THE METROPOLITAN
MUSEUM OF ART
Annual Report
for the Year
2022 – 2023
The Metropolitan Museum of Art
One Hundred Fifty-ird Annual Report of the Trustees
for the Fiscal Year July , , through June ,
Presented to the Board of Trustees of e Metropolitan Museum of Art November ,
2
Co-Chairs
Candace K. Beinecke
Hamilton E. James
Vice Chair
Richard Lockwood
Chilton, Jr.
Elective Trustees
Term Ending
October2023
Samantha Boardman
N. Anthony Coles
Blair Eron
Colvin Grannum
(Brooklyn)
Caroline Diamond
Harrison (Staten
Island)
J. Tomilson Hill
Sacha Lainovic
Bijan Mossavar-
Rahmani
John Pritzker
Term Ending
October2024
James Breyer
Richard Lockwood
Chilton, Jr.
Stephen M. Cutler
Alejandro Santo
Domingo
Beatrice Stern
Karen Patton
Seymour
Gaby Sulzberger
Anna Wintour
Term Ending
October2025
Candace K. Beinecke
Debra Black
Ursula Burns
Wellington Z. Chen
(Queens)
Amy Grin
Je Himmelman
Hamilton E. James
Philip F. Maritz
Paul Ruddock
David S. Winter
Term Ending
October2026
Mark Fisch
Jerey W. Greenberg
Catie Marron
Dasha Niarchos
Gina Peterson
Ann G. Tenenbaum
Merryl H. Tisch
Term Ending
October2027
Michael ByungJu Kim
Edward N. Pick
Andrew Solomon
Mathew M. Wambua
(Bronx)
Julia Koch
Aerin Lauder
Ex Ocio Trustees
Eric Adams
Mayor of New York
City
Adrienne Adams
Speaker, New York
City Council
Brad Lander
Comptroller of New
York City
Susan Donoghue
Commissioner of
Parks & Recreation
Laurie Cumbo
Commissioner of
Cultural Aairs
Max Hollein
Marina Kellen
French Director
andChief Executive
Ocer,
eMetropolitan
Museum of Art
Trustees Emeriti
Renée Belfer
Daniel Brodsky
Iris Cantor
Russell L. Carson
Marina Kellen French
Conrad K. Harper
Bonnie B.
Himmelman
Philip H. Isles
Henry A. Kissinger
Howard Marks
Barnabas McHenry
Joyce Frank Menschel
Mary R. Morgan
Eliot C. Nolen
Jerey M. Peek
Robert M. Pennoyer
Cynthia Hazen Polsky
Annette de la Renta
Frank E. Richardson
E. John Rosenwald, Jr.
James J. Ross
Bonnie J. Sacerdote
Andrew M. Saul
David T. Schi
Oscar L. Tang
Lulu C. Wang
Shelby White
Malcolm H. Wiener
Barrie A. Wigmore
Honorary Trustees
Mrs. Russell B. Aitken
Nita M. Ambani
Adrienne Arsht
W.L. Lyons Brown
Betsy Cohen
Karen B. Cohen
Charles M. Diker
Aaron I. Fleischman
Ming Chu Hsu
Mary Jaharis
Rahmi M. Koç
Linda Macklowe
Musa Mayer
John A. Moran
Sheikha Hussa Sabah
al-Salem al-Sabah
James E. Shipp
David Tobey
Marica F. Vilcek
Mary J. Wallach
Charlotte C. Weber
Committees of the
Board of Trustees
Candace K. Beinecke
Hamilton E. James
Co-Chairs
Samantha Boardman
Richard Lockwood
Chilton, Jr.
N. Anthony Coles
Stephen M. Cutler
Blair Eron
Mark Fisch
Colvin W. Grannum
Jerey W. Greenberg
Sacha Lainovic
Philip F. Maritz
Bijan Mossavar-
Rahmani
John Pritzker
Alejandro Santo
Domingo
Andrew Solomon
Mathew M. Wambua
Advisory
Daniel Brodsky
Howard Marks
Eliot C. Nolen
Jerey M. Peek
Cynthia Hazen Polsky
Annette de la Renta
Frank E. Richardson
E. John Rosenwald, Jr.
Bonnie J. Sacerdote
Oscar L. Tang
Lulu C. Wang
Shelby White
Ex Ocio
Max Hollein
Mark Fisch
Chair
Debra Black
Richard Lockwood
Chilton, Jr.
