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• "Poiret: King of Fashion" at Metropolitan Museum's Costume Institute to Celebrate Paul Poiret, Visionary Artist-Couturier of Early 20th Century

  Tuesday, February 13, 2007, 5:00 a.m.

  Paul Poiret – who at the height of his career in pre-World War I France was the undisputed "King of Fashion" and whose sweeping vision led to a new silhouette that liberated women from the corset and introduced the shocking colors and exotic references of the Ballets Russes to the haute couture – will be celebrated with a landmark exhibition at The Metropolitan Museum of Art from May 9 through August 5, 2007. He has not been the focus of a major museum exhibition in more than 30 years.

• From Ancient Monumental Landscapes to Contemporary Color Photographs, New Exhibition at Metropolitan Museum Invites Viewers on a Thousand-year Journey through Chinese Art

  Thursday, February 8, 2007, 5:00 a.m.

  The theme of journeys, both real and imagined, will be presented in Journeys: Mapping the Earth and Mind in Chinese Art, opening at The Metropolitan Museum of Art on February 10. Featuring more than 60 works of art in various pictorial formats – hanging scroll, handscroll, album, fan, book, and photograph – the exhibition will explore the rich symbolic meanings and cultural significance of journeys as embodied in works of art dating from the 11th century to the present. The exhibition will be organized thematically: emotional partings and returns, roaming the wilderness, escapist visions and garden retreats, dream journeys, travelers, scenic sites and landmarks, and topographic paintings and maps. Highlights of the exhibition will include a brilliantly colored 42-foot-long map entitled Ten Thousand Miles Along the Yellow River (late 17th-early 18th century), a rare deerskin map of Forts Zeelandia and Provintia and the City of Tainan (18th century), as well as a striking series of eight photographs, The North: Bicycle Rider, by contemporary artist Hai Bo (born 1962). Approximately one-third of the works are to be shown for the first time at the Museum, including 16 loans and three new acquisitions.

• Closed Circuit: Video and New Media at the Metropolitan

  Thursday, January 25, 2007, 5:00 a.m.

  The first multi-artist exhibition of video art and new media at The Metropolitan Museum of Art will be presented from February 23 to April 29, 2007. Drawn entirely from the collection of the Museum's Department of Photographs, Closed Circuit: Video and New Media at the Metropolitan features video and new media works made between 1994 and 2004 by eight American and international artists: Darren Almond, Lutz Bacher, Jim Campbell, Omer Fast, Ann Hamilton, David Hammons, Maria Marshall, and Wolfgang Staehle. These highly respected figures in contemporary art will be represented in Closed Circuit by some of their best-known and most celebrated works, only one of which has been on exhibit before at the Met.

• Photographs of the Discovery of Tutankhamun's Tomb on Display at Metropolitan Museum

  Thursday, December 14, 2006, 5:00 a.m.

  An exhibition of vintage photographs celebrating one of the most memorable episodes in the history of archaeology – the discovery and exploration of the tomb of the ancient Egyptian pharaoh Tutankhamun (Dynasty 18; ruled ca. 1336-1327 B.C.) – will be on view at The Metropolitan Museum of Art beginning December 19. The photographs, documenting every stage in the process of the excavation, were taken by the renowned archaeological photographer Harry Burton, who was a staff member of the Metropolitan Museum Egyptian Expedition when he was "lent" to Howard Carter, the famed excavator of Tutankhamun's tomb. Discovering Tutankhamun: The Photographs of Harry Burton features his spectacular black-and-white images of the entrance passage to the tomb, the opening of the sealed chambers inside, the first view of the contents and removal of the objects, and the beautifully made and decorated treasures that were found. The four chambers of the tomb were crammed with objects such as gold-covered chariots; elaborately inlaid furniture and chests; a vast array of the king's personal belongings, including jewelry; a series of shrines and coffins that protected the king; and the famous solid-gold mask that adorned his mummy – the last, among the most iconic examples of ancient Egyptian art ever to have come to light.

• Venice and the Islamic World, 828 – 1797

  Thursday, December 14, 2006, 5:00 a.m.

  With nearly 200 works of art from more than 60 public and private collections around the world, Venice and the Islamic World, 828 – 1797 is the first major exhibition to explore one of the most important and distinctive facets of Venetian art history: the exchange of art objects and interchange of artistic ideas between the great Italian maritime city and her Islamic neighbors in the eastern Mediterranean. Glass, textiles, carpets, arms and armor, ceramics, sculpture, metalwork, furniture, paintings, drawings, prints, printed books, book bindings, and manuscripts tell the fascinating story of the Islamic contribution to the arts of Venice during her heyday, from the medieval to the Baroque eras. 828, the year two Venetian merchants stole Saint Mark's hallowed body from Muslim-controlled Alexandria and brought it to their native city, and 1797, when the Venetian Republic fell to the French conqueror Napoleon Bonaparte, form the chronological parameters of the exhibition that opens at The Metropolitan Museum of Art on March 27, 2007.

