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• 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.

• METROPOLITAN MUSEUM ANNOUNCES SPRING 2006 SEASON OF PROGRAMS FOR CHILDREN AND FAMILIES

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

  (New York, December 29, 2005) – The Metropolitan Museum of Art today announced its schedule of weekday and weekend activities for children up to age 12 and their adult companions, including a weekly program for Spanish-speaking families, for the period February 1-May 30, 2006 – along with a calendar of special family programs during the mid-winter school recess and on selected weekends and "Holiday Mondays." These drop-in programs are free with Museum admission, and all materials are provided.

• James J. Ross Elected Trustee at Metropolitan Museum

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

  James J. Ross has been elected to the Board of Trustees of The Metropolitan Museum of Art, it was announced today by James R. Houghton, the Museum's Chairman. Mr. Ross's election took place at the January 10 meeting of the Board.

• Metropolitan Museum to Unveil Spectacular New Greek and Roman Galleries

  Sunday, January 8, 2006, 5:00 a.m.

  A spectacular "museum-within-the-museum" for the display of its extraordinary collection of Hellenistic, Etruscan, South Italian, and Roman art – much of it unseen in New York for generations – will open at The Metropolitan Museum of Art this April in its New Greek and Roman Galleries. After more than five years of construction, the long-awaited opening will conclude a 15-year project for the complete redesign and reinstallation of the Museum's superb collection of classical art. Returning to public view in the new space are thousands of long-stored works from the Metropolitan's collection, which is considered one of the finest in the world. The centerpiece of the New Greek and Roman Galleries is the majestic Leon Levy and Shelby White Court – a monumental, peristyle court for the display of Hellenistic and Roman art, with a soaring two-story atrium.

• 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.

• Special Family Activities at Metropolitan Museum in December and January

  Sunday, December 4, 2005, 5:00 a.m.

  In addition to its regularly scheduled weekend and weekday programs for children and families in December and January, The Metropolitan Museum of Art has announced a variety of special activities beginning December 3 and extending throughout the holiday season and beyond, including the Christmas/New Year's school break and "Holiday Mondays" on December 26, 2005, and January 16, 2006. Among the highlights are drawing and gallery workshops, a screening of holiday films, the world-famous Christmas tree and Nativity scene that are on display each year in the Museum's Medieval Sculpture Hall, and programs at The Cloisters, the Museum's branch for medieval art located in upper Manhattan.

• 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.

• Girodet: Romantic Rebel

  Tuesday, November 15, 2005, 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.

• Samuel Palmer (1805–1881): Vision and Landscape

  Monday, November 14, 2005, 5:00 a.m.

  Samuel Palmer ranks among the most important British landscape painters of the Romantic era. Marking the 200th anniversary of the artist's birth, Samuel Palmer (1805–1881): Vision and Landscape is the first major retrospective of his work in nearly 80 years, uniting some 100 of his finest watercolors, drawings, etchings, and oils from public and private collections in the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, the Netherlands, and the United States. The exhibition highlights the artist's celebrated early work, executed in a visionary style inspired by William Blake, and re-examines Palmer's vibrant middle-period Italian studies and masterful late watercolors and etchings. It also includes a selection of works by artists in Palmer's circle. Samuel Palmer will be on view at The Metropolitan Museum of Art from March 7 through May 29.

• Metropolitan Museum Celebrates the Holidays by Opening on "Holiday Monday" December 26

  Monday, November 14, 2005, 5:00 a.m.

  (New York, November 14, 2005) – The Metropolitan Museum of Art will be open to the public on Monday, December 26 (the Monday between Christmas and New Year's Day), as part of the Museum's popular "Holiday Mondays" program. The Museum, which has been closed to the public on Mondays for some 30 years, will open the doors of its main building this winter and spring on three additional major Monday holidays: January 16 (Martin Luther King Jr. Day), February 20 (Presidents' Day), and May 29 (Memorial Day).

• Antonello da Messina: Sicily's Renaissance Master

  Tuesday, November 8, 2005, 5:00 a.m.

  Three masterpieces by Sicily's greatest Renaissance painter, Antonello da Messina, will be on view at The Metropolitan Museum of Art from December 13, 2005, through March 5, 2006, in the exhibition Antonello da Messina: Sicily's Renaissance Master. This will be the first time any of these works will be on public view in the United States.

• In Line with Van Gogh

  Thursday, November 3, 2005, 5:00 a.m.

