The Philippe de Montebello Years

"The Philippe de Montebello Years: Curators Celebrate Three Decades of Acquisitions" honored the outstanding quality and diversity of the Museum’s collections as they were enhanced during Philippe de Montebello’s tenure as director. The Forum of Curators, Conservators, and Research Scientists suggested an exhibition as a parting gift to the director as he was leaving the Museum. Its members provided lists of works they considered transformative to the Museum's collections that had been acquired during the more than thirty-one years of Philippe de Montebello's tenure. This was far from easy, as the Museum acquired more than 84,000 works under his auspices. The Museum’s Director’s Council provided invaluable advice. The heads of the Metropolitan Museum’s seventeen curatorial departments reviewed the suggested works of art and undertook the extremely difficult task of reducing their departmental lists to the number of works that could be accommodated in our largest gallery space. The director added a few paintings by Lorenzo Monaco and Salvator Rossi that were of special significance to him, as he had urged the Museum to acquire them in 1965 when he was an assistant curator in the Department of European Paintings.

The resulting exhibition of approximately three hundred masterpieces was an explosive kaleidoscope of works in various materials representing artistic traditions that range across the globe and across time. The decision to arrange the diverse selection of works primarily by their year of acquisition by the Museum allowed exciting juxtapositions in the galleries that would not be possible in a standard museum installation arranged by geography, medium, or time. Monumental Renaissance paintings appeared with elaborate medieval miniature objects; massive stone carvings with delicate modern gowns; sophisticated French textiles and furniture with powerful American decorative objects; and vibrantly realistic modern images with abstract forms.

For the first time in its history, the Museum published this exciting selection of works in this online exhibition catalogue, which remains accessible even after the exhibition has closed. This innovative presentation, which, while also arranged by the year of acquisition, allows visitors to view works from the exhibition in any order, creates a kaleidoscope of images similar to that which was experienced in the galleries. Each work can be explored in depth in various ways. The accompanying curatorial comments provide insight into the importance of each acquisition to the Museum's collections. These catalogue entries are modeled on the Museum’s Recent Acquisition bulletins, whose publication was one of Philippe de Montebello's early initiatives as director. Links to the Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History, another innovation of the director's tenure, provide the larger art historical context for each work.

The entire staff of the Museum joined together to produce both this exhibition and this online catalogue as a gift to Philippe de Montebello. We welcome you to explore the results of our first truly Museum-wide exhibition, a celebration of three decades of masterful acquisitions.

Helen C. Evans Coordinating Curator, "The Philippe de Montebello Years: Curators Celebrate Three Decades of Acquisitions" Mary and Michael Jaharis Curator for Byzantine Art, The Department of Medieval Art and The Cloisters Exhibition Credits

Helen C. Evans, the Metropolitan Museum’s Mary and Michael Jaharis Curator of Byzantine Art, coordinated the exhibition. The installation of the exhibition was overseen by Jeff Daly, senior design adviser to the director for capital and special projects. Graphic design was by Sophia Geronimus, senior graphic designer, and lighting by Clint Coller and Richard Lichte, senior lighting designers, all of the Museum’s Design Department under Linda Sylling. Labels and catalogue entries were edited by Pamela Barr, senior editor, Editorial.

The exhibition's website and online catalogue was produced by the Website and Information Systems and Technology Departments. Project Lead: Lasley Steever; Designer: Osamu Takahashi; Editor: Eileen Willis; Developers: Adam Plonski and Boris Smirnov; Technology Analyst: Piotr Adamczyk; Imaging Coordinators: Jackie Neale Chadwick and Carly Cohen-Bradshaw; Production Coordinator: Morgan Holzer.

The Philippe de Montebello Years: Curators Celebrate Three Decades of Acquisitions
Kurator: Helen C. Evans

Künstler: Salvator Rosa, Lorenzo Monaco, Han Gan, Ralph Earl, Jan Vermeer, Wang Hui, Bernd und Hilla Becher, Peter Paul Rubens, Guo Xi, Richard Meares, Balthus, Juan de Flandes, Luis Melendez, Lucas Cranach, Antico, Hans Baldung Grien, Mi Fu, Paul Klee, Giovanni Francesco Barbieri_il Guercino, Willem De Kooning, Joachim Tielke, Augustus Saint-Gaudens, Mark Rothko, Il Riccio, Hermann Hauser, Alexandre-Jean Oppenordt, Auguste Rodin, Jean Berain, Umbo , Louis Jaley, Frederic Bazille, John Wood Dodge, David Tecchler, Carleton E. Watkins, Théodore Géricault, Charles Guillaume Diehl, Jean Brandely, Emmanuel Fremiet, Johann Valentin Gevers, Johann Andreas Thelot, John Ramage, Albert Ernest Carrier-Belleuse, Germain Bapst, Lucien Falize, Jean-Baptiste Carpeaux, Jean Drouart, Eugène Delacroix, Jean-Antoine Houdon, Huang Tingjian, Paul Revere Jr., Bartholomeus Breenbergh, Hans von Reutlingen, Otto Dix, Pablo Picasso, Sigmar Polke, Sesson Shukei, Vincent van Gogh, John W. Forbes, Andrea Casalini, Thomas P. Anshutz, Pietro Perugino, Giovanni Battista Foggini, Joachim Wtewael, Lucian Freud, Charles Rennie Mackintosh, Agostino Carracci, Pierre-Paul Prudhon, Giovanni Battista Piranesi, Childe Hassam, Philippe de Champaigne, Jean-Honoré Fragonard, Bernard van Orley, Anselm Kiefer, Jan Bruegel der Ältere, Parmigianino, Samuel Colt, Charles-Honore Lannuier, Edmond Bacot, Filarete , Thomas Struth, Stefano da Verona, Adeline Harris Sears, Constantin Brancusi, Paul Gauguin, Adriaen van Ostade, Francesco Guardi, Raffael , Claude Lorrain, Roger Fenton, Alfred Stieglitz, Bartholomeus Spranger, Domenico Zampieri, Jasper Johns, Master GG, Walker Evans, Andrea Amati, Tizian, Henri Matisse, Leonardo da Vinci, Caspar David Friedrich, William Ellis, Ludovico Carracci, Jan Gossaert, Francesco Salviati, Jacques Bellange, Winslow Homer, Francois M. Guyol de Guiran, Seydou Keita, Ignaz Josef Würth, Francois-Pascal-Simon Gerard, Richard Avedon, Nicolas Poussin, Pietro Lorenzetti, Joan Miró, Balthasar Permoser, Pietro da Cortona, Urs Graf, Edgar Degas, Camille Corot, Benedetto Pistrucci, Henry Inman, Thomas Seir Cummings, Giuseppe Girometti, Duccio di Buoninsegna, Jean Bourdichon, Onesipe Aguado, Samuel F. B. Morse, C. Lacroix, Aelbert Cuyp, Hans Hoffmann, Robert Rauschenberg, Thomas Townsend, Jacques de Gheyn der Ältere, Charles Willson Peale, John Singleton Copley, Sarah Goodridge, Jackson Pollock, Matteo Cecchi, Jean-Demosthene Dugourc, Georg Henrich Scherer, Johan Christian Dahl, Theodore Robinson.