Amy Grin
J. Tomilson Hill
Michael ByungJu Kim
Julia Koch
Dasha Niarchos
Gina Peterson
John Pritzker
Sir Paul Ruddock
Alejandro Santo
Domingo
Beatrice Stern
Ann G. Tenenbaum
David S. Winter
Advisory
Mrs. Russell B. Aitken
Renée Belfer
Daniel Brodsky
Marina Kellen French
Linda Macklowe
Howard Marks
Joyce Frank Menschel
Cynthia Hazen Polsky
Annette de la Renta
Frank E. Richardson
James J. Ross
Andrew M. Saul
David T. Schi
Oscar L. Tang
David Tobey
Mary J. Wallach
Lulu C. Wang
Charlotte C. Weber
Shelby White
Ex Ocio
Candace K. Beinecke
Hamilton E. James
Max Hollein
By Invitation
Ronald S. Lauder
Bijan Mossavar-
Rahmani
Chair
Ursula Burns
Jerey W. Greenberg
Caroline Diamond
Harrison
Gaby Sulzberger
Advisory
Philip H. Isles
Jerey M. Peek
Shelby White
Ex Ocio
Candace K. Beinecke
Hamilton E. James
Philip F. Maritz
Chair
Mark Fisch
John Pritzker
Alejandro Santo
Domingo
David S. Winter
Advisory
Daniel Brodsky
Marina Kellen French
Shelby White
Ex Ocio
Candace K. Beinecke
Hamilton E. James
Max Hollein
Candace K. Beinecke
Hamilton E. James
Co-Chairs
Richard Lockwood
Chilton, Jr.
N. Anthony Coles
Stephen M. Cutler
Blair Eron
Sacha Lainovic
Chair
Richard Lockwood
Chilton, Jr.
John Pritzker
Alejandro Santo
Domingo
Beatrice Stern
Ann G. Tenenbaum
Merryl H. Tisch
Advisory
Jerey M. Peek
Lulu Wang
Ex Ocio
Candace K. Beinecke
Hamilton E. James
Max Hollein
Colvin W. Grannum
Chair
N. Anthony Coles
Blair Eron
Catie Marron
Gina Peterson
Karen Patton
Seymour
Andrew Solomon
Gaby Sulzberger
Mathew M. Wambua
Advisory
Daniel Brodsky
Ex Ocio
Candace K. Beinecke
Hamilton E. James
Max Hollein
Mathew M. Wambua
Chair
Wellington Z. Chen
Colvin W. Grannum
Jerey W. Greenberg
Caroline Diamond
Harrison
Andrew Solomon
Merryl H. Tisch
David S. Winter
Advisory
Joyce Frank Menschel
James J. Ross
Ex Ocio
Candace K. Beinecke
Hamilton E. James
Max Hollein
By Invitation
Robert C. Clauser
Robert Denning
Stacie NC Grant
Sally Minard
Ruthard Murphy
Scott Sartiano
Ken Sunshine
Lily C. Zhou
Blair Eron
Chair
Richard Lockwood
Chilton, Jr.
e Board of Trustees As of July ,
3
Mark Fisch
Jerey W. Greenberg
Philip F. Maritz
Catie Marron
Bijan Mossavar-
Rahmani
Merryl H. Tisch
David S. Winter
Advisory
Daniel Brodsky
Philip H. Isles
Howard Marks
Frank E. Richardson
E. John Rosenwald, Jr.
Andrew M. Saul
Lulu C. Wang
Shelby White
Ex Ocio
Candace K. Beinecke
Hamilton E. James
Max Hollein
N. Anthony Coles
Chair
Mark Fisch
Jerey W. Greenberg
Caroline Diamond
Harrison
Michael ByungJu Kim
Philip F. Maritz
Catie Marron
Mathew M. Wambua
Ex Ocio
Candace K. Beinecke
Hamilton E. James
Max Hollein
Samantha Boardman
Andrew Solomon
Co-Chairs
Debra Black
James W. Breyer
Ursula Burns
Amy Grin
Je Himmelman
Ann G. Tenenbaum
Advisory
Adrienne Arsht
Betsy Cohen
Jerey M. Peek
Bonnie J. Sacerdote
Lulu C. Wang
Shelby White
Ex Ocio
Candace K. Beinecke
Hamilton E. James
Max Hollein
Richard Lockwood
Chilton, Jr.
