired by purchase and donation, singularly and in groups, these works will demonstrate how the de Montebello years have dramatically enhanced the Museum's encyclopedic collections and encouraged public access to the greatness of the world's artistic traditions.
Press preview: Monday, October 20, 10:00 a.m.–noon

Art and Love in Renaissance Italy
November 18, 2008–February 16, 2009

This exhibition will explore the various exceptional objects created to celebrate love and marriage in the Italian Renaissance. The approximately 150 objects, which date from around 1400 to 1600, range from exquisite examples of maiolica and jewelry given as gifts to the couple, to marriage portraits and paintings that extolled sensual love and fecundity, such as the Metropolitan's Venus and Cupid by the great Venetian artist Lorenzo Lotto. The exhibition will also include some of the rarest and most significant pieces of Renaissance glassware, cassone panels, birth trays, and drawings and prints of amorous subjects. The exhibition was organized by The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, and the Kimbell Art Museum, Fort Worth.
The catalogue is made possible by The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation and the
Doris Duke Fund for Publications.
Press preview: Monday, November 10, 10:00 a.m.–noon

Beyond Babylon: Art, Trade, and Diplomacy in the Second Millennium B.C.
November 18, 2008–March 15, 2009

This exhibition of approximately 350 objects will highlight the extraordinary art created in the second millennium B.C. for the royal palaces, temples, and tombs from Mesopotamia, Syria, and Anatolia to Cyprus, Egypt, and the Aegean. Objects of the highest artistry reflect the development of a sophisticated trade network throughout the eastern Mediterranean region and the resulting fusion of Near Eastern, Aegean, and Egyptian cultural styles. The impact of these far-flung connections is documented in the precious materials sent to royal and temple treasuries and, most dramatically, in objects discovered on a merchant shipwreck off the shores of southern Anatolia. The history of the period and the artistic creativity fostered by interaction among the powers of the ancient Near East, both great and small, are represented by spectacular loans from over 30 lending institutions from some 15 countries. The exhibition is made possible in part by the National Endowment for the Arts.
The catalogue is made possible by The Hagop Kevorkian Fund.
Press preview: Monday, November 17, 10:00 a.m.–noon

Annual Christmas Tree and Neapolitan Baroque Crèche
November 25, 2008–January 6, 2009

The Museum will continue a long-standing holiday tradition with the annual presentation of its Christmas tree, a favorite of New Yorkers and visitors from around the world. A vivid 18th-century Neapolitan Nativity scene—embellished with a profuse array of diminutive, lifelike attendant figures and silk-robed angels hovering above—will adorn the candlelit spruce. Recorded music and lighting ceremonies will add to the enjoyment of the holiday display. The exhibit of the crèche is made possible by gifts to The Christmas Tree Fund and the Loretta Hines Howard Fund.

Choirs of Angels: Painting in Italian Choir Books, 1300–1500
November 25, 2008–April 12, 2009

Some two dozen splendid examples from the Museum's little-known collection of choral manuscript illumination will be exhibited. With jewel-like color and gold, these precious images—which include scenes of singing angels, Hebrew prophets, heroic saints, and Renaissance princes—spring from the unique, artful marriage of painting, text, and music. The Museum's collection includes works created for cathedrals and monasteries across Italy, from Florence to Venice, from Cremona to Naples, by some of the most celebrated painters of their day. Accompanied by a Metropolitan Museum of Art Bulletin.

Calder Jewelry
December 9, 2008–March 1, 2009

American-born artist Alexander Calder (1898–1976) is celebrated for his mobiles, stabiles, paintings, and objets d'art. This landmark exhibition will be the first museum presentation dedicated solely to his extensive output of inventive jewelry. During his lifetime Calder produced approximately 1,800 pieces of brass, silver, and gold body ornaments, often embellished with found objects such as beach glass and wood. This exhibition will feature nearly 70 works—bracelets, necklaces, earrings, brooches, and tiaras—as well as several notebooks of Calder's working drawings. While Calder's more diminutive avant-garde creations converged closely with the aesthetics of the modern age, they always remained personal and unmistakably Calder.
The exhibition is made possible by Wachovia.
It was organized by the Norton Museum of Art, West Palm Beach, Florida, and the Calder Foundation, New York.
Accompanied by a catalogue.
Press preview: Monday, December 8, 10:00 a.m.–noon

Raphael to Renoir: Drawings from the Collection of Jean Bonna
January 21–April 26, 2009

The exhibition will consist of approximately 120 drawings—Italian, French, and Northern European—from the Renaissance to the late 19th century, all from the collection of Jean Bonna in Geneva. Highlights of the collection include drawings by Raphael, Andrea del Sarto, Claude, Watteau, Canaletto, Gericault, Delacroix, Seurat, and Gauguin.
Accompanied by a catalogue.