• Mother-of-Pearl: A Tradition in Asian Lacquer

  Sunday, November 19, 2006, 5:00 a.m.

  An exhibition of exquisite Asian lacquer decorated with mother-of-pearl will open at The Metropolitan Museum of Art on December 2. Featuring some 50 works dating from the eighth to the 19th century, Mother-of-Pearl: A Tradition in Asian Lacquer will illustrate the remarkable variety of effects found in the use of minute pieces of mother-of-pearl to create mosaic-like patterns and dazzling scenes. It will also explore the importance of lacquer decorated with mother-of-pearl in interregional trade from the 12th to the 19th century and in the development of maritime global trade – particularly works made in India and Japan – in the late 16th and early 17th centuries. Drawn largely from the Museum's permanent collection, the exhibition will include recent acquisitions as well as several important loans from public and private collections in the United States.

• Schedule of Exhibitions Through July 2017

  Wednesday, November 15, 2006, 9:00 p.m.

• Frank Stella: Painting into Architecture & Frank Stella on the Roof

  Monday, November 13, 2006, 5:00 a.m.

  The Metropolitan Museum of Art will present two concurrent exhibitions featuring recent work by the renowned American artist Frank Stella (born 1936) in spring 2007.

• Medieval Treasury Reopens at The Cloisters

  Monday, November 13, 2006, 5:00 a.m.

  The Treasury – an intimate gallery displaying some of the most precious small-scale works at The Cloisters, the branch of The Metropolitan Museum of Art dedicated to the art and architecture of the Middle Ages – has reopened to the public after two years of renovation. Originally constructed in 1988 in celebration of the 50th anniversary of the opening of The Cloisters, the Treasury houses small luxury objects acquired in the years subsequent to the branch museum's 1938 founding.

• 圖示和言傳：說故事的中國畫

  Thursday, November 2, 2006, 3:45 p.m.

• 图示和言传：说故事的中国画

  Thursday, November 2, 2006, 3:43 p.m.

• 메트로폴리탄 박물관에서 선보이는 국립중앙박물관 소장 대작들

  Tuesday, October 17, 2006, 5:12 p.m.

• Nan Kempner's Chic, Iconic Styles to be Focus of Winter Exhibition at Metropolitan Museum's Costume Institute

  Tuesday, October 17, 2006, 4:00 a.m.

  Nan Kempner – the late New York style icon, connoisseur of the couture, and member of The Best Dressed List's Hall of Fame – will be the subject of the winter exhibition in The Metropolitan Museum of Art's Costume Institute, from December 12, 2006, through March 4, 2007. Known for a seemingly effortless style that nonetheless displayed a meticulous attention to detail, she was a passionate client and collector of such designers as Yves Saint Laurent, Valentino, and Oscar de la Renta from the 1960s onward.

• Chinese 'Art of Writing' Is Explored in New Metropolitan Museum Exhibition

  Thursday, September 28, 2006, 4:00 a.m.

  Bringing together masterpieces from The Metropolitan Museum of Art's permanent collection with important loans from private collections, Brush and Ink: The Chinese Art of Writing explores the 1,600-year history of calligraphy from its genesis as a fine art in the fourth century A.D. The exhibition presents some 70 works of calligraphy executed by renowned traditional masters – Huang Tingjian (1045-1105), Zhao Mengfu (1254-1322), Ni Zan (1306-1374), and Dong Qichang (1555-1636) – as well as by five contemporary artists. Early inscribed ritual bronzes, dynamic scholars' rocks, and objects made for the artist's study complement the calligraphy.

• Sean Scully: Wall of Light – Celebrated Artist's First Major Solo Museum Exhibition in New York – Features His Most Important Series to Date

  Thursday, September 14, 2006, 4:00 a.m.

  The Wall of Light series by celebrated artist Sean Scully (born 1945) will be the focus of an exhibition at The Metropolitan Museum of Art from September 26, 2006, through January 15, 2007. Sean Scully: Wall of Light will showcase the artist's most important series to date and highlight his mastery of color, light, gesture, and range of emotional and narrative themes. Scully works and exhibits throughout the world, yet this is his first major solo museum exhibition in New York. Featured are 60 works in the Wall of Light series — some 20 of which are large-scale oil paintings — that Scully has created in recent years, first inspired by his travels to Mexico.