Chair
Michael ByungJu Kim
Sacha Lainovic
Edward N. Pick
Advisory
Russell L. Carson
Howard Marks
Frank E. Richardson
Lulu C. Wang
Barrie A. Wigmore
Ex Ocio
Candace K. Beinecke
Hamilton E. James
Max Hollein
By Invitation
Stephen Roach
Stephen M. Cutler
Chair
Mark Fisch
Karen Patton
Seymour
Advisory
Frank E. Richardson
Malcolm H. Wiener
Ex Ocio
Candace K. Beinecke
Hamilton E. James
Alejandro Santo
Domingo
Chair
Richard Lockwood
Chilton, Jr.
N. Anthony Coles
Blair Eron
Edward N. Pick
Merryl H. Tisch
Advisory
Daniel Brodsky
Annette de la Renta
Frank E. Richardson
Lulu C. Wang
Ex Ocio
Candace K. Beinecke
Hamilton E. James
Max Hollein
Jerey W. Greenberg
Chair
Debra Black
Aerin Lauder
Sir Paul Ruddock
Alejandro Santo
Domingo
Beatrice Stern
Merryl H. Tisch
Advisory
Daniel Brodsky
Betsy Cohen
Charles M. Diker
Jerey M. Peek
Andrew M. Saul
Ex Ocio
Candace K. Beinecke
Hamilton E. James
Max Hollein
By Invitation
Sushmita Banerjee
Sta Ocers
Max Hollein
Marina Kellen
French Director and
Chief Executive
Ocer
Andrea Bayer
Deputy Director for
Collections and
Administration
Sharon H. Cott
Senior Vice President,
Secretary, and
General Counsel
Whitney W.
Donhauser
Deputy Director and
Chief Advancement
Ocer
Inka Drögemüller
Deputy Director for
Digital, Education,
Publications,
Imaging, Libraries,
and Live Arts
Jhaelen Hernandez Eli
Vice President,
Construction
Quincy Houghton
Deputy Director for
Exhibitions
Jameson Kelleher
Chief Operating
Ocer, Chief
Financial Ocer
andTreasurer
Lauren A. Meserve
Senior Vice President
and Chief Investment
Ocer
Kenneth N. Weine
Senior Vice President
for External Aairs
and Chief
Communications
Ocer
4
As of scal year –, the Annual Report is published in a simplied format that both reects its uses within the institution and aligns with best practices
at many of e Met’s peer institutions.
Copyright © by e Metropolitan Museum of Art, Fifth Avenue, New York, NY -. Published by e Metropolitan Museum of Art.
Editing and Production: External Aairs Department, e Metropolitan Museum of Art
Typeset by Matt Mayerchak
5
e Board of Trustees
Report from the Director
Mission Statement
Exhibitions and Installations
Museum Publications
Report from the Chief Financial Ocer
Contents
6
F
or e Metropolitan Museum of Art, scal year was a year of
building across disciplines, deepening our engagement as a univer-
sal museum in service to the world, and transitioning to a new
leadership structure, following the retirement of Daniel H. Weiss, the
Museum’s President and CEO, at the end of the scal year, on June ,
. In January , the Board of Trustees determined that the struc-
ture that would best ensure strong leadership through inevitable chal-
lenges and the advancement of timely new initiatives would be one with
the Director adding Chief Executive Ocer to the title, while adding
the newly created position of Chief Operating Ocer, reporting to the
Director. In August, the Board appointed me, the Museum’s Marina
Kellen French Director, as the CEO, eective July , .
Dan Weiss, e Met’s President since and President and CEO
since , led the Museum through unprecedented times, and in the
face of historic challenges — nancial, infrastructure, and societal — the
Museum has emerged a stronger institution with its position intact as
one of the most programmatically robust and nancially strong
cultural institutions in the world. His vision, commitment to mission,
and ability to inspire a large and diverse team of Museum colleagues
has left us with the legacy of an experienced and ambitious leadership
team and sta that can take e Met to still-greater levels of excel-
lence. We are immensely grateful to Dan, wish him continued success,
and are deeply appreciative that the Museum beneted from his lead-
ership for an additional year after his retirement announcement in
June .
