metropolitan museum of art

Cezanne's Card Players United In New York Exhibit

A new exhibit at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City brings together a full house of Paul Cézanne's famous card players. The Metropolitan Museum was, in 1913, the first public institution in the United States to acquire a painting by the artist and has a healthy collection of his works. The new exhibition brings together the "The Card Players" 1890-92 shown above left and "Study for The Card Players" at right among other works. The Card Players belongs to the Metropolitan while the Study is on loan from the Worcester Art Museum inWorcester, Massachusetts.

The artworks were created in the 1890s while the artist was living at his family's estate outside Aix-en-Provence and showcase Cezanne's appreciation of the local people as well as tracking his progress as a painter. He used peasants and laborers at his family's estate as models. The sittings resulted in five closely related canvases of different sizes, three of which will be reunited in the exhibit. Reuters reports that this exhibit was previously on display at the Courtauld Gallery in London. A fourth painting belongs to the Barnes Foundation and cannot be loaned out and the fifth is in a private collection which opted not to show it. Cezanne also produced a larger number of paintings of the individual farm workers, major examples of which will be on view along with oil sketches and watercolor studies for these paintings.

The exhibition was organized by The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, and The Courtauld Gallery, London. A variety of educational programs will accompany the exhibition, including gallery talks, film screenings, and a Sunday at the Met lecture program on April 3. The exhibit runs from now through May 8. More information is available at the Museum's website at www.metmuseum.org .

Tags: metropolitan museum, metropolitan museum of art, paul cezanne

Metropolitan Museum of Art Gets Big Donation For Costume Institute

by Deidre Woollard (RSS feed) —

Filed under: Art, Big Givers

The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City got a big boost this week in the form of a $10 million gift from Lizzie and Jonathan Tisch. The gift will support the creation of a major exhibition space within the Costume Institute, allowing the Museum to proceed with a total renovation of its costume-related exhibition galleries and conservation center starting next year.

The new 4,200-square-foot gallery will be named the Lizzie and Jonathan Tisch Gallery. The renovation will also add a new costume conservation center and an expanded and updated study/storage facility that will house, onsite, the combined holdings of the Met and the Brooklyn Museum Costume Collection, which was transferred to the Metropolitan Museum in early 2009. Adjacent to the new Tisch Gallery, the Carl and Iris Barrel Apfel Gallery, will be refreshed and function as introductory space to The Costume Institute holdings.

In a statement Lizzie and Jonathan Tisch said, in part: "In today's world, fashion, art, and culture are becoming more intertwined, and the renovation of The Costume Institute will give this interrelationship the proper focus it deserves at the Museum. The new gallery will allow young designers and students to see and learn while advancing both art history and the art of fashion design." The Lizzie and Jonathan M. Tisch Foundation also supports a variety of organizations including Tufts University, New York Presbyterian Hospital-Weill Medical College of Cornell University, 92nd Street Y, Citymeals-on-Wheels, and others that are active in education, the arts, and health care.

Tags: costume institute, lizzie and jonathan tisch, lizzie tisch, metropolitan museum of art, philanthropists, philanthropy

Top Museum Shows of 2010

by Bobbie Leigh (RSS feed) —

Filed under: Art

Museum-goers had much to be grateful for in 2010. In New York City, the twins Mike and Doug Starn's "Big Bambu: You can't, You Don't, and You Won't Stop" on the Roof Garden of the Metropolitan Museum of Art was a blockbuster installation consisting of 5,000 interlocking bamboo poles lashed together with nylon rope. Think of it as an enormous spider's web of bamboo scaffolding, an example of audience-participation art. Thousands of museum-goers walked through its wavy internal foot paths, which on a windy day were not all that stable. This site specific installation which grew during the spring and summer to an immense structure, 50- feet high, 50-feet wide, and 100-feet long, was a first for New York. The public, the critics, and especially children loved it. The reward for the non-acrophobic willing to walk to the highest point: stunning views of the city, especially at sunset.

Tags: Bronzino, Degas, Metropolitan Museum of Art, Palazzo Strozzi, Rubin Museum, Sterling and Francis Clark Institute

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Megabucks Rothko, Warhol & Bacon Head Sotheby's Sale

by Jared Paul Stern (RSS feed) —

Filed under: Auctions, Art

A $30 million Mark Rothko, $25 million Andy Warhol, $18 million Roy Lichtenstein and $10 million Francis Bacon will headline Sotheby's stunning Contemporary Art sale in New York on Nov. 9. Though the least expensive of the top four lots the Bacon, 1985's Figure in Movement (above), is our favorite among the offerings. Bacon gave the painting to his personal physician, Dr. Paul Brass, and the sale marks it's historic first appearance to market. It featured prominently in the 2008 landmark exhibition Francis Bacon: A Centenary Retrospective at Tate Britain which traveled to the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. The Rothko, 1955's Untitled, is one of the artist's most monumental works measuring over 7.5 ft. high. Warhol's contribution is 1962's Coca-Cola, not particularly compelling but guaranteed to ride the wave of high prices realized for his work. The Lichtenstein, Ice Cream Soda, is also dated 1962 and has been in a private collection since it was originally purchased that same year.