• New Orleans after the Flood: Photographs by Robert Polidori

  Monday, September 4, 2006, 4:00 a.m.

  To mark the first anniversary of Hurricane Katrina and the subsequent floods that devastated New Orleans, The Metropolitan Museum of Art will present New Orleans after the Flood: Photographs by Robert Polidori. On view from September 19 through December 10 in The Howard Gilman Gallery, the exhibition will feature approximately 20 large-scale color photographs made by Robert Polidori on four extended visits to New Orleans between September 2005 and April 2006. The quietly expressive photographs present a candid and intimate look at widespread urban ruin — an incomprehensible, topsy-turvy landscape of felled oak trees, houses washed off their foundations, and tumbled furniture that leaves the viewer with more questions than answers.

• SCHEDULE OF EXHIBITIONS SEPTEMBER — DECEMBER 2006

  Tuesday, August 22, 2006, 4:00 a.m.

  EDITORS PLEASE NOTE: Information provided below is subject to change. To confirm scheduling and dates, call the Communications Department at (212) 570-3951. CONTACT NUMBER FOR USE IN TEXT IS (212) 535-7710.

• Glitter and Doom: German Portraits from the 1920s

  Monday, August 14, 2006, 4:00 a.m.

  Political, economic, and social turmoil shaped Germany's short-lived Weimar Republic (1919–1933). These pivotal years also became a most creative period of 20th-century German culture, generating innovation in literature, music, film, theater, and architecture. In painting, a trend of matter-of-fact realism took hold in Germany like nowhere else in Europe. Disillusioned by the cataclysm of World War I, the most vital German artists moved towards a Neue Sachlichkeit (New Objectivity), in particular its branch known as Verism. These artists looked soberly, cynically, and even ferociously at their fellow citizens and found their true métier in portraiture, as seen in the 40 paintings and 60 works on paper featured in Glitter and Doom: German Portraits from the 1920s. The presentation, which opens at The Metropolitan Museum of Art on November 14, 2006, features gripping portraits by ten renowned artists: Max Beckmann, Heinrich Maria Davringhausen, Otto Dix, George Grosz, Karl Hubbuch, Ludwig Meidner, Christian Schad, Rudolf Schlichter, Georg Scholz, and Gert H. Wollheim.

• Art Traditions of Papuan Gulf Explored through Rare Objects and Photographs in Metropolitan Museum Exhibition

  Monday, July 31, 2006, 4:00 a.m.

  An exhibition of some 60 powerful and graphically elaborate sculptures and 30 rare historical photographs from the Papuan Gulf area of the island of New Guinea will go on view at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, beginning October 24. Featuring sacred objects as well as photographs, Coaxing the Spirits to Dance: Art of the Papuan Gulf will demonstrate how deeply embedded art was in the region's social life in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The exhibition is the first in-depth investigation of these art traditions in 45 years. Drawn from public and private collections, as well as the Museum's own holdings, many of the works will be exhibited for the first time.

• Cézanne to Picasso: Ambroise Vollard, Patron of the Avant-Garde

  Wednesday, July 26, 2006, 4:00 a.m.

  The first comprehensive exhibition devoted to Ambroise Vollard (1866-1939) – the pioneer dealer, patron, and publisher who played a key role in promoting and shaping the careers of many of the leading artists during the late 19th and early 20th centuries – will open at The Metropolitan Museum of Art on September 14. One hundred paintings as well as dozens of ceramics, sculpture, prints, and livres d'artistes commissioned and published by Vollard, from his appearance on the Paris art scene in the mid-1890s to his death in 1939, will comprise the exhibition Cézanne to Picasso: Ambroise Vollard, Patron of the Avant-Garde, which will feature works by Bonnard, Cézanne, Degas, Derain, Gauguin, Van Gogh, Maillol, Matisse, Picasso, Redon, Renoir, Rouault, Rousseau, Vlaminck, Vuillard, and others. Highlights will include six paintings from Vollard's landmark 1895 Cézanne exhibition; a never-before-reassembled triptych from his 1896-97 Van Gogh retrospective; the masterpiece Where Do We Come From? What Are We? Where Are We Going? from his 1898 Gauguin exhibition; paintings from Picasso's first French exhibition (1901) and Matisse's first solo exhibition (1904); and three pictures from Derain's London series, painted in 1906-1907 at Vollard's suggestion. Also on view will be numerous portraits of Vollard by leading artists, among them Cézanne, Bonnard, Renoir, and Picasso.

• Sean Scully: Wall of Light – Celebrated Artist's First Major Solo Museum Exhibition in New York – Features His Most Important Series to Date

  Wednesday, July 19, 2006, 4:00 a.m.