In January, the Board also announced the appointment of an indi-
vidual to the role of COO who was already part of e Met leadership
team — Jameson Kelleher, Senior Vice President, Finance and
Operations, Chief Financial Ocer and Treasurer, since . Jamie,
who joined the Museum in as Controller and began her tenure as
COO in May, is an accomplished and experienced leader who brings
commitment, character, and empathy to the role. Her stewardship of the
Museum through dicult nancial circumstances is an outstanding
example of how an institution can take corrective actions when neces-
sary while still ensuring that it is living up to the expectations of its
mission. e intensive eort she led to reengineer all aspects of the
Museum’s nancial operations has helped the institution successfully
navigate myriad global and national crises and established a strong foun-
dation for the work ahead. Along with the Board and an accomplished
group of senior leaders in support, we share a commitment to continu-
ally improving internal structures, operations, and holistic planning
throughout the Museum and are equally dedicated to fostering collabo-
ration and coordination across departments.
In this context, e Met made continued progress this year on the
Museum’s main priorities as outlined in the Strategic Plan that we
approved in May of scal year , while delivering a year of excep-
tional programming across all of our platforms — in the galleries,
through a slate of much-anticipated exhibitions and new presentations
of our vast collection; online, through innovative and robust digital
oerings; and out in the world, through requests for our deep expertise
and engagement in a range of cultural topics as well as traveling exhibi-
tions and community events. We further strengthened our operations
and nances, including ongoing fundraising eorts, so that the Museum
has a strong foundation to support its people and its program as we
adapt to a more stable moment in the ongoing post-pandemic environ-
ment. We made steady and signicant progress toward regaining the
high visitor levels we experienced pre-COVID, and our major, transfor-
mative capital projects are all on schedule. e galleries dedicated to
European Paintings from to will reopen fully in November
, while three other capital projects — e Michael C. Rockefeller
Wing, which presents our collections of the art of sub-Saharan Africa,
Oceania, and the ancient Americas; the Ancient Near Eastern and
Cypriot Art galleries; and the Oscar L. Tang and H.M. Agnes Hsu-Tang
Wing, which will showcase modern and contemporary art — are in
earlier phases.
Another key priority this year was our work to enhance the visitor
experience, both on-site and beyond, as we evolve to meet the needs of
local, national, and global audiences. We also continued to focus on our
eorts to make the Museum a more inclusive workplace and introduced
a number of initiatives, including department-level discussions about
how our core values of respect, inclusivity, collaboration, excellence, and
integrity can help strengthen our community and incorporating our
values into the recruiting process. Many departments are still feeling the
eects of lower stang levels, and while our work in this area isn’t
nished, we made notable progress this year in lling positions and
hiring new sta.
As we look ahead, e Met is in a strong nancial position, and we
are heartened that visitation numbers have been higher than our esti-
mates. Over the next three years, we will prioritize signicant invest-
ments to improve our workplace, enhance the overall visitor experience,
and support our infrastructure. As always, we balance our nances and
operations against many external factors that may impact us, but we are
optimistic about our continued recovery and strength as a preeminent
cultural institution in service to the world.
A more in-depth look at the scope of our activities and achievements
during scal year appears below. For a detailed discussion of the
Museum’s nancial results for the year, see the “Report from the Chief
Financial Ocer” on pages –
Acquisitions
e depth and breadth of e Met collection is what allows the
Museum to present and share works with a global audience and tell
meaningful stories about them. In scal year , we enhanced our
collection through a number of key acquisitions. Below are some high-
lights, while many more are available online.