Pierre Bonnard: Still Life and the Late Interiors
January 27–April 19, 2009

This will be the first exhibition to focus entirely on the late interiors and related still-life imagery of Pierre Bonnard (1867–1947). The paintings, drawings, and watercolors featured in the exhibition date from 1923 to 1947; Bonnard spent much of this time in his house in Le Cannet, in the south of France. Overlooking the Mediterranean, in a bedroom converted to a studio, Bonnard masterminded the dazzling paintings of color and light that we have come to consider his finest. By isolating his interiors, this exhibition will consider this genre in the artist's long career as a painter and will reappraise his late paintings as seminal examples of early French modernism.
The exhibition is made possible by The Florence Gould Foundation.
The catalogue is made possible by the Janice H. Levin Fund.

Walker Evans and the Picture Postcard
February 3–May 25, 2009

Photographer Walker Evans (1903–1975) amassed a collection of 9,000 picture postcards that are now part of the Metropolitan's Walker Evans Archive. The picture postcard represents a powerful strain of indigenous American realism that directly influenced Evans's artistic development. The exhibition will be a dynamic installation of hundreds of postcards from his collection, supplemented by a small suite of photographs by Evans that directly shows the influence of the postcard on his pictorial style. The symbiotic relationship between Evans's own art and his interest in the postcard will also be demonstrated with a selection of about a dozen of his own photographs printed in 1936 on postcard-format photographic paper.
Accompanied by a publication.

Cast in Bronze: French Sculpture from Renaissance to Revolution
February 24–May 24, 2009

Beginning in the 16th century, a tradition of bronze sculpture developed in France that was influenced by achievements of the Italian Renaissance while manifesting its own distinct refinement and force. Even though French bronzes were among the glories of royal châteaux, including Versailles, and were always collected eagerly by connoisseurs, they have received relatively little scrutiny from scholars. Evolving from a decadelong collaborative study by curators and other scholars, this will be the first exhibition to address the subject in 40 years. Approximately 125 of the finest statuettes, portrait busts, and monuments will reveal the French genius for bronze from the late Renaissance through the times of Louis XIV, Louis XV, and Louis XVI. Germain Pilon, Barthélemy Prieur, Michel Anguier, François Girardon, Antoine Coysevox, Jean-Baptiste Pigalle, and Jean-Antoine Houdon are only a few of the masters in the exhibition who lent their prodigious talents to the medium. The exhibition was organized by The Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Musée du Louvre, Paris, and the J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles.
Accompanied by a catalogue.

Korean Art under Confucian Kings, ca. 1400–1600
March 17–June 21, 2009

This international loan exhibition will present approximately 50 works of art that illustrate the height of artistic production under court and elite patronage during the first 200 years of the Chosŏn dynasty (1392–1910), a time of extraordinary cultural achievements. The diverse yet cohesive group of secular and religious paintings, porcelain, sculpture, lacquer, and metalwork will highlight the aesthetics, conventions, and innovations of a Neo-Confucian elite and its artistic milieu. This will be the first in a series of special exhibitions at the Museum focusing on significant periods in Korean art history.
Accompanied by a catalogue.

The Pictures Generation, 1974–1984
April 21–August 2, 2009

This will be the first major museum exhibition to focus solely on "The Pictures Generation." Born into the media culture of postwar America, this loosely knit group of New York artists created the most seminal photographs of the late 20th century. Their overarching subject was how pictures of all kinds not only depict but shape reality. Highly seductive photographs by Richard Prince and Cindy Sherman revealed the ways in which images from B movies and magazine advertisements determine much of our sense of who we are. Louise Lawler and Sherrie Levine examined how the myths and legends of modern art are inextricably tied to the institutions of the museum and art history. Also included are photographs by Laurie Simmons, James Casebere, James Welling, and Allan McCollum, and works in other media by Robert Longo, Troy Brauntuch, David Salle, Matt Mullican, Jack Goldstein, and Dara Birnbaum, among others.
Accompanied by a catalogue.

