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Art exhibit review

This article traces the religious history of The Cloisters, the branch of The Metropolitan Museum of Art devoted to medieval European architecture and art in northern Manhattan, providing a case study of how Americans have used images of the medieval to articulate a moralistic American spirituality. It focuses on particular moments in the museum's history—the 1914 museum created by sculptor George Grey Barnard; the 1938 opening of The Met Cloisters, funded by John D. Rockefeller, Jr.; its reception in the mid-twentieth century; a series of Episcopal Masses in the 1970s; and the spring 2018 exhibit Heavenly Bodies: Fashion and the Catholic Imagination—in order to unpack and contextualize the changes and constants in the visual vocabulary of religion at this museum. Throughout the twentieth century, founders, donors, curators, critics, and visitors saw a "right" way to respond emotionally to The Cloisters. One's response to the museum demonstrated not only one's sensitivity but also one's character, especially the moral superiority of elite white Protestant men. In the twenty-first century, the design of Heavenly Bodies and its reception both drew upon and pushed back against the masculine Protestant paradigm of American medievalism that had long been established at The Cloisters. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article examines the contribution of the British art historian and critic Roger Fry to the study of Italian painting of the Renaissance, his role in the noble community of that time, work on the search for works for large museums (special attention is paid to his relations with the Metropolitan Museum and its patron J.P. Morgan) and attribution problems. The study notes the evolution of Fry's views, going from interests in Italian art to the works of modern masters and the creation of a theory of “significant form”.

Professor Mark JP Wolf from Concordia University Wisconsin in Mequon takes us on a historical journey, discussing significant aspects and precedents of the practice of worldbuilding, from the ancient Egyptians to JRR Tolkien and George Lucas. He demonstrates that worldbuilding is a deep part of the rich history of human culture, and key to humanity's imagination. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

La present recerca es basa en l’exhumació i la interpretació de fonts inèdites procedents sobretot de l’arxiu del Metropolitan Museum of Art, de Nova York. Són documents que detallen minuciosament el procés de venda dels magnífics frescs medievals de la Torre del Tesoro del monestir de San Pedro de Arlanza (Burgos) al Metropolitan Museum of Art per part de Josep Colominas i Roca i Josep Gudiol i Ricart, a la vegada que també evidencia els mecanismes del comerç de l’art, fenomen que constitueix una de les columnes vertebrals de la història del col·leccionisme i que il·lumina les dramàtiques vicissituds d’aquests frescs medievals als dos costats de l’Atlàntic.

Research for the final report of a large Middle Kingdom tomb dug jointly by the fifth Earl of Carnarvon and The Metropolitan Museum of Art provides provenance information for 12 writing boards from Carnarvon tombs on the West Bank at Luxor. Through disparate records at the Griffith Institute Oxford, Egyptian Museum Cairo, and The Metropolitan Museum of Art New York, the tablets can now be assigned to a small area below or adjacent to Hatshepsut's valley temple. The results put the texts into a broader cultural context at the same time that the study illustrates the fragility of information from excavations that deserve to be accurately and widely known. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the great age of museum institutionalization between 1875 and 1925, museums competed to form collections in newly defined object categories. Yet museums were uncertain about what to collect, as the boundaries between art and anthropology and between art and craft were fluid and contested. As a case study, this article traces the tortured fate of a large collection of folk pottery assembled by New York art patron Emily de Forest (1851-1942). After assembling her private collection, Mrs. de Forest encountered difficulties in donating it to the American Museum of Natural History and the Metropolitan Museum of Art. After becoming part of the Philadelphia Museum of Art, it finally found a home at the Pennsylvania State Museum of Anthropology. Emily de Forest represents an initial movement in the estheticization of ethnic and folk crafts, an appropriation that has since led to the establishment of specifically defined museums of folk art and craft. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

