top of page
Writer's pictureBrown Harris Stevens

The Metropolitan Museum of Art is Open with a 150th Anniversary Exhibition

Updated: Sep 23, 2020

by Bart Boehlert

Previously over its long history, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the grand dame of the city’s arts institutions, had only been closed for three days. But like other museums in the city, it shut down on March for over five months due to the pandemic. Now, happily, the great building is accessible again and welcoming visitors. The Museum is open five days a week (closed Tuesdays and Wednesdays) and limiting capacity to 25%. Timed tickets can be purchased on the website. Since more New Yorkers are biking, the Museum is offering a complimentary bike valet service through September 27th. Each visitor’s temperature is taken before entry and masks are required.

Painting “The Metropolitan Museum of Art when in Fourteenth Street” by Frank Waller,  1881
“The Metropolitan Museum of Art when in Fourteenth Street” by Frank Waller, 1881

Once inside, an advantage of the new restrictions is that the Museum is not overly crowded; there is plenty of space and room to enjoy the art. Up the grand staircase and down a few halls is a gorgeous, new exhibition which celebrates its 150th anniversary this year called “Making the Met: 1870-2020.” In ten galleries featuring 250 works of art culled from the museum’s 1,500,000 pieces, this show tells the story of one of the world’s premier art institutions.

This version of the Met from 1895 with a southern entrance has now been completely surrounded by additions.

Feeling that New York City should have a museum after the Civil War, a group of ambitious businessmen incorporated the Met in 1870, though it had no building, no art and no staff. At first, the museum was temporarily housed in the Douglas Mansion at 128 West 14th Street. In 1880, it opened on its current site on Fifth Avenue in a Gothic building designed by architects Calvert Vaux and Jacob Wrey Mould, which has since been completely surrounded by expansions. The Museum's Beaux-Arts Fifth Avenue facade and Great Hall, designed by the architect Richard Morris Hunt, opened to the public in December 1902. More recently architect Kevin Roche oversaw a modern master plan, and today the Met encompasses 2,000,000 square feet of floor space, is a quarter of a mile long, and spans 5,000 years of art.

“La Grenouillère” by Claude Monet, 1869

The “Making the Met” show took two and a half years to organize reports Laura Corey, Senior Research Associate who worked on it closely with Andrea Bayer, Deputy Director of Collections and Administration. The 17 curatorial departments of the museum proposed a total of 1,000 art works which were winnowed down to the 250 treasures that are now displayed in ten themed galleries. A central hall runs through the galleries so visitors can wander between them, and at the end a window was uncovered to reveal a verdant view of Central Park and the obelisk “Cleopatra’s Needle.” “It’s a big exhibit with a lot of stories so people can pick and chose what they want to see,” observes Corey.

“Madame X” by John Singer Sargent, 1884

The show is indeed a rich eyeful, and worth more than one visit. On display is the sheer ambition of the Met, which started with nothing and matured in stature to acquire the best of the best. “It grew in its commitment to collect masterpieces of art from everywhere,” says Corey, “and has become the greatest collection of human achievement.”


1 comment

Related Posts

See All

1 Comment


Evelynn
Evelynn
Sep 04

I booked my Chernobyl trip through https://chernobylstory.com/ after reading some great reviews, and it did not disappoint. What made this tour special was the all-inclusive nature of it—everything was taken care of. The radiation levels were surprisingly low, and having a personal dosimeter gave me peace of mind. The guides had firsthand knowledge, having spent years as stalkers, and their stories added so much to the experience. This is a fantastic option for anyone looking for a deep dive into Chernobyl’s history.

Like
Sign up to receive curated listings and market insights straight to your inbox.

Thanks for submitting!

bottom of page