Jasper Johns: Gray
Through May 4, 2008

The exhibition examines the use of the color gray by the American artist Jasper Johns (b. 1930) between the mid-1950s and the present, bringing together 119 paintings, reliefs, drawings, prints, and sculptures from American and international collections. Johns has worked in gray, at times to evoke a mood, at other times to evoke an intellectual rigor that results from his purging most color from his works. This exhibition is the first to focus on this important thematic and formal thread in Johns's career and includes some of the artist's best-known works, such as Canvas, Gray Target, Jubilee, 0 through 9, No, Diver, and The Dutch Wives, as well as works from the artist's Catenary series and new paintings never before exhibited. The exhibition in New York is made possible by United Technologies Corporation. It was organized by The Art Institute of Chicago, in cooperation with The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York.
The exhibition in New York is supported by an award from the National Endowment for the Arts and by an indemnity from the Federal Council on the Arts and the Humanities.
Accompanied by a catalogue.

Silversmiths to the Nation: Thomas Fletcher and Sidney Gardiner, 1808–1842
Through May 4, 2008

The silversmithing firm established in Boston in 1808 by Thomas Fletcher and Sidney Gardiner, and relocated to Philadelphia three years later, produced silver of unprecedented quality and grandeur. This exhibition is the first devoted entirely to their work and its role in commemorating the young Republic's pride as a nation. It features monumental vessels that celebrate naval and civic heroes as well as domestic and personal items, all of which display sophisticated design and skilled manufacture. The grand scale and patriotic imagery that characterize much of their work reflect the country's coming of age as a commercial, industrial, political, and artistic center. English and Continental models provide background and context for the American achievements. In addition, an extremely rare group of surviving drawings belonging to the Metropolitan Museum illuminates the creative process.
The exhibition is made possible by Alamo Rent A Car, Inc.
The catalogue is made possible in part by the William Cullen Bryant Fellows.
The exhibition was organized by Winterthur Museum and Country Estate.

Lee Friedlander: A Ramble in Olmsted Parks
Through May 11, 2008

On the occasion of the 150th anniversary of the design of New York's Central Park, this exhibition features 36 photographs made by Lee Friedlander (b. 1934) in the public parks and private estates designed by Frederick Law Olmsted (1822–1903), North America's premier landscape architect. The show celebrates the complex, idiosyncratic picture making of one of the country's greatest living photographers. Rambling with intent across bridges and through the parks' open meadows and dense understory, Friedlander finds pure pleasure in Olmsted's landscapes—in the meticulous stonework, in the careful balance of sun and shade, and in the mature, weather-beaten trees and their youthful issue.

Poussin and Nature: Arcadian Visions
Through May 11, 2008

French master Nicolas Poussin (1594–1665) painted some of the most beautiful as well as influential landscapes in Western art. In these works, nature is viewed "through the glass of time" and is endowed with a poetic quality that has been admired by painters as different as Corot, Constable, Turner, and Cézanne. This landmark exhibition—the first to examine Poussin's response to nature and landscape—brings together about 40 paintings, ranging from his early, lyrical, Venetian-inspired pastorals to his grandly structured and austere works in which the artist meditated upon Nature, its transformations and its renewals. Also on view are an equal number of drawings, the most luminous of which were done en plein air. The exhibition is made possible by The Florence Gould Foundation and The Isaacson-Draper Foundation.
It was organized by The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, and the Museo de Bellas Artes, Bilbao.
The exhibition is supported by an indemnity from the Federal Council on the Arts and the Humanities.
Accompanied by a catalogue.