  The Metropolitan Museum of Art presents the exhibition In Line with Van Gogh in conjunction with the landmark exhibition Vincent van Gogh: The Drawings. The ancillary exhibition, also curated by Colta Ives and Susan Stein, demonstrates that Van Gogh's achievement, neither solely intuitive nor accidental, was remarkably well informed. The 59 drawings and prints selected from the collections of the Metropolitan Museum will include works by Rembrandt, Daumier, Millet, Degas, Hokusai, Hiroshige, and other artists whose work influenced Van Gogh, as well as works by his contemporaries and followers such as Gauguin, Signac, Seurat, Matisse, and Munch. In Line with Van Gogh will be on view from October 4, 2005 to January 8, 2006.

• Santiago Calatrava's Art and Architecture in New Exhibition at Metropolitan Museum

  Thursday, November 3, 2005, 5:00 a.m.

  Santiago Calatrava, the world-renowned architect who has designed some of the most beautiful structures of our epoch, is the subject of a new exhibition, Santiago Calatrava: Sculpture into Architecture, opening at The Metropolitan Museum of Art on October 18, 2005. This exhibition, on view through March 5, 2006, will demonstrate that many of the forms of his celebrated buildings originated in his independent works of art.

• Fra Angelico, Leading Artist of Italian Renaissance, at Metropolitan Museum in First American Retrospective

  Thursday, November 3, 2005, 5:00 a.m.

  The first American retrospective devoted to the work of the great Italian Renaissance artist known as Fra Angelico (1390/5-1455) – and the first comprehensive presentation of his work assembled anywhere in the world in half a century – will open at The Metropolitan Museum of Art on October 26. More than 50 public institutions and private collections in Europe and America will participate in the landmark exhibition, which commemorates the 550th anniversary of the artist's death. Fra Angelico will feature nearly 75 paintings, drawings, and manuscript illuminations from throughout his career, supplemented by 45 additional works by his assistants and closest followers. Highlights of the exhibition include recently discovered paintings and new attributions, paintings never before displayed publicly, and reconstructed groupings of works, some of them reunited for the first time.

• Rara Avis: Selections from the Iris Barrel Apfel Collection

  Thursday, November 3, 2005, 5:00 a.m.

  The Costume Institute will celebrate one of America's quintessential stylemakers this fall with an exhibition of accessories and fashion from Iris Apfel. On view at The Metropolitan Museum of Art from September 13, 2005, to January 22, 2006, Rara Avis: Selections from the Iris Barrel Apfel Collection will spotlight 60 objects, exploring the affinity between fashion and accessory designs and examining the power of dress and accessories to assert style above fashion, the individual above the collective.

• David Milne Watercolors "Painting Toward the Light"

  Thursday, November 3, 2005, 5:00 a.m.

  David Milne Watercolors: "Painting Toward the Light," on view at The Metropolitan Museum of Art from November 8, 2005 to January 29, 2006, will reintroduce the work of one of Canada's finest painters to American audiences. Milne (1882-1953), whose career spanned the first half of the 20th century, lived and worked in the United States (1903-29) during the heyday of American modernism before returning to Ontario (1929-53), where he had a quiet career out of the spotlight. This exhibition of 45 works from Canadian and American collections follows Milne's experimentation with modernism in New York City, his years as a Canadian War Memorials artist in Europe after World War I, his subsequent retreat into the landscape of upstate New York, and his final years in Canada, which inspired a dramatic departure from his depictions of the natural world to the realm of the spiritual.

• Vincent van Gogh: The Drawings

  Thursday, November 3, 2005, 5:00 a.m.

  The first major exhibition in the United States ever to focus on Vincent van Gogh's extraordinary drawings will open at The Metropolitan Museum of Art on October 18. Vincent van Gogh: The Drawings — comprising 113 works selected from public and private collections worldwide, including an exceptional number of loans from the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam — will reveal the range and brilliance of the artist's draftsmanship as it evolved over the course of his decade-long career. Generally over-shadowed by the fame and familiarity of his paintings, Van Gogh's more than 1,100 drawings remain comparatively unknown although they are among his most ingenious and striking creations. Van Gogh engaged drawing and painting in a rich dialogue, which enabled him to fully realize the creative potential of both means of expression. A group of paintings will be exhibited alongside the related drawings. The exhibition will remain on view through December 31.

• Clouet to Seurat: French Drawings from The British Museum

  Thursday, November 3, 2005, 5:00 a.m.