  The Wall of Light series by celebrated artist Sean Scully (born 1945) will be the focus of an exhibition at The Metropolitan Museum of Art from September 26, 2006, through January 14, 2007. Sean Scully: Wall of Light will showcase the artist's most important series to date and highlight his mastery of color, light, gesture, and range of emotional and narrative themes. Scully works and exhibits throughout the world, yet this is his first major solo museum exhibition in New York. Featured are more than 50 works in the Wall of Light series — some 20 of which are large-scale oil paintings — that Scully has created in recent years, first inspired by his travels to Mexico.

• Impact of Paris on 19th-Century American Art Shown in Landmark Fall Exhibition at Metropolitan Museum

  Wednesday, July 12, 2006, 4:00 a.m.

  In the late 19th century, American artists by the hundreds – including such luminaries as James McNeill Whistler, John Singer Sargent, Mary Cassatt, Thomas Eakins, and Winslow Homer – were drawn irresistibly to Paris, the world's new art capital, to learn to paint and to establish their reputations. By studying with leading masters and showing their work in Paris, these artists aimed to attract patronage from American collectors who had begun to buy contemporary French art in earnest soon after the end of the Civil War. Paris inspired decisive changes in American painters' styles and subjects, and stimulated the creation of more sophisticated art schools and higher professional standards back in the United States.

• Exhibition on the Face in Medieval Sculpture Opens at Metropolitan Museum in September

  Wednesday, July 12, 2006, 4:00 a.m.

  More than 80 medieval sculpted heads – half from the collection of The Metropolitan Museum of Art and half selected loans from American and European collections – are the focus of the upcoming exhibition Set in Stone: The Face in Medieval Sculpture, opening on September 26. The exhibition, which includes heads from the third century A.D. through the early 1500s, will consider such artistic and thematic issues as: iconoclasm and the legacy of violence, sculpting identity and the evolving notions of the "portrait," sculpture without context and the search for provenance, head reliquaries as power objects, and Gothic Italy and the antique. Created from materials as diverse as marble, limestone, polychromed wood, and silver gilt, the works represent mostly French, but also German, Italian, Spanish, Byzantine, English, and other sculptural traditions. By examining the works in different ways, the exhibition will draw together science and connoisseurship, archaeology and history. On view will be a recently acquired 13th-century limestone Head of an Angel, related to the sculpture from the Cathedral of Notre Dame in Paris. The exhibition is made possible by The Florence Gould Foundation.

• SCHEDULE OF EXHIBITIONS MAY - AUGUST 2006

  Wednesday, July 12, 2006, 4:00 a.m.

  EDITORS PLEASE NOTE: Information provided below is subject to change. To confirm scheduling and dates, call the Communications Department at (212) 570-3951. CONTACT NUMBER FOR USE IN TEXT IS (212) 535-7710.

• Raphael at the Metropolitan: The Colonna Altarpiece

  Thursday, May 25, 2006, 4:00 a.m.

  Raphael at the Metropolitan: The Colonna Altarpiece will highlight the Colonna Altarpiece, the only one by Raphael in America and, since 1916, a treasure of The Metropolitan Museum of Art's collection. This exhibition will reunite the altarpiece's two main panels with the scenes from its predella, which were separated from the altarpiece in 1663. A select group of drawings and paintings by Raphael produced close in time to the Colonna Altarpiece, including a preparatory study for the Metropolitan's predella panel, will also be included. The exhibition will be on view at the Metropolitan from June 20 through September 3, 2006.

• On Photography: A Tribute to Susan Sontag

  Thursday, May 25, 2006, 4:00 a.m.

  A major force in New York intellectual life for more than 40 years, the novelist, essayist, and critic Susan Sontag (1933-2004) was renowned for her brilliant and impassioned writing on photography. From June 6 through September 3, 2006, The Metropolitan Museum of Art will present an exhibition of some 40 photographs that celebrate Sontag's contribution to the history of the medium, featuring works from the Metropolitan's collection by a wide range of artists, including Julia Margaret Cameron, Edward Steichen, Eugène Atget, Walker Evans, Edward Weston, Robert Frank, Andy Warhol, and Peter Hujar.

• Laurelton Hall, Country Estate of Louis Comfort Tiffany, to be Featured in Major Fall 2006 Metropolitan Museum Exhibition

  Thursday, May 25, 2006, 4:00 a.m.