Gustave Courbet
Through May 18, 2008

This is the first full retrospective of the French Realist artist Gustave Courbet (1819–1877) in 30 years, presenting some 130 works by this pioneering figure in the history of modernism, from his seminal manifesto paintings of the 1850s to the views of his native Ornans and portraits of his friends and family. They are accompanied by a selection of 19th-century photographs that relate to his work, especially his landscapes and nudes. The works are drawn from public and private collections in the U.S. and abroad.
The exhibition is made possible by The Philip and Janice Levin Foundation and the Janice H. Levin Fund.
Education programs are made possible by The Georges Lurcy Charitable and Educational Trust. The exhibition was organized by The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, the
Réunion des Musées Nationaux and the Musée d'Orsay, Paris, and the
Communauté d'agglomération de Montpellier/Musée Fabre, Montpellier.
It is supported by an indemnity from the Federal Council on the Arts and the Humanities.

Tara Donovan at the Met
Through September 1, 2008

Artist Tara Donovan (American, b. 1969) is known for creating abstract sculptural installations, each made of a single commonplace manufactured material—such as tape, Styrofoam cups, or drinking straws—accumulated on a vast scale and amassed into a structure that often takes on a biomorphic feel or resembles a topographical landscape. For a new work conceived specifically for this exhibition, the artist used silver Mylar tape to create a wall-mounted installation that encompasses an entire gallery. Through a vast accumulation of webs of metallic loops, laboriously assembled, Donovan transforms the space into a unique phenomenological experience for the viewer. This exhibition is the fourth in the Met's
ongoing series of solo exhibitions of contemporary artists, which has featured Tony Oursler (2005), Kara Walker (2006), and Neo Rauch (2007).

Radiance from the Rain Forest: Featherwork in Ancient Peru
Through September 1, 2008

In the Andean regions of ancient South America, the brilliantly colored feathers of tropical birds were a luxury item that was much treasured and long used. Feathers served various ceremonial and secular purposes throughout the many centuries of preconquest Peruvian history. Radiant blues, reds, yellows, and greens embellished high-status objects, ranging from figurative ear ornaments barely two inches high, to grand headdresses and garments, ritual objects, and large-scale wall hangings, examples of which are included in the exhibition. Many works are drawn from the Museum's collection, supplemented by loans from public and private collections.
The exhibition was made possible by the Friends of the Department of the Arts of Africa, Oceania, and the Americas.

Photography on Photography: Reflections on the Medium since 1960
Through October 19, 2008

This installation of works from the permanent collection—the second in the Museum's new gallery for contemporary photographs—surveys the ways in which artists have made photography itself their subject and taken aim at its claims of objectivity and its ubiquity in modern life. Featured in the exhibition are works by Vito Acconci, William Anastasi, Liz Deschenes, Kota Ezawa, Robert Heinecken, Sherrie Levine, Robert Mapplethorpe, Josephine Pryde, Allen Ruppersberg, Hiroshi Sugimoto, Andy Warhol, James Welling, and Christopher Williams, among others.

American Wing Renovation, Phase II:
The Charles Engelhard Court and
Second- and Third-Floor Period Rooms
Opening spring 2009

A major reordering and upgrading of the American Wing galleries and period rooms has begun, and the final phase is scheduled for completion in 2010. The Wing will remain open, in part, throughout the three-phase project. In Phase II, The Charles Engelhard Court is being transformed to better showcase the sculptures, windows, and other works on view, and to facilitate public access. Renovations to the balcony include new glass barrier walls and a rethinking of the ceramics, glass, silver, and pewter installations. Many of the 17th- and 18th-century period rooms are being moved or replaced as the Wing's architectural holdings are upgraded. Access to the period rooms is being improved by the installation of a new glass- walled public elevator. The Engelhard Court and the 17th- and 18th-century period rooms are closed for construction through spring 2009, as is the corridor connecting The Engelhard Court and The Temple of Dendur. Phase I, New Classical Galleries on the first floor of the American Wing, opened to the public in 2007.