  Four centuries of French draftsmanship will be on view in Clouet to Seurat: French Drawings from The British Museum, opening November 8, 2005, at The Metropolitan Museum of Art. The exhibition features nearly 100 masterpieces, ranging from rare Renaissance portraits by Jean and François Clouet to selections from The British Museum's incomparable holdings of Claude Lorrain and Antoine Watteau, through stellar works of the 19th century, from Ingres and Delacroix to Degas, Cézanne, and Seurat. A majority of these works have never before been exhibited in the United States. Clouet to Seurat will remain on view at the Metropolitan through January 29, 2006.

• Prague, The Crown of Bohemia, 1347-1437

  Thursday, November 3, 2005, 5:00 a.m.

  Crowned King of Bohemia in 1347, Charles IV (1316-1378) sought to make his capital city – Prague – the cultural rival of Paris and Rome. The remarkable flowering of art that transformed the city into Bohemia's Gothic jewel will be celebrated at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, beginning September 20, in the exhibition Prague, The Crown of Bohemia, 1347-1437 – a landmark presentation of some 160 stunning examples of panel paintings, goldsmiths' work, illuminated manuscripts, sculpture, silk embroideries, stained glass, and more. These little-known masterpieces attest to the wide-ranging achievements of the hundreds of artists affiliated with Prague and the Bohemian crown during the reign of Charles IV and his two sons, Wenceslas IV (1361-1419) and Sigismund (1368-1437). The exhibition draws on numerous collections in the Czech Republic as well as other European and American collections, and will include many works that have never been publicly shown.

• Metropolitan Museum's Restaurants to Offer Van Gogh-Inspired Dining and Afternoon Tea

  Wednesday, October 19, 2005, 4:00 a.m.

  Inspired by the exhibition Vincent van Gogh: The Drawings– which will be on view at The Metropolitan Museum of Art from October 18 through December 31, 2005 – the Museum's restaurants will offer visitors a variety of special dining experiences, including afternoon tea, guest chefs from around New York City, and prix-fixe dinner options.

• Asian Art

  Wednesday, September 21, 2005, 4:00 a.m.

  The Asian collection at the Metropolitan Museum is the largest and most comprehensive in the West. Each of the many civilizations of Asia is represented by outstanding works that provide – in both quality and breadth – an unrivaled experience of the artistic traditions of nearly half the world. The collection, which ranges in date from the second millennium B.C. to the early 20th century, includes paintings, woodblock prints, sculptures, metalwork, ceramics, lacquers, decorative arts, and textiles from China, Korea, and Japan, as well as the countries of South and Southeast Asia. Since the Museum's centennial in 1970, the department has been engaged in expanding its staff, collections, and display space. This process culminated in 1998 with the completion of an entire wing, occupying 64,500 square feet, devoted to Asian art – a "museum within a museum."

• European Paintings

  Wednesday, September 21, 2005, 4:00 a.m.

  The Museum's collection of Old Master and 19th-century European paintings – one of the greatest such collections in existence – numbers approximately 2,500 works, dozens of which are instantly recognizable worldwide. The French, Italian, Flemish, and Dutch schools are most strongly represented, with fine works also by British and Spanish masters.

• The Robert Lehman Collection

  Wednesday, September 21, 2005, 4:00 a.m.

  The Robert Lehman Collection – numbering nearly 3,000 works of art and one of the most extraordinary private art collections ever assembled in the United States – was presented to the Metropolitan Museum by the Robert Lehman Foundation in 1969, following Mr. Lehman's death. The collection was assembled by Mr. Lehman and his parents, and is housed today in The Robert Lehman Wing, which opened to the public in 1975, and which contains galleries that were specially designed to reflect the ambience of the Lehman house in New York City.

• Musical Instruments

  Wednesday, September 21, 2005, 4:00 a.m.

  The musical instruments collection at the Metropolitan Museum originated with gifts in 1889 of several hundred European, American, and non-Western instruments from private collectors Joseph W. Drexel and Mrs. John Crosby Brown. Mrs. Brown continued to give musical instruments to the Museum until her death in 1918, by which time some 4,000 items had been catalogued and placed on display, making the assemblage the largest and most comprehensive of its kind outside Europe.

• Arts of Africa, Oceania, and the Americas

  Wednesday, September 21, 2005, 4:00 a.m.

  Nearly 1,600 objects from Africa, the Pacific Islands, and the Americas are on view in The Metropolitan Museum of Art's Michael C. Rockefeller Wing. They span 3,000 years, three continents, and many islands, and represent a rich diversity of cultural traditions.

• European Sculpture and Decorative Arts

  Wednesday, September 21, 2005, 4:00 a.m.