For over a century, art museums and related cultural institutions have increased collections access through outreach exhibitions. Outreach exhibitions, located in schools, libraries, and other social or educational spaces distinct from galleries, enable museums to demonstrate their commitment to public service by literally and figuratively mobilizing their collections. Yet these exhibitions also highlight the significance of community involvement in curation, with custodians, teachers, and other personnel contributing to the logistics of installation and the shaping of interpretation. This article considers the institutional and community relationships underpinning art outreach exhibitions by examining two interwar initiatives: the Metropolitan Museum of Art's Neighborhood Circulating Exhibitions and the federal community art centers (CACs). One program focused on expanding the Met's presence within New York City by circulating objects from the permanent collection to different sites in the metropolitan area. The other introduced viewers to contemporary American art on a national scale. Both initiatives sought to demonstrate institutional relevance by broadening access to original works of art, but the curatorial staffs in each organization did not work alone. Interactions between non-museum staff and volunteers as well as museum personnel shaped their appearance and content, from the selection of appropriate sites to the maintenance of objects. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In 1884–1885, George Frederic Watts, Britain’s most famous painter, became the first living artist to stage a solo exhibition at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City. The show attracted one million visitors and by the end of 1885, Watts was internationally recognised as ‘the greatest painter since the old masters’. Yet the process of organising the exhibition forced Watts to confront both the cultural and the physical distance separating Britain from America. Watts’s letters to the Metropolitan Museum as well as to the exhibition’s young curator, Mary Gertrude Mead reveal the merits, responsibilities and trials of transatlantic celebrity in the nineteenth century. This essay, the first in-depth discussion of Watts’s Metropolitan Museum exhibition, addresses how the Victorian era’s most prominent artist managed his reputation, envisioned his relationship to America and, through the legacy of his art, attempted to secure lasting fame. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Diasporic Chinese gardens are both aesthetic spaces showcasing Chinese artistic and cultural expressions and social spaces reflecting the social, economic and institutional circumstances of different historical eras. This article examines two Chinese gardens in the United States - the Astor Court at the Metropolitan Museum of Art (1981) and Liu Fang Yuan ('Garden of Flowing Fragrance') in the Huntington Library, California (2008). By looking into the construction, exhibition and interpretation of these two garden spaces, this examination will explore the sociocultural politics behind three decades of exhibiting 'Chinese-ness' in America and how it is contextual and continuously changing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Art Trek is a learning programme for families with children between the ages of 5 and 12 at Metropolitan Museum of Art (Met). It interactively exposes children to different artworks across cultures and styles in multiple artistic experiences, by questioning, listening, discussing, playing and drawing in a group setting. With access to museums at an early age, children can experience impressive images, explore cultures and develop skills to interpret visual language. I was able to observe the Art Trek programme with five pre-service elementary art teachers who were university undergraduate students in an art methods class I taught. In this article, I will discuss the importance of art and museum education for children at an early age. I then will address some suggestions on how art and museum educators can provide more meaningful and quality art experiences for young children as they view and explore works of art. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In its phenomenally popular 1929 exhibition "The Architect and the Industrial Arts," the Metropolitan Museum of Art used the period room type of display to showcase modern designs for the home and workplace. This article traces a three-part genealogy of the Metropolitan's installation design, which derived from displays of modern furnishings in New York department stores, modernist movie sets, and the American Wing period rooms at the museum itself. The article argues that despite the modern style of the designs on display, the exhibition, through its installation architecture, actually promoted a conservative, backward-looking lifestyle governed by establishment taste and traditional gender identities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Between 1909 and 1929, John Cotton Dana directed New Jersey's Newark Museum and pioneered the museum exhibition of mass-produced goods, initiating a trend among American art museums, including the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Museum of Modern Art in New York. Through his work, Dana hoped to reform the museum community, society and industry. He saw his museum's activities as a progressive response to the problems of increased industrialization, an expanding consumer culture and the country's search for a national aesthetic based on the machine. This paper examines Dana's influence by investigating his correspondence, publications and exhibitions, including the first display in America of modern industrial design, the 1912 exhibit of the work of the Deutscher Werkbund. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]