New Greek and Roman Galleries
Opened April 20, 2007

The opening of this majestic, new complex of Hellenistic, Etruscan, and Roman galleries—an entire wing housing over 5,300 objects in more than 30,000 square feet—completes the reconstruction and reinstallation of the permanent galleries of Greek and Roman art. The galleries present Hellenistic art and its legacy alongside those of Southern Italy and Etruria, forming the background to the story of Rome from the Late Republican period and the Golden Age of Augustus's Principate to the conversion of Constantine the Great in A.D. 312. The centerpiece of the new installation is the Leon Levy and Shelby White Court, a dramatic, skylit space that links the various galleries and themes. These include displays of the art of Magna Graecia and the world of the Etruscans, together with the stunning collection of Roman wall paintings that is unrivaled outside of Italy. The presentation of the art of the Late Hellenistic and Early Imperial periods is crowned by the newly reconstructed cubiculum from the villa at Boscoreale near Pompeii and the Black Bedroom from Boscotrecase. In addition, on the mezzanine floor overlooking Fifth Avenue, there is a large display covering the entire cultural and chronological span of the department's rich collection.
The accompanying publication is made possible in part by James and Mary Hyde Ottaway, and Sandra and Joseph Rotman. Additional support is provided by The Adelaide Milton de Groot Fund, in memory of the de Groot and Hawley families.

Joyce and Robert Menschel Hall for Modern Photography
Opened September 25, 2007

The Joyce and Robert Menschel Hall for Modern Photography is the Metropolitan's first gallery designed specifically for and devoted exclusively to the display of photographs created since 1960. Situated adjacent to the special exhibition galleries for drawings, prints, and photographs and the portion of the Robert Wood Johnson, Jr. Gallery where the earlier history of photography is displayed, the Menschel Hall allows the Department of Photographs to show its contemporary holdings within the broader context of photographic traditions and in an exhibition space with appropriate scale and detail. Installations, which change every six months, are drawn from the department's growing permanent collection.

Reopening of The Wrightsman Galleries for French Decorative Arts
Opened October 30, 2007

The Wrightsman Galleries for French decorative arts recently underwent extensive renovations to improve climate control, introduce new lighting and fire suppression systems, and incorporate numerous decorative changes. The new lighting, in particular, greatly enhances the revised presentation of the Museum's renowned collection of French furniture and related decorative arts. All of the 18th-century boiseries have received conservation and cleaning, and several pieces of seat furniture have been reupholstered with modern re-creations of the original show covers. A large group of objects has received conservation treatment and the galleries also include important works previously not on view, such as a late 18th-century carved and gilded state bed.

New Galleries for Oceanic Art
Opened November 14, 2007

The islands of the Pacific Ocean encompass nearly 1,800 distinct cultures and hundreds of artistic traditions in an area that covers about one-third of the earth's surface. The Museum's new permanent galleries for Oceanic art, completely redesigned and reinstalled, present a substantially larger portion of the Museum's Oceanic holdings than was previously on view. Featuring renowned masterworks from the Metropolitan's Oceanic collection as well as recent acquisitions, the installation displays sculpture and decorative arts from the regions of Polynesia, Melanesia, Micronesia, and Australia. The displays also feature the Museum's first gallery devoted to the arts of the indigenous peoples of Island Southeast Asia.
The new galleries are accompanied by a publication.
The publication is made possible by The Peter Jay Sharp Foundation and
The MCS Endowment Fund.

New Gallery for the Art of Native North America
Opened November 14, 2007

The Museum's renovated gallery devoted to Native North American art displays approximately 90 works made by numerous American peoples. Ranging from the beautifully shaped stone tools known as bannerstones of several millennia B.C. to a mid-1970s tobacco bag, the objects illustrate a wide variety of cultural backgrounds, artistic styles, and functional purposes, all qualities inherent in the art of the peoples of the North American continent. Works include wood sculpture from the Northwest Coast of North America, ivory carvings from the Arctic, wearing blankets from the Southwest, and objects of hide from the Great Plains. Anchored by the Metropolitan's American Indian holdings drawn from the Michael C. Rockefeller Memorial Collection, the installation is augmented by loans from the well-known private collections of Ralph T. Coe of Santa Fe and Mr. and Mrs. Charles Diker of New York.

New Galleries for 19th- and Early 20th-Century European Paintings and Sculpture
Including the Henry J. Heinz II Galleries
Opened December 4, 2007

The New Galleries for 19th- and Early 20th-Century European Paintings and Sculpture have recently opened to the public with renovated rooms and more than 8,000 square feet of additional gallery space—the Henry J. Heinz II Galleries—to showcase works from 1800 through the early 20th century. The renovated and expanded galleries feature all of the Museum's most loved 19th-century paintings, which have been on permanent display in the past, as well as works by Bonnard, Vuillard, Matisse, Picasso, and other early modern artists. Among the many additions are a full-room assembly of "The Wisteria Dining Room," a French art nouveau interior designed by Lucien Lévy-Dhurmer shortly before World War I that is the only complete example of its kind in the United States; Henry Lerolle's large painting The Organ Rehearsal (a church interior of 1885), recently cleaned; a group of newly acquired 19th-century landscape oil sketches; and a selection of rarely exhibited paintings by an international group of artists.