  The Department of European Sculpture and Decorative Arts has evolved from one that was established as a repository of decorative art in 1907, during the presidency of J. Pierpont Morgan. Today it is responsible for a comprehensive and important historical collection, one of the Metropolitan Museum's largest, reflecting the development of art in the major Western European countries.

• Modern Art
  Lila Acheson Wallace Wing

  Wednesday, September 21, 2005, 4:00 a.m.

  Since its founding in 1870 the Metropolitan Museum has been concerned with the art of its own time as well as that of the past. In 1906 and 1911 funds established by George A. Hearn particularly encouraged acquisitions of works by contemporary American painters. During the first decades of the 20th century fewer examples by European artists were acquired, but certain purchases are notable. Among these were Renoir's Mme Georges Charpentier and Her Children (1879) acquired in 1907 and Cézanne's View of the Domain Saint Joseph (1889) acquired from the Armory Show in 1913. Monet died in 1926. In the same year the Museum received its first gift of one of his paintings, and in 1929 the extraordinary bequest of Mrs. H. O. Havemeyer included an additional eight.

• A Brief History of the Museum

  Wednesday, September 21, 2005, 4:00 a.m.

  The Metropolitan Museum of Art was founded in 1870 by a group of American citizens – businessmen and financiers as well as leading arists and thinkers of the day – who wanted to create a museum to bring art and art education to the American people.

• Drawings and Prints

  Wednesday, September 21, 2005, 4:00 a.m.

  In 1880 Cornelius Vanderbilt presented to the Metropolitan Museum 670 drawings by or attributed to European Old Masters. In its early decades, the collection of drawings grew slowly through purchase, gift, and bequest. Among notable acquisitions of this period were major drawings by Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci, and Rembrandt. In 1935, the Museum purchased an album of 50 sheets by Goya, while more than 100 works, mostly by Venetian artists of the 18th century, were acquired from the marquis de Biron in 1937. It was not until 1960 that the Department of Drawings was established as a separate curatorial area of the Museum with Jacob Bean as its first curator. During the next 30 years, the department's holdings nearly doubled in size; the collection is known particularly for its works by Italian and French artists of the 15th through the 19th century.

• I giardini del museo The Met Cloisters

  Tuesday, August 23, 2005, 2:18 p.m.

• Robert Rauschenberg: Combines

  Thursday, August 4, 2005, 4:00 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 three-dimensional works that Robert Rauschenberg (b. 1925) terms combines. The exhibition, which will include approximately 65 objects created between 1954 and 1964, is the first to focus exclusively on this significant body of work. Robert Rauschenberg: Combines remains on view through April 2, 2006, before continuing on an international tour through 2007.

• SCHEDULE OF EXHIBITIONS SEPTEMBER–DECEMBER 2005

  Wednesday, August 3, 2005, 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.

• Metropolitan Museum Continues Popular "Holiday Monday" Program

  Wednesday, August 3, 2005, 4:00 a.m.

  (New York, August 2, 2005) – The Metropolitan Museum of Art announced today that its Met Holiday Mondays program, which began in fall 2003, will be extended for an additional three years. Met Holiday Mondays are extra public viewing days that take place on the Mondays of major holiday weekends. Continuation of the program is sponsored by Bloomberg LP.

• Metropolitan Museum Names Michael Gallagher the Sherman Fairchild Conservator in Charge of Paintings Conservation

  Wednesday, August 3, 2005, 4:00 a.m.

  (New York, June 21, 2005)—Michael Gallagher, who has been Keeper of Conservation at the National Galleries of Scotland in Edinburgh since 1999, will be the new Sherman Fairchild Conservator in Charge of the Department of Painting Conservation at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, it was announced by Philippe de Montebello, Director of the Metropolitan. The election, which was formally approved by the Museum's Board of Trustees, is effective July 1, 2005. Mr. Gallagher will assume the post in October.

• Major Retrospective of Vincent van Gogh's Drawings to Open at Metropolitan Museum in October 2005

  Wednesday, July 20, 2005, 4:00 a.m.

  The first major exhibition in the United States ever to focus on Vincent van Gogh's extraordinary drawings will open at The Metropolitan Museum of Art on October 18. Vincent van Gogh: The Drawings — comprising 113 works selected from public and private collections worldwide, including an exceptional number of loans from the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam — will reveal the range and brilliance of the artist's draftsmanship as it evolved over the course of his decade-long career. Generally over-shadowed by the fame and familiarity of his paintings, Van Gogh's more than 1,100 drawings remain comparatively unknown although they are among his most ingenious and striking creations. Van Gogh engaged drawing and painting in a rich dialogue, which enabled him to fully realize the creative potential of both means of expression. A group of paintings will be exhibited alongside the related drawings. The exhibition will remain on view through December 31.