Tags: Andy Warhol, art, auction, Contemporary Art, exhibition, Francis Bacon, Mark Rothko, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, Roy Lichtenstein

Khubilai Khan at the Met

by Bobbie Leigh (RSS feed) —

Filed under: Art

The Mongols of the Yuan Dynasty (1271-1368) knew how to live. Today, we could say they had a talent for "living large," enjoying all the arts in this life and the next. If there is a message in the Met's new show, "The World of Khubilai Khan, Chinese Art in the Yuan Dynasty," it is that during the roughly 100 years of the Yuan, there was a new artistic awakening and a flourishing of all the arts including architecture, textiles, calligraphy, painting, and porcelain. According to the curators, the Yuan world laid the foundation of what today we think of as traditional Chinese art.

Tags: Chinese Art, Genghis Khan, Khubilai Khan, Metropolitan Museum, metropolitan museum of art, Mongol Empire, new york city, Yuan Dynasty

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Last Call on the Met's American Fashion Exhibit

by Alison Wellner (RSS feed) —

Filed under: Apparel, Luxury Travel & Hotels

It's last call on the Metropolitan Museum of Art's exhibit "American Women: Fashioning an American Identity", which closes August 15th. The exhibit was sponsored in part by Conde Nast (and also the Gap, although the only t-shirts on display are those that are for sale in the gift shop) and Vogue presided over the opening festivities back in May.

The exhibit breaks down American fashion history into ideals -- Gibson Girls, Bohemians, Screen Sirens. It covers 1890-1940, with a final room entirely devoid of fabric devoted to 1950-2010. I was entirely enjoying the exhibit (and even would have bought this 1895 sweater with gigot sleeves to wear this Fall, had it been available for purchase) if I hadn't gotten entirely annoyed by the wall text.

Tags: fashion, fashion history, metropolitan museum of art, sarah jessica parker

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World's Richest Man Buys Duke-Semans Mansion for $44 Million

by Jared Paul Stern (RSS feed) —

Filed under: Estates, Wealth

Mexican telecommunications mogul Carlos Slim, who beat out Warren Buffet and Bill Gates to capture the title of World's Richest Man earlier this year with an astonishing net worth of $53.5 billion, has purchased the stunning Duke-Semans Mansion in New York for a cool $44 million. As we reported back in January, cab driver-turned-fertilizer king Tamir Sapir had listed the palatial townhouse, said to be the only private mansion left on Fifth Avenue, for $50 million. According to the Wall St. Journal, Slim cut the deal to snag it for $6 million less with Sapir directly. Sapir bought the historic seven-story Beaux Arts mansion located across from the Metropolitan Museum of Art from relatives of Doris Duke for $40 million in 2006. The 20,000-square-foot mansion, built in 1901, currently has a doctor's office in the basement, a five-story main residence, a penthouse duplex on top, 12 bedrooms, 14 bathrooms, and 11 wood-burning fireplaces.

Gallery: Duke Semans Mansion

Tags: billionaire, Carlos Slim, celebrity real estate, Doris Duke, Duke Semans Mansion, Duke-Semans Mansion, Fifth Avenue, mansion, Metropolitan Museum of Art, Mexico, New York, New York City, real estate, Tamir Sapir, worlds richest man

Tell Us Everything, "American High Style" Curator Jan Glier Reeder

by Carrie N. Culpepper (RSS feed) —

Filed under: Apparel, Events, Art, Tell Us Everything

The Metropolitan Museum of Art's already-incredible Costume Institute just got 23,500 objects better. The Brooklyn Museum's Costume Collection, the oldest and greatest collection of fashion from the 18th to 20th century was recently transferred to the Met for safe keeping and preservation in the Met's incredible facility, which will be getting a state-of-the-art upgrade in the near future. To celebrate this new partnership between the two museums, they're running concurrent fashion exhibits celebrating American style. Although the exhibits include works by European designers, all the garments were worn by stylish American women such as Millicent Rogers and Austine Hearst, great patrons of the Brooklyn Museum.

My colleague, Bobbie Leigh, recently wrote about The Met's exhibit, "American Woman: Fashioning a National Identity." The Brooklyn Museum exhibit "American High Style" takes visitors through the last century in fashion with focus on the French couture designers who influenced American fashion, early American women designers of the mid-century and certain important designers such as Elsa Schiaparelli, shoe designer Steven Arpad and others.