  Between 1902 and 1905, on more than 600 acres overlooking Long Island Sound, the noted American artist and designer Louis Comfort Tiffany (1848-1933) built his dream home, an extraordinary country estate called Laurelton Hall. Every aspect of the project was designed by Tiffany himself, from the exotic 84-room, eight-level house surrounded by fountains, pools, and terraced gardens to the stables, tennis courts, greenhouses, chapel, studio, and art gallery also located on the property. Often cited as Tiffany's most important work, Laurelton Hall was destroyed by fire in 1957. Surviving architectural elements and windows salvaged by Hugh F. and Jeannette G. McKean are now part of the collections of the museum Mrs. McKean founded, The Charles Hosmer Morse Museum of American Art in Winter Park, Florida. The monumental four-column loggia with its colorful glass and pottery floral capitals was saved from Laurelton Hall and has graced the American Wing's Charles Engelhard Court since 1980, a gift of Mr. and Mrs. McKean.

• Americans in Paris, 1860–1900

  Thursday, May 25, 2006, 4:00 a.m.

  In the late 19th century, American artists by the hundreds – including such luminaries as James Abbott McNeill Whistler, John Singer Sargent, Mary Cassatt, Thomas Eakins, and Winslow Homer – were drawn irresistibly to Paris to learn to paint and to establish their reputations. The world's artistic epicenter, Paris inspired decisive changes in American painters' styles and subjects, and stimulated the creation of newly sophisticated art schools and professional standards back in the United States.

• Rembrandt Drawings and Prints, A Selection in Honor of the Artist's 400th Birthday

  Thursday, May 25, 2006, 4:00 a.m.

  The Metropolitan Museum of Art celebrates the 400th birthday of Rembrandt Harmensz van Rijn with the display of a selection of 58 drawings and prints from its extensive collection of works by the great 17th-century Dutch master and artists of his school. Forty-four of the works on view are by Rembrandt himself. The exhibition has been drawn primarily from the holdings of the Museum's Department of Drawings and Prints and the Robert Lehman Collection. One sheet, a charcoal sketch of a lioness, has been borrowed from a New York private collection.

• Cézanne to Picasso: Ambroise Vollard, Patron of the Avant-Garde

  Thursday, May 25, 2006, 4:00 a.m.

  The first comprehensive exhibition devoted to Ambroise Vollard (1867-1939) – the pioneer dealer, patron, and publisher who played a key role in promoting and shaping the careers of many of the leading artists during the late 19th and early 20th centuries – will open at The Metropolitan Museum of Art on September 14. One hundred paintings as well as dozens of ceramics, sculpture, prints, and livres d'artistes commissioned and published by Vollard, from his appearance on the Paris art scene in the mid-1890s to his accidental death in 1939, will comprise the exhibition Cézanne to Picasso: Ambroise Vollard, Patron of the Avant-Garde, which will feature works by Bonnard, Cézanne, Degas, Derain, Gauguin, Van Gogh, Maillol, Matisse, Picasso, Redon, Renoir, Rouault, Rousseau, Vlaminck, Vuillard, and others. Highlights will include seven paintings from Vollard's landmark 1895 Cézanne exhibition; a never-before-reassembled triptych from his 1896 Van Gogh retrospective; the masterpiece Where Do We Come From? What Are We? Where Are We Going? from his 1898 Gauguin exhibition; paintings from Picasso's first French exhibition (1901) and Matisse's first solo exhibition (1904); and three pictures from Derain's London series, painted in 1906-1907 at Vollard's suggestion. Also on view will be numerous portraits of Vollard by leading artists, among them Cézanne, Renoir, Bonnard, and Picasso.

• Set in Stone: The Face in Medieval Sculpture

  Thursday, May 25, 2006, 4:00 a.m.

  More than 80 medieval sculpted heads – half from the collection of The Metropolitan Museum of Art and half selected loans from American and European collections – are the focus of the upcoming exhibition Set in Stone: The Face in Medieval Sculpture, opening this fall. The exhibition, which includes heads from the third century A.D. through the early 1500s, will consider such artistic and thematic issues as: iconoclasm and the legacy of furor, sculpting identity and the evolving notions of the "portrait," sculpture without context and the search for provenance, head reliquaries as power objects, and Gothic Italy and the antique. Created from materials as diverse as polychromed wood, silver, silver gilt, marble, and limestone, the works represent mostly French, but also German, Italian, Byzantine, and English sculptural traditions. By examining the works in different ways, the exhibition will draw together science and connoisseurship, archaeology and history. On view will be a recently acquired 13th-century limestone Head of an Angel, newly identified as having come from the Cathedral of Notre Dame in Paris.

• Major Maya Exhibition at Metropolitan in June Explores Fascinating Ancient American Civilization

  Thursday, May 25, 2006, 4:00 a.m.