Masterpieces of Modern Design: Selections from the Collection
Opening May 2008

This installation in the Helen and Milton A. Kimmelman Gallery features important works in all media from the modern design collection by some of the most renowned designers of the 20th century, including Charles Rennie Mackintosh, Josef Hoffmann, René-Jules Lalique, Émile-Jacques Ruhlmann, Jean Dunand, Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, Marcel Breuer, Josef Albers, Marianne Brandt, Eva Zeisel, Eliel Saarinen, Charles and Ray Eames, Isamu Noguchi, Verner Panton, Michael Graves, and Ettore Sottsass. A highlight is the 1934 History of Navigation, a magnificent and monumental reverse-painted and gilt-glass mural by Jean Dupas (French, 1882–1964), made for the first-class salon of the French ocean liner Normandie. Visitors also have the opportunity to view a number of recent acquisitions of more contemporary works, including Gaetano Pesce's Black Rotation Vase (2005); the Gyre Lounge Chair (2006) by Zaha Hadid; and Dusasa II (2007), in found aluminum and copper wire, by El Anatsui.

American Landscapes
Opening May 20, 2008

The first floor of the newly renovated Robert Lehman Wing displays nine large and superb American landscape paintings from the Metropolitan Museum's collection, enabling visitors to view selected highlights of American art during the major reordering and upgrading of the American Wing galleries and period rooms, scheduled for completion in 2010.

Tiepolo Drawings from the Robert Lehman Collection
May 20–August 17, 2008

Some 60 drawings by the brilliant Venetian master Giovanni Battista Tiepolo (1696–1770) and his son and valued assistant Giovanni Domenico Tiepolo (1727–1804) are on view in the court level of the newly renovated Robert Lehman Wing. The selection highlights the different aspects of the two artists' graphic production, from the preparatory studies of figures or animals to narrative drawings conceived as finished works of art. In addition to examples of the artists' religious and mythological subjects, a section is devoted to the acclaimed caricatures and genre scenes. The works are all selected from the Metropolitan Museum's Robert Lehman Collection.

Early Buddhist Manuscripts: The Palm-Leaf Tradition
July 29–November 16, 2008

This display of the Museum's rare holding of Indian illuminated palm-leaf manuscripts focuses on one remarkable Mahayanist Buddhist text, the Ashtasahasrika Prajnaparamita Sutra (Perfection of Wisdom). In the Buddhist pantheon, this meditation text is also represented in a personified form, as the goddess of the same name. These superbly illustrated folios are supported by related illuminated book covers, sculptures, and Tibetan thankas. A vast body of Indian religious texts was recorded and transmitted though the medium of the palm-leaf manuscript. This humble form of the book, at once both fragile and resilient, has provided the vehicle for transmitting Indian religious thought for more than 2,000 years and has been a medium for preserving some of the earliest surviving paintings known from India.

Classic/Fantastic: Selections from the Modern Design Collection
Opened December 21, 2007

Order and disorder, reason and emotion, restraint and excess—opposing impulses such as these have influenced design since the beginning of civilization. The exhibition juxtaposes these divergent approaches to design in the modern era. Of the approximately 75 works in a wide range of media—including furniture, metalwork, ceramics, glass, textiles, and drawings—half are devoted to designs rooted in the centuries-old vocabulary of classicism, updated yet still linked to the rules and traditions of the past, and the other half to romantic and surreal subjects of fantasy, drawn from the realm of pure imagination.

Asian Lacquer: Masterpieces from the Florence and Herbert Irving Collection
Through May 11, 2008

Lacquer, a sap that is a natural plastic, has served as an artistic medium in China, Korea, and Japan for millennia. Lacquer is used for painting and is combined with gold, mother-of-pearl, and other materials. In addition, layers of lacquer can be carved to create wondrous patterns or engaging figural scenes. Ranging in size from small boxes for incense to larger containers for sake, and in date from the 14th to the 19th century, the exquisite works in this exhibition also have cultural significance. Some are associated with the art of writing; others illustrate themes important in the history and literature of East Asia.