For the American Wing, the Museum acquired an extraordinary
three-part window designed by Agnes Northrop ( – ) and made
at Tiany Studios for Linden Hall in . Commissioned, conceived,
and crafted largely by women, the work — majestic in scale, magnicent
in concept and execution, and highly illusionistic in its depiction of a
lush garden landscape — advances the Museum’s focus on collecting
works by women. Northrop’s masterpiece is exceptional in how it trans-
lates nature into glass using Tiany’s innovative materials and tech-
niques. Adding strength to the Museum’s important holdings of the
work of Louis C. Tiany, it will be dramatically displayed in the Charles
Engelhard Court, seen through the loggia of Laurelton Hall, Tiany’s
Long Island country estate. Merging imagery with chromatic light, the
window will provide viewers with a powerful immersive experience —
abeautiful garden view, perennially at its peak.
e Department of Musical Instruments added to its collection this
year an exceptionally rare cello made in – by the Brothers
Amati, whose family established Cremona, Italy, as the premiere center
of violin making and developed the instruments of the violin family as
we recognize them today. e “Amaryillis Fleming” cello dates from the
earliest period of the instrument’s history, when makers experimented
with a wider range of violin-family instruments than later became stan-
dard. Of the few Amati cellos that survive, e Met’s is the only example
of the smaller-sized ve-string cello that existed alongside the more
common larger cello. It survives in largely original condition with an
unusual abundance of Amati’s famed Cremonese varnish intact. e
small, ve-string cello is famously associated with the music of J.S. Bach.
Using this instrument, the cellist Amaryllis Fleming rose to fame as the
rst player in modern times to perform Bach’s Cello Suite No. on the
instrument that best matched the specications of his music.
A rare work by a th-century woman artist, Rachel Ruysch ( –
), joined our esteemed collection in the Department of European
Paintings this year. Over a career that spanned more than six decades,
Ruysch attracted royal patronage, high prices, and eusive praise for her
still life paintings. e Met’s painting, titled Rachel Ruysch at Work, from
Report from the Director
7
, is a collaboration with the portraitist Michiel van Musscher ( –
); Ruysch contributed an extravagant oral arrangement to his
depiction of the painter in her studio. A poetic inscription on the album
of oral studies in the foreground documents the collaboration and
invites viewers to evaluate the two artists’ respective merits.
For the Department of European Sculpture and Decorative Arts we
acquired a sumptuous-looking strongbox from . An extraordinary
example of Berlin Rococo style, it is an interpretation of the rococo that
was tailored to the taste of Frederick the Great, King of Prussia (r. –
), whose name became synonymous with Rococo décor; in his
honor, it was later called “Friderizianisches Rococo.” e object may
have been used to store the King’s seal, which represented the head of
state in his absence to validate important contracts. e intricate lock,
which has sliding bolts, requires two keys and secret knowledge to
open; the keyhole to initiate the ceremony is hidden underneath the
base of one of the soldiers depicted stationed around the top. A collabo-
ration between clockmaker Alexander Fromery and court gunsmith
Christian Ludwig von der Fecht, the strongbox is an unparalleled show-
piece of both the King’s taste and his artisan’s talent.
For the Department of Asian Art, we acquired a dazzling, late s
hanging scroll, e Hell Courtesan, by the Japanese artist Utagawa
Kunisada II ( – ). e nearly life-size portrayal commands our
attention because of the sumptuously patterned robes worn by the Hell
Courtesan (Jigoku Dayū) that show gory scenes of the Buddhist hell,
presided over by Enma-ō, the King of Hell, who, seated at a table,
accompanied by scribes and assistants, reviews and records the misdeeds
of the recently deceased.
A work by Ed Clark ( – ), a key artist of the generation after
the Abstract Expressionists, was acquired for the Department of Modern
and Contemporary Art. Untitled, from , is a vibrant diptych featur-
ing bands of electric blue, variegated pinks, bright yellow, and kelly
green, disrupted or bracketed by sobering black and white that divides
the canvases into fourths. Clark worked on the oor, pouring several
layers of acrylic paint on unprimed canvas and then using a push broom
to energetically spread paint across the surface. Spontaneity and move-
ment are implied not only by the work’s swept and splattered marks but
also by the artist’s directive that the painting could be exhibited in one
of two orientations. Born in New Orleans and raised in Chicago, Clark
studied at the Art Institute of Chicago and the Académie de la Grande
Chaumiere in Paris on the G.I. Bill in the early s before returning to
New York in and then, from the late s on, splitting his time
between New York and Paris.