  Treasures of Sacred Maya Kings – opening at The Metropolitan Museum of Art on June 13, 2006 – will explore the growth of the concept of divine kingship among ancient Maya peoples. Featuring some 150 objects – from large-scale relief sculpture in stone to small precious pieces of worked jade – the exhibition will display the grandiose ambitions of earthly rulers when they transformed themselves into gods. Dating principally from 200 B.C. to 600 A.D., the works in the exhibition are lent primarily from public collections in Mexico, Guatemala, and Honduras, as well as from collections in Europe and the United States. Emphasis will be placed on recently excavated objects that will be on view for the first time in the United States. Notable among them are pieces from the renowned Maya sites of Calakmul in Mexico, Tikal in Guatemala, and Copan in Honduras. Maya jade objects discovered in tombs in the famous Pyramid of the Moon at Teotihuacan – the contemporary but distant central Mexican city – will also be included.

• AngloMania: Tradition and Transgression in British Fashion

  Tuesday, April 25, 2006, 4:00 a.m.

  AngloMania: Tradition and Transgression in British Fashion, opening on May 3, 2006, will present a wide range of works by British designers in The Metropolitan Museum's English Period Rooms – The Annie Laurie Aitken Galleries. A pendant to the acclaimed 2004 Costume Institute exhibition Dangerous Liaisons: Fashion and Furniture in the 18th Century, AngloMania will examine ideals, stereotypes, and representations of Englishness by juxtaposing historical costume with late 20th- and early 21st-century fashions.

• Renowned Chinese-born Artist Cai Guo-Qiang to Create 2006 Installation for Metropolitan Museum's Roof Garden

  Thursday, March 23, 2006, 5:00 a.m.

  Cai Guo-Qiang, the acclaimed Chinese-born artist known internationally for his elaborate sculpture installations and gunpowder projects, has been invited to create a site-specific exhibition for the 2006 season of The Iris and B. Gerald Cantor Roof Garden at The Metropolitan Museum of Art. The four works comprising Cai Guo-Qiang on the Roof: Transparent Monument were inspired by the dramatic setting of the Roof Garden, an open-air space atop the Lila Acheson Wallace Wing that offers spectacular views of Central Park and the Manhattan skyline, and by the artist's reactions to issues of present-day concern.

• Kara Walker Exhibition at Metropolitan – Inspired by Hurricane Katrina - Explores Theme of "After the Deluge" through Works by Artists through the Ages

  Sunday, March 19, 2006, 5:00 a.m.

  In the wake of Hurricane Katrina, contemporary American artist Kara Walker (b. 1969) – widely recognized for her explorations of issues of race, gender, and sexuality through the 18th-century medium of cut-paper silhouettes – has selected a variety of objects from the Museum's collection and from her own work in order to explore, in her words, "the banality of everyday life, water, and its impact." The exhibition, entitled Kara Walker at the Met: After the Deluge, will be on view from March 21 through July 30.

• Sight Unseen: Photographs from the Gilman Collection

  Tuesday, March 7, 2006, 5:00 a.m.

  The Metropolitan Museum of Art is now presenting Sight Unseen: Photographs from the Gilman Collection as part of its continuing series of installations of works from its recent landmark acquisition of 8,500 photographs spanning the first hundred years of the medium. The photographs in the exhibition have never been shown publicly at the Metropolitan and will remain on view through May 21, 2006.

• A Taste for Opulence: Sèvres Porcelain from the Collection

  Thursday, February 16, 2006, 5:00 a.m.

  A Taste for Opulence: Sèvres Porcelain from the Collection presents a selection of objects such as vases, dinner and tea services, furniture decorated with porcelain plaques, and other luxurious wares produced in the 18th century by the Sèvres porcelain factory. Established in the Château of Vincennes just outside Paris in 1740, the factory quickly became the preeminent producer of porcelain in Europe. Supported in its early years by the patronage of Louis XV, the factory was named the manufacture du roi in 1753 and was purchased by the king in 1759. Catering in large part to the tastes of the court, the factory strove for constant innovation and originality throughout the 18th century, frequently employing the leading artists and designers of the day to provide models and inspiration for the factory's artisans. A Taste for Opulence, which focuses on the diversity of the factory's production, will include approximately 90 objects drawn entirely from the Museum's superb holdings of Sèvres porcelain and from its unparalleled collection of 18th-century French furniture decorated with Sèvres plaques. The exhibition will be on view from February 21 through August 13, 2006.

• Works by French Romantic Painter Displayed in Girodet: Romantic Rebel at Metropolitan Museum

  Thursday, February 16, 2006, 5:00 a.m.