Beauty and Learning: Korean Painted Screens
Through June 1, 2008

Painted screens depicting books, scholarly accoutrements, antiquarian collectibles, and auspicious objects first gained popularity in Korea in the late 18th century. They served as pictorial representations of objects suitable for display in a scholar-gentleman's study. This special installation presents four screens dating from the late 19th to the early 20th century, drawn from American collections. Also included is a six-panel collage on this theme by a contemporary Korean artist. This is the first exhibition in the U.S. to focus on this important and visually arresting genre of Korean painting.
This exhibition is made possible by The Kun-Hee Lee Fund for Korean Art.

Anatomy of a Masterpiece: How to Read Chinese Paintings
Through August 10, 2008

The exhibition dissects 36 paintings and calligraphies from the permanent collection, juxtaposing actual artworks with enlarged photographic details that focus on fine points of style or content, in order to elucidate what makes each one a masterpiece. The display, which spans 1,000 years of Chinese art history, from the 8th to the 17th century, examines many of the Museum's finest paintings, including figures, landscapes, flowers, birds, and religious subjects.
The exhibition is made possible by The Miriam and Ira D. Wallach Foundation.

Tibetan Arms and Armor from the Permanent Collection
Through fall 2009

This installation presents approximately 35 highlights from the Museum's extensive permanent collection of rare and exquisitely decorated armor, weapons, and equestrian equipment from Tibet and related areas of Mongolia and China, dating from the 15th to the 20th century. Included are several recent acquisitions that have never before been exhibited or published.

PLEASE NOTE: These exhibitions originate at The Metropolitan Museum of Art with works of art from the Museum's collections selected and organized by Museum staff members. Please confirm the opening and closing dates with the local exhibiting museums as they may be subject to change.

The Belles Heures of the Duke of Berry

A selection of 90 illuminated pages of the Belles Heures painted by the Limbourg Brothers in 1405–1408/09 for Jean, Duc de Berry. An expanded version of the exhibition will be on view at the Metropolitan Museum in fall 2009, which will include all of the illuminations along with other works of art that were created for the Valois princes at the time the Belles Heures was in production.
The publication is made possible by the Michel David-Weill Fund.
The J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles
November 18, 2008–February 8, 2009

'Twixt Art and Nature: English Embroideries from The Metropolitan Museum of Art, ca. 1580–1700

Using examples from the Museum's extensive collection of English embroidery, this exhibition will explore the context of embroidered objects in English life. On display will be samplers that illustrate the primary role of embroidery in the education of young women, costume accessories for personal use and as gifts, domestic and professional interior furnishings, and portraits of royalty, as well as decorated Bibles and ceremonial objects.
The Bard Graduate Center for Studies in the Decorative Arts, Design, and Culture, New York
December 11, 2008–March 15, 2009

Fridays and Saturdays 9:30 a.m.–9:00 p.m.
Sundays, Tuesdays–Thursdays 9:30 a.m.–5:30 p.m.
Met Holiday Mondays in the Main Building 9:30 a.m.–5:30 p.m.
Sponsored by Bloomberg
May 26, 2008—Memorial Day
All other Mondays Closed
January 1, Thanksgiving, and December 25 Closed All other Mondays Closed
January 1, Thanksgiving, and December 25 Closed

THE CLOISTERS HOURS

March–October:

Tuesdays–Sundays 9:30 a.m.–5:15 p.m.
Mondays Closed

November–February:

Tuesdays–Sundays 9:30 a.m.–4:45 p.m.
Mondays Closed

SUGGESTED ADMISSION (INCLUDES MAIN BUILDING AND THE CLOISTERS ON THE SAME DAY)

Adults $20.00
Seniors (65 and over) $15.00
Students $10.00
Members and children under 12
accompanied by adult Free

Advance tickets available at www.TicketWeb.com or 1-800-965-4827
For more information (212) 535-7710; www.metmuseum.org

No extra charge for any exhibition

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April 17, 2008

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