• Fra Angelico

  Wednesday, July 20, 2005, 4:00 a.m.

  The first American retrospective devoted to the work of the great Italian Renaissance artist known as Fra Angelico (1390/5-1455) – and the first comprehensive presentation of his work assembled anywhere in the world in half a century – will open at The Metropolitan Museum of Art on October 26. More than 50 public institutions and private collections in Europe and America will participate in the landmark exhibition, which commemorates the 550th anniversary of the artist's death. Fra Angelico will feature nearly 80 drawings, paintings, and manuscript illuminations from throughout his career, supplemented by 45 additional works by his assistants and closest followers. Highlights of the exhibition include recently discovered paintings and new attributions, paintings never before displayed publicly, and reconstructed groupings of works, some of them reunited for the first time.

• The Perfect Medium: Photography and the Occult

  Wednesday, July 20, 2005, 4:00 a.m.

  Ghosts, spirit séances, levitation, auras, ectoplasm … extraordinary photographs of these and other paranormal phenomena will be on display at The Metropolitan Museum of Art in The Perfect Medium: Photography and the Occult, an exhibition devoted to the historical intersections between photography and the once wildly popular interest in spiritualism, on view from September 27 to December 31, 2005.

• THE METROPOLITAN MUSEUM OF ART ANNOUNCES 2005-2006 SEASON OF CONCERTS

  Thursday, July 7, 2005, 4:00 a.m.

  The Metropolitan Museum of Art presents the 52nd season of its acclaimed concert series in 2005-2006, 76 events ranging from a three-part piano recital series, Bach cantatas in the Medieval Sculpture Hall, and Flamenco music and dance, to a master class with Jordi Savall, Beethoven by the Beaux Arts Trio, and an evening of doo-wop from the 1940s and 1950s. The season is the 37th programmed by Concerts & Lectures General Manager Hilde Limondjian.

• The Art of Medicine in Ancient Egypt

  Tuesday, July 5, 2005, 4:00 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 fundamental, 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 borrowed 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.

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

  Monday, June 27, 2005, 4:00 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.

• "Get Modern at the Met" A Year-Long Focus on Modern and Contemporary Art At The Metropolitan Museum of Art

  Monday, June 27, 2005, 4:00 a.m.

  From Coco Chanel's iconic little black dress to Sol LeWitt's sculptural "splotches," to the exotic textiles that inspired Henri Matisse – and more – The Metropolitan Museum of Art will display an unprecedented number of modern and contemporary art exhibitions this year and into 2006, featuring a wide variety of artists and media. Visitors to the Museum will also experience the lyrical architecture of Santiago Calatrava, the artistic inventions of Tony Oursler and Robert Rauschenberg, and the gentle watercolors of David Milne.

• Santiago Calatrava: Sculpture into Architecture

  Monday, June 20, 2005, 4:00 a.m.

  Santiago Calatrava, the world-renowned architect who has designed some of the most beautiful structures of our epoch, is the subject of a new exhibition, Santiago Calatrava: Sculpture into Architecture, opening at The Metropolitan Museum of Art on October 18, 2005. This exhibition, on view through January 22, 2006, will demonstrate that many of the forms of his celebrated buildings originated in his independent works of art.

• Rara Avis: Selections from the Iris Apfel Collection

  Monday, June 20, 2005, 4:00 a.m.

  The Costume Institute will celebrate one of America's quintessential stylemakers this fall with an exhibition of accessories and fashion from Iris Apfel. On view at The Metropolitan Museum of Art from September 13, 2005, to January 22, 2006, Rara Avis: Selections from the Iris Apfel Collection will spotlight 40 objects, exploring the affinity between fashion and accessory designs and examining the power of dress and accessories to assert style above fashion, the individual above the collective.

• Photographs from Recently Acquired Gilman Collection on View at Metropolitan Museum

  Monday, June 20, 2005, 4:00 a.m.

  A rotating selection of pivotal, iconic works from The Metropolitan Museum of Art's recent landmark acquisition of the Gilman Paper Company Collection, entitled Master Photographs from the Gilman Collection: A Landmark Acquisition, will be on view this summer in The Howard Gilman Gallery and, in two installments through April 2006, in the Robert Wood Johnson, Jr. Gallery.