  Girodet: Romantic Rebel is the first retrospective in the United States devoted to this celebrated French artist, Anne-Louis Girodet-Trioson, a favored but rebellious student of Jacques-Louis David. Girodet's idiosyncratic style fuses David's Neoclassical ideal with his own prescient Romantic vision. The exhibition brings together approximately 110 paintings and works on paper that reflect the artist's originality and the diversity of his works, from mythological subjects to portraits and representations of Napoleon's military triumphs.Girodet will be on view at The Metropolitan Museum of Art from May 24 through August 27, 2006.

• The Fabric of Life: Ikat Textiles of Indonesia

  Thursday, February 2, 2006, 5:00 a.m.

  The first exhibition to examine ikat textile traditions across the breadth of Indonesia will open at The Metropolitan Museum of Art on February 28, 2006. Featuring more than 25 outstanding ikat textiles, most never before exhibited, The Fabric of Life: Ikat Textiles of Indonesia explores the imagery, forms, and roles of what is perhaps the single most important, widespread, and technically sophisticated of all Indonesian textile traditions. They are drawn primarily from the Metropolitan's extensive collection of Indonesian textiles.

• The Art of Betty Woodman

  Thursday, February 2, 2006, 5:00 a.m.

  The Metropolitan Museum of Art will present the first U.S. retrospective of the work of noted artist Betty Woodman (American, b. 1930) from April 25 through July 30, 2006. The Art of Betty Woodman will span the artist's career, from her early works of the 1950s and 1960s through her most recent mixed-media pieces of 2005-2006, and will assess her contributions to contemporary ceramic art and her importance among post-World War II artists.

• Warriors of the Himalayas: Rediscovering the Arms and Armor of Tibet

  Thursday, February 2, 2006, 5:00 a.m.

  Warriors of the Himalayas: Rediscovering the Arms and Armor of Tibet is the first comprehensive study of armor, weapons, and equestrian equipment from Tibet, a subject that has remained virtually unexplored until now. Many rare or previously unknown objects will be exhibited and published for the first time. Presenting more than 130 works, the exhibition will examine various types of unique arms and armor used in Tibet, the world's highest plateau, between the 13th and the 20th century. The objects are drawn mostly from the permanent collection of The Metropolitan Museum of Art and include many key loans from the Royal Armouries Museum, Victoria and Albert Museum, Royal Museum of Scotland, the National Museums Liverpool, Pitt Rivers Museum, British Museum, University of Aberdeen, Smithsonian Institution, Yale University, and Newark Museum. The accompanying catalogue will include the first Tibetan-English arms and armor glossary of terms and a selection of excerpts from some of the few surviving Tibetan texts relating to the subject.

• Barcelona and Modernity: Gaudí to Dalí

  Wednesday, February 1, 2006, 5:00 a.m.

  Barcelona and Modernity: Gaudí to Dalí — the first comprehensive exhibition of its type ever mounted in America — explores the diverse and innovative work of Barcelona's artists, architects, and designers in the years between the Barcelona Universal Exposition of 1888 and the imposition of the Fascist regime of Francisco Franco in 1939. Barcelona and Modernity offers new insights into the art movements that advanced the city's quest for modernity and confirmed it as the primary center of radical intellectual, political, and cultural activities in Spain. Pablo Picasso, Joan Miró, Salvador Dalí, and Antoni Gaudí are among the internationally renowned artists who contributed to the creative vitality of Barcelona and the flourishing of Catalan culture. On view at the Metropolitan Museum from March 7 through June 3, 2007, the exhibition will feature some 300 remarkable works in a range of media: painting, sculpture, drawings, prints, posters, decorative objects, furniture, architectural models, and design. La Vie and Blindman's Meal, two of the greatest paintings from Picasso's Blue Period; portraits by Ramon Casas; Isidre Nonell's depictions of gypsies; Miró's The Farm; Dalí's surrealist paintings, as well as furniture designed by Gaudí and an original BKF ("butterfly") chair are among the masterworks gathered from museums and private collections around the world for this major exhibition.

• Pearls of the Parrot of India: The Emperor Akbar's Illustrated "Khamsa," 1597-98

  Thursday, January 12, 2006, 5:00 a.m.

  In India in the late 16th century, the Mughal emperor Akbar – a great patron of the arts – amassed an extensive library of some 20,000 beautifully illustrated and illuminated manuscripts. One of them, a lavishly ornamented copy of the Khamsa (Quintet of Tales) by Amir Khusrau Dihlavi (1253-1325), will be on view at the Metropolitan Museum beginning October 14, 2005, in the exhibition Pearls of the Parrot of India: The Emperor Akbar's Illustrated "Khamsa," 1597-98.