Our rigorous collection eorts go hand in hand with our work to
deepen and disseminate knowledge across a breadth of disciplines. In
this respect, the Museum’s omas J. Watson Library also made great
strides this year, expanding and promoting access to the library’s
collection of scholarly material by or featuring underrepresented and
marginalized artists and artistic traditions.
e Met Collection, Cultural Property, and Upcoming
Initiatives
e Met has a vast and ever-evolving collection of more than . million
objects that have been acquired throughout our -year history. e
collection spans more than , years of art history from around the
globe — from ancient to contemporary times — making e Met a truly
universal museum. As such, we steward important resources of world
heritage, and as museum collections are coming under increasingly
intense scrutiny, we welcome the growing engagement of the public in
our critical long-term work as a public-serving institution. We strive to
respond to all queries while balancing our responsibilities to the works
in our collection, to the many and varied communities aliated with
them, to their physical care, and to scholarly investigation. As a preemi-
nent voice in the global art community,it is incumbent upon e Met
to engage more intensively and proactively in examining certain areas of
our collection and to increase the resources we dedicate to this ongoing
crucial work.is process, including several new initiatives articulated
in May and described below, will build on decades of research, and
it is important that we allow whatever time is necessary for this urgent
work to be completed.
e Museum has partnered with governments and institutions
around the globe for more than a century, and in recent decades has
restituted objects to Egypt, Greece, Italy, Nigeria, and Turkey, and we
continue to return objects to their country of origin based on research
and careful study, as we did in partnership with Nepal in the rst
months of scal year . In May we announced a new collabora-
tive agreement with the Republic of Italy, Sicilian Region, that provides
for long-term loans of ancient masterpieces to the Museum and the
exchange of three-year loans between e Met and the Archaeological
Regional Museum “Antonino Salinas” of Palermo.
ree values drive our collecting activities today: research, transpar-
ency, and collaboration. Key to our progress in each of those areas is the
pioneering work we’ve done to make e Met collection — and known
ownership history for our works of art — readily available on the
Museum’s website.In March of this year, we launched a new section
onthe websitewhere the public can nd a rich array of information and
resources on e Met’s collecting practices and provenance research, and
in May we laid out four initiatives for the path ahead that allow us to be
both responsive and proactive in a complex environment that requires
that we be diligent, thoughtful, and fair. e four initiatives are: )
broaden, expedite, and intensify our research into all works that came to
the Museum from art collectors and dealers who have been under inves-
tigation; ) hire a head of provenance research, reporting to the
Director’s Oce, who will coordinate ongoing provenance research
activities in all curatorial areas, along with three additional provenance
researchers to build upon the work already underway; ) make an
expanded contribution to the public discourse on cultural property,
including convening thought leaders, advocates, and opinion makers in
the area of cultural property both within the Museum and outside; and
) facilitate counsel from both sta and Met Trustees by forming a sta
committee of curators, conservators, and others from relevant depart-
ments to consider our policies and practices in these areas and a Board
task force with the mandate of oering their experience and counsel on
collecting activities, including legal and public policy. ese initiatives
will make e Met an even stronger institution and a more powerful
voice within the global community.
Exhibitions and Publications
e Museum’s exhibition team mounted exhibitions and installations
in scal year , ranging from small collection-focused presentations
to major international loan shows. A newly dened category — special
installations — is captured at the end of this section. As these highlights
illustrate, the presentations illuminated diverse subject matter and
themes, gave voice to multiple viewpoints, and made new connections
across cultures.
Leading o the year, Chroma: Ancient Sculpture in Color opened in
July and activated our presentation of ancient Greek and Roman
art like never before. It brought history to life through rigorous research
and scientic investigation in a display of colorful reconstructions of
ancient sculptures in dialogue with over works from e Met collec-
tion. By exploring the practices and materials used in ancient
polychromy — a signicant area of study for e Met — it highlighted
cutting-edge scientic methods used to identify ancient pigments to
examine how color helped convey meaning in antiquity and how poly-
chromy has been understood in later periods.
A posthumous retrospective that celebrated the groundbreaking work
of the renowned German artists Bernd and Hilla Becher ( – ;
– ), who changed the course of late th-century photography
and whose work continues to inuence artists today, also opened in July.
e Bechers’ work focused on capturing the disappearing industrial
architecture of Western Europe and North America that fueled the
modern era, and their seemingly objective style challenged the perceived
gap between documentary and ne-art photography. Bernd & Hilla
Becher was the rst-ever presentation to be organized with full access to
the artists’ personal collection of working materials and their compre-
hensive archive.