We sat down with curator Jan Glier Reeder and asked her to Tell Us Everything. Reeder spent the last three years assessing the collection, mounting the exhibit and putting together its weighty book.

Tags: american fashion, american high style, brooklyn museum, fashion exhibit, fashion exhibition, Fashion Exhibits, french couture, Jan Glier Reeder, JanGlierReeder, Metropolitan Museum Costume Institute Gala, metropolitan museum of art, metropolitan museum of art costume institute, tell us everything

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The History of Women's Fashions on Display at the Met

by Bobbie Leigh (RSS feed) —

Filed under: Apparel, Events, Art

The 18-inch waisted-women in the first gallery of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City's stunning new show, American Woman: Fashioning a National Identity , are the great-grandmothers of the sexy screen sirens in the last. On view through August 15, this Costume Institute exhibition presents high-end women's fashions from the 1890s to the 1940s. Visitors walk through darkened circular galleries that reflect the decor and style of a feminine archetype from a particular era. Each gallery has a label starting with the "heiress" era when high fashion meant French haute couture.

Source

Tags: costumes, glamour, metropolitan museum of art, movie stars

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Billionaire David Koch Plans Pretty Fountains For The Met

by Deidre Woollard (RSS feed) —

Filed under: Charity, Big Givers

Like the fountains at New York City's Lincoln Center? Then you'll want to keep an eye on the Metropolitan Museum of Art where philanthropic billionaire David H. Koch plans to spend at least $10 million on dramatic new fountains for the cultural landmark. The Wall Street Journal reported last week that Koch had said he pledged "at least $10 million" for the project.

The overall sprucing up of the exterior will include updating the museum's exterior lighting and the entire plaza as well as renovating the dormant oval fountains. Koch was inspired by the Lincoln Center's Revson fountain with its dramatic dancing display. That fountain was created by fountain architect Mark Fuller of WET Design. WET is best known for the fountains at the Bellagio hotel in Las Vegas. (The New Yorker had a fascinating piece on the details of the Lincoln Center Fountain back in January).

Koch knows a little something about the Lincoln Center. In 2008 he agreed to contribute $100 million toward the renovation of the New York State Theater. The gift put Koch's name on the door (it's now known as the David H. Koch Theater) and was the largest private capital donation in the Lincoln Center's history. He is the executive vice president of Koch Industries, Inc. and has an estimated net worth of $17.5 billion.

Koch's is the first major gift dedicated to the Met's exterior renovations. The fountains were installed in the early 1970s, a gift from Lila Acheson Wallace, a co-founder of Reader's Digest. The Wall Street Journal also points out that the fountains are designated landmarks and any changes must be approved by the Landmarks Preservation Commission.

Tags: david koch, fountains, lincoln center, metropolitan museum of art, new york city, philanthropy

A Bamboo Wave Rolls in at the Met

by Bobbie Leigh (RSS feed) —

Filed under: Events, Art

Anyone with a yen to climb like a monkey through a bamboo forest shouldn't miss Mike and Doug Starn's "Big Bambú" on the roof of the Metropolitan Museum of Art. This bamboo colossus has a unique form for a land sculpture---a cresting wave with internal elevated pathways. Ultimately, it will measure 50-feet tall and take "audience participation" to new heights. If you are thinking of walking the "waves," wear close, rubber-soled shoes and request timed-tickets in person. Although you can visit the roof anytime, try for sunset on a Friday or Saturday. Tickets, based on first-come, first-served for walking on the elevated platforms, are bound to be in great demand as when else could you get such drop-dead views of Central Park.

Tags: art installation, bamboo, big bambu, doug and mike starn, metropolitan museum of art, new york art

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Judith Leiber To Sell Bags to Benefit The Wildlife Conservation Society

by Carrie Coolidge (RSS feed) —

Filed under: Handbags, Events

Judith Leiber to sell bags to benefit the Wildlife Conservation Society

On Wednesday May 5, Judith Leiber will host a cocktail reception from 6:00 pm to 8:00 pm at its flagship Manhattan store at 680 Madison Avenue in honor of the Wildlife Conservation Society.

A highlight of the event is the rare opportunity to purchase a Judith Leiber bag for only $100. Judith Leiber will sell 100 bags for $100 each with all of the proceeds going to the Wildlife Conservation Society, which does global wildlife conservation work in addition to operating the Bronx Zoo, the Central Park Zoo, the New York Aquarium, the Prospect Park Zoo, and the Queens Zoo.

Judith Leiber is an American luxury brand synonymous with elegance, style, and sophistication. Each product is created with meticulous attention to detail and flawless hand-craftsmanship. The company's products are on the cutting edge of high fashion, but are timeless classics at the same time. In addition to designing handbags and minaudieres, the company also produces eye wear, fur, and cashmere accessories.