• Hatshepsut: From Queen to Pharaoh

  Thursday, January 12, 2006, 5:00 a.m.

  Hatshepsut, often considered the first important female head of state known to history, ruled Egypt for two decades (ca. 1479-1458 B.C.) during Egypt's 18th Dynasty. Although less familiar to modern audiences than her much later successor, the notorious Cleopatra (51-30 B.C.), Hatshepsut's achievements were comparable to those of England's Elizabeth I. Ruling first as regent for, then as co-ruler with her nephew Thutmose III (who ruled for another 33 years after her death), Hatshepsut enjoyed a relatively peaceful reign, at the beginning of the New Kingdom. She stabilized the country and restored monuments destroyed during the disruptive Second Intermediate Period, when northern Egypt was controlled by a dynasty of Asian princes and southern Egypt by a dynasty of Egyptians based in Thebes. She renewed trade with western Asia to the east, the far-off land of Punt to the south, and the Aegean Islands in the north. The resulting economic prosperity was reflected in the art of the time, which is characterized by remarkable innovations in sculpture and decorative arts and produced such architectural marvels as Hatshepsut's mortuary temple at Deir el-Bahri.

• SCHEDULE OF EXHIBITIONS JANUARY - APRIL 2006

  Thursday, January 12, 2006, 5:00 a.m.

  EDITORS PLEASE NOTE: Information provided below is subject to change. To confirm scheduling and dates, call the Communications Department at (212) 570-3951. CONTACT NUMBER FOR USE IN TEXT IS (212) 535-7710.

• The Art of Medicine in Ancient Egypt

  Thursday, January 12, 2006, 5:00 a.m.

  A long-neglected area of Egyptian art – works associated with protection and healing – will be explored in the exhibition The Art of Medicine in Ancient Egypt, opening at The Metropolitan Museum of Art in fall 2005. By focusing on this fundamen-tal, yet little-known aspect of Egyptian art, the exhibition will provide a new perspective on some 65 of the most beautiful and intriguing works from the Museum's renowned collection. The centerpiece will be the Edwin Smith Surgical Papyrus – the sole bor-rowed work in the exhibition – which is on loan from the New York Academy of Medicine. This manuscript, dating from the Second Intermediate Period (ca. 1650-1550 B.C.), is one of only two complete medical texts from ancient Egypt. Rarely seen even by Egyptologists, the manuscript's presentation at the Metropolitan represents its first public display in more than half a century.

• Robert Rauschenberg's Combines Focus of New Exhibition at Metropolitan

  Tuesday, December 20, 2005, 5:00 a.m.

  Some of the most daring and influential works by one of America's great modern artists – Robert Rauschenberg – will go on view at The Metropolitan Museum of Art on December 20. Robert Rauschenberg: Combines, takes a rare and comprehensive look at the objects that Robert Rauschenberg (b. 1925) terms Combines. The exhibition, which will include 67 works created between 1954 and 1964, is the first to focus exclusively on this significant material. Robert Rauschenberg: Combines remains on view through April 2, 2006, before continuing on an international tour through 2007.

• AngloMania

  Sunday, December 11, 2005, 5:00 a.m.

  AngloMania, opening on May 4, 2006, will present an unprecedented selection of works by British designers in The Metropolitan Museum of Art's English Period Rooms – The Annie Laurie Aitken Galleries. A pendant to the acclaimed 2004 Costume Institute exhibition Dangerous Liaisons: Fashion and Furniture in the 18th Century, AngloMania will focus on British fashion from 1976 to 2006, a period of astounding creativity and experimentation.

• Schedule of Exhibitions Through July 2016

  Wednesday, November 16, 2005, 2:00 p.m.

• Treasures of Sacred Maya Kings

  Tuesday, November 15, 2005, 5:00 a.m.

  Treasures of Sacred Maya Kings – opening at The Metropolitan Museum of Art on June 13, 2006 – will explore the growth of the concept of divine kingship among ancient Maya peoples. Featuring some 150 objects – from large-scale relief sculpture in stone to small precious pieces of worked jade – the exhibition will display the grandiose ambitions of earthly rulers when they transformed themselves into gods. Dating from 900 B.C. to 550 A.D., the works in the exhibition are lent primarily from public collections in Mexico, Guatemala, and Honduras, as well as from collections in Europe and the United States. Emphasis will be placed on recently excavated objects that will be on view for the first time in the United States. Notable among them are pieces from the renowned Maya sites of Calakmul in Mexico and Copan in Honduras. Maya jade objects discovered in tombs in the famous Pyramid of the Moon at Teotihuacan – the contemporary but distant central Mexican city – will also be included.