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When Howard Carter and Lord Carnarvon opened the tomb of the ancient Egyptian king Tutankhamun in 1922, the spectacular find was captured in stunning and evocative detail by Harry Burton (1879-1940), the outstanding archaeological photographer of his day. This fall, The Metropolitan Museum of Art will present some 60 photographs—primarily by Burton—made between 1906 and 1939, documenting the excavation of King Tutankhamun's tomb and some of the other major archaeological finds in Egypt. The gelatin silver prints, which come from the photographic archives of the Department of Egyptian Art, have never been shown publicly.
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Over time and across cultures, extraordinary manipulations of the body have occurred as concepts of beauty have continued to evolve. Extreme Beauty:
The Body Transformed – an exhibition opening December 6 at The Metropolitan Museum of Art – will offer a unique opportunity to see fashion as the practice of some of the most extreme methods to conform to shifting concepts of the physical ideal. Various zones of the body – neck, shoulders, bust, waist, hips, and feet – have been constricted, padded, truncated, or extended through a variety of techniques. The more than 100 costumes and accessories in the exhibition – ranging from a 16th-century iron corset to Thierry Mugler's notorious "Motorcycle" bustier – will be augmented by anthropological and ethnographic examples and by paintings, prints, and drawings, including caricatures by Gilray, Cruikshank, Daumier and Vernet.
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To complement the major exhibition Signac 1863-1935: Master Neo-Impressionist, The Metropolitan Museum of Art will present paintings, drawings, and watercolors – selected entirely from the Museum's own collections – by Charles Angrand, Henri-Edmond Cross, Maximilien Luce, Hippolyte Petitjean and other artists who, like Paul Signac, exuberantly followed the groundbreaking techniques of optical painting introduced in the 1880s by Georges Seurat. On view at the Metropolitan from October 2 through December 30, 2001, Neo-Impressionism: The Circle of Paul Signac will feature some 60 works by these artists as well as by the better-known Signac and Seurat.
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Dress Rehearsal: Origins of The Costume Institute – opening at The Metropolitan Museum of Art on August 1 – is the second of the two-part installation (the pendent to Curios and Treasures) surveying one of the world's largest and most renowned costume collections. Costume collecting at the Metropolitan began in 1946 with the transfer of the collection of the former Museum of Costume Art, which had been founded in 1937 by a theater-oriented group of civic leaders under the direction of the New York philanthropist and savant Irene Lewisohn. That collection formed the core of The Costume Institute's now-comprehensive current holdings of more than 80,000 costumes and accessories.
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On view at The Metropolitan Museum of Art from October 9 through December 30, 2001,Signac 1863-1935: Master Neo-Impressionist, will be the first major retrospective of the artist's work in nearly 40 years. Best known for his luminous Mediterranean seascapes rendered in a myriad of "dots" – and later mosaic-like squares – of color, Signac adapted the "pointillist" technique of Georges Seurat with stunning visual impact. The exhibition will feature 121 works, including some 70 oils and a rich selection of Signac's watercolors, drawings, and prints, providing an unprecedented overview of the artist's 50-year career.
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A retrospective exhibition of prints by the American artist Terry Winters will open June 12, 2001, at The Metropolitan Museum of Art. Ninety works created between 1983 and the present, all from the Museum's collection, will be on view through September 30 in the Helen and Michael A. Kimmelman Gallery of the Lila Acheson Wallace Wing for modern art.
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Masterpieces of early French photography and groundbreaking modern photographs created since 1960 – both the earliest and most recent chapters in the history of the 160-year-old medium – will be on display at The Metropolitan Museum of Art in an exhibition celebrating the first decade of collecting by the Museum's Department of Photographs. Photographs: A Decade of Collecting will open on June 5, 2001.
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The first New York exhibition to focus on photography and the Bauhaus experience will be on view in The Metropolitan Museum of Art's Howard Gilman Gallery from June 5 through August 26, 2001. Dancing on the Roof: Photography and the Bauhaus (1923-1929) will explore the period of freewheeling innovation –- which began when master instructor László Moholy-Nagy arrived at the progressive German art school and ended when photography became an official part of the school's curriculum – through some 60 photographs by a dozen artists. Many of the prints are unique and have never been exhibited; most are from New York area collections.
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Candace Wheeler (1827-1923)—the national expert in her time on decorative textiles and interiors, one of the first women to work in the male-dominated design world of the 19th century, and a woman who devoted her life to educating young women and encouraging their careers in the field of applied arts—will be the focus of an exhibition opening October 10 at The Metropolitan Museum of Art. Candace Wheeler: The Art and Enterprise of American Design, 1875-1900, the first major retrospective to address the accomplishments of this remarkable woman, will feature some 105 works including textiles, wallpapers, drawings, paintings, photographs of interiors, and furniture. Much of the exhibition will demonstrate the uniquely American style of design created by Wheeler and her associates. Candace Wheeler will be on view through January 6, 2002.
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On October 2, The Metropolitan Museum of Art will present the landmark exhibition Glass of the Sultans, the first-ever museum survey of rare Islamic glass and the first scholarly reassessment of this material anywhere in more than 70 years. Some 160 spectacular and precious examples from the world's preeminent collections will be shown, including Islamic glass found in archaeological sites, seventh-century works influenced by Imperial Roman glassmaking traditions, Iranian relief-cut glass (sometimes in the cameo technique), ornately gilded and enameled works from the 13th and 14th centuries, and brilliant 19th-century Persian and Indian glass. Among the diverse works on display will be tiny medallions, delicate four-inch-tall cosmetic flasks, and ornate blown-glass vessels measuring some 15 inches in height and 12 inches in diameter. Also on view will be examples of 13th- to 20th-century European glass directly inspired by Islamic glass or made for the Oriental market. The exhibition will feature more than a dozen works from the Metropolitan's prestigious collection.