Gallery: Judith Leiber's Spring Collection 2010

Tags: Bronx Zoo, Central Park Zoo, costume institute, Judith Leiber, metropolitan museum of art, Minaudiere, Wildlife conservation society

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Dining Like Alexander the Great

by Amy Cortese (RSS feed) —

Filed under: Dining, Events, Art

Our little group attracted curious stares and a hanger-on or two as we made our way through the Metropolitan Museum of Art's hallowed halls. Maybe that was because at each stop, be it a frescoed fragment of an ancient palace, a Bodhisattva statue, or an ornate mummy, the discussion turned quickly to food: the rice and sour cherries served at a palace feast at Persepolis; the exotic fruits and spices of India; the culinary treats buried with those ancient foodies, the Egyptian Pharaohs. A stomach growled amid the din.

Then again, this was no conventional museum tour. This was Artbites.

The brainchild of Maite Gomez-Rejón, a trained chef and historian and our guide that evening, Artbites melds art, history and cuisine through classes that combine museum trips with hands-on cooking instruction. Gomez-Rejon's subjects range from the Aztecs to Leonardo da Vinci (who knew he was a vegetarian?) to Thomas Jefferson. Although she is based in Los Angeles and holds most of her classes at the Getty Center and other museums in the area, Gomez-Rejon frequently jets to other cities for classes, like the one I was at in New York. (See a schedule here).

This evening, we were tracing the victorious route of Alexander the Great (356–323 BC), the Macedonian king and general who, along with his army of 44,000 hungry men, traveled 22,000 miles from Greece to Egypt, Syria, Mesopotamia, Persia and India in a 12-year trail of conquest and culinary discovery.

Tags: art history, Artbites, cooking classes, Metropolitan Museum of Art, museum, persepolis

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Picasso Revealed and Revered at the Met

by Bobbie Leigh (RSS feed) —

Filed under: Events, Art

You think you've seen it all? Not a chance. Picasso may be the most researched artist of all time, even his laundry receipts have been studied, but the new exhibition at New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art yields something new at every turn. "Picasso in the Metropolitan Museum of Art" showcases some 300 works, the museum's complete collection of the artist's paintings, drawings, sculptures, ceramics, and works on paper.

The show's magic comes from its all encompassing range starting with a 1900 self-portrait of Picasso at 19 (and yes, he was a knockout) and ending with an exuberant musketeer, painted when he was 87. What's totally new and positively riveting are a series of10 videos that demonstrate how Picasso worked, reworked, and revised. Just one example is his melancholy 1901 "Woman Ironing," depicting a sad-faced woman pushing down vigorously on one of those heavy irons that had to be heated on a hot stove. The Met's technical team revealed that originally her knuckles were visible and the slope of her neck was amended. The scientific analysis also showed that there is a totally different composition beneath the final painting. One theory is that either Picasso or another artist painted the earliest version. Now, totally restored, it is a supreme example of Picasso's one time conviction that "art emanates from sadness and pain."

Tags: art exhibit, art exhibits, metropolitan museum of art, Pablo Picasso, picasso

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Don't Poke The Picasso

by Deidre Woollard (RSS feed) —

Filed under: Art

Another rare Picasso painting has been the victim of an unfortunate accident. The Actor, a tall six foot by four foot painting completed by Picasso during his Rose Period in 1905, has been at the New York' City's Metropolitan Museum of Art for years. It was damaged last week when a woman who was at the museum attending an adult education art class, lost her balance and fell against the painting. The $80 million piece received a 6-inch vertical tear. A press release from the Met says the painting was immediately taken to the museum's paintings conservation studio for evaluation and treatment. The good news is that the damage was in the lower right hand corner and can be restored. The restored painting will be part of an upcoming exhibit of 250 works of art by the painter at the Met set to run April 27 through August 1, 2010.

The unusually larger canvas originally had another painting on it. The painting was part of Picasso's shift from the more somber Blue period to the more cheerful Rose period which featured warmer colors and a more energetic style. The Actor was given to The Metropolitan Museum of Art by Chrysler heiress Thelma Chrysler Foy in 1952.

Casino mogul Stephen Wynn. who suffers from retinitis pigmentosa, an eye disease that has damaged his peripheral vision, put his elbow through his beloved painting, Picasso's 1932 'Le Reve' in 2006. At the time Wynn was reportedly ready to sell the work for $139 million even though he had at one point considered naming his hotel after it (instead the name went to a show at the resort). This work was also the victim of a six-inch tear, this one in a more obvious place, the left forearm of the figure. Wynn took the incident as a sign and did not sell the painting. After a $90,000 repair, the painting was evaluated to be worth $85 million.

Tags: blue period, BluePeriod, le reve, LeReve, metropolitan museum of art, MetropolitanMuseumOfArt, picasso, picassso accident, PicasssoAccident, rose period, RosePeriod, the actor, TheActor

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