Young 19th- and 21st-century viewers gaze at ‘Washington Crossing the Delaware’, 1851, by Emanuel Leutze. Left: Archival photo from The Met archives. Right: Photo by Roderick Aichinger. Composite image
© The Metropolitan Museum of Art.
The Met presents ‘Making The Met, 1870–2020’ The centerpiece of The Metropolitan Museum of Art’s 150th anniversary celebration is the exhibition ‘Making The Met, 1870–2020’. On view March 30 to August 2, 2020, the presentation is a museum-wide collaboration that will lead visitors on an immersive, thought-provoking journey through The Met’s history.]]>
Source: The Metropolitan Museum of Art
The exhibition features more than 250 works of art of nearly every type from The Met collection, including visitor favorites and fragile treasures that can only be displayed from time to time. The selection spans millennia—from an imposing seated statue of the Egyptian queen Hatshepsut (ca. 1479–1458 B.C.) to Jean Pucelle’s “Hours of Jeanne d’Evreux” (ca. 1324–28) to El Anatsui’s monumental “Dusasa II” (2007)—and media—from Michelangelo’s sheet of “Studies for the Libyan Sibyl” to Degas’s bronze “Little Fourteen-Year-Old Dancer” to Edward Steichen’s photographs of “The Flatiron”. Its global reach extends from Asia, with exceptional works such as Han Gan’s Night-Shining White, to Africa, with the Fang Seated Female Figure from a Reliquary Ensemble, and the Americas, with the Crown of the Andes.
”Making The Met, 1870–2020” explores a range of intriguing topics, such as the educational and aspirational ideals of The Met’s founders; the discoveries and dilemmas of excavation; the competing forces of progressivism and nationalism that led to the founding of the American Wing; the role of the Museum during wartime; and the evolution at The Met’s centennial toward a truly global approach to collecting. Rarely seen archival photographs, innovative digital features, and stories of both behind-the-scenes work and the Museum’s community outreach enhance this unique experience.
The exhibition is organized in ten chronological sections around a central axis, called The Street, that situates visitors in time and offer glimpses into the inner workings of The Met and, exceptionally, out into Central Park.
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