Several summer exhibitions demonstrated the unique ability of our
Department of Asian Art, which has one of the largest and most
comprehensive collections of Asian art in the world, to provide an
8
unrivaled experience of the many artistic traditions in its focus. A Passion
for Jade: e Bishop Collection featured more than remarkable
objects, including carvings of jade, the most esteemed stone in China,
and many other hardstones, to represent the sophisticated art of Chinese
gemstone carvers during the Qing dynasty ( – ) as well as the
highly accomplished skills of Mughal Indian ( – ) craftsmen.
Embracing Color: Enamel in Chinese Decorative Arts, 1300 – 1900 revealed
the aesthetic, technical, and cultural achievement of Chinese enamel
wares by demonstrating the transformative role of enamel during the
Ming ( – ) and Qing ( – ) dynasties through more than
objects drawn mainly from e Met collection. In Korea, perform-
ing ancestral rites (jesa) is an enduring tradition that embodies respect
for parents and the commemoration of ancestors, key tenets of
Confucianism, and this summer’s Jegi: Korean Ritual Objects was a
wonderful window onto these rituals and customs. On view were vari-
ous types of ritual vessels and accessories as well as the kinds of musical
instruments played at state events.
Another summer highlight, Michael Lin’s site-specic installation
Pentachrome,visible from the Museum’s Great Hall Escalator, brings
contemporary art to the space for the rst time and was inspired by the
Chinese art that has been displayed in the Great Hall for more than a
century. Pentachromeinterrogates the relationship between these works
and the European-inspired architecture of the space, exploring and
challenging a still-evolving dynamic between the ornamental and
theauthoritative.
e rst of four installations by the Department of Drawing and
Prints, whose collection spans more than one million drawings, prints,
and illustrated books made in Europe and the Americas from around
to the present day, also opened in July. Van Gogh, Mondrian, and
Munch featured newly acquired works alongside a selection of works by
Dutch artists from the th to the st century. Sixteenth-century orna-
ment drawings and prints from the Netherlands, Spain, and Italy were
also on view, as well as designs for decorative arts and interiors and
images of birds from the late th to the st century.
e fall season was distinguished by several groundbreaking
exhibitions, starting with Hear Me Now: e Black Potters of Old
Edgeeld, South Carolina, the rst exhibition at e Met to foreground
the work of enslaved African Americans. Organized by e Met and the
Museum of Fine Arts Boston, it centered on the work of Black potters
in the th-century American South, presenting their ceramic creations
from Old Edgeeld, a center of stoneware production in the decades
before the Civil War, alongside contemporary responses. e result was
an exploration of this distinct artistic legacy through the lens of history,
literature, anthropology, material culture, diaspora, and African
American studies. It included monumental storage jars by enslaved and
literate potter and poet David Drake alongside rare examples of the
region’s utilitarian wares as well as enigmatic face vessels by unrecorded
makers. Following the exhibition’s debut at e Met, it traveled to the
Museum of Fine Arts, Boston (March – July , ) and the
University of Michigan Museum of Art, Ann Arbor (August , –
January , ), and next year will be on view at the High Museum
ofArt, Atlanta (February – May , ).
e third in our Facade Commission series, Hew Locke’s Gilt, was
another fall highlight. e artist’s four visually striking, thought-
provoking sculptures considered the assumed power of trophies and
their false fronts while reecting on the exercise and representation of
power. It referenced works from e Met collection to address the repre-
sentational potential and underlying questions of objects while empha-
sizing the complex histories of exchange that stretch across continents,
oceans, and time periods.
October’s e Tudors: Art and Majesty in Renaissance England took a new
approach to the well-known era of the Tudors, providing viewers with
greater insight into the ways in which an international community of
artists and merchants navigated the high-stakes demands of royal patrons
while also contributing to the emergence of a distinctly English style.
Organized by e Met and e Cleveland Museum of Art in collaboration
with the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, it traced the transformation
of the arts in Tudor England through more than objects — including
iconic portraits, spectacular tapestries, manuscripts, sculpture, and
armor — from both e Met collection and a multitude of international
lenders. Highlights included Hans Holbein the Younger’s most important
royal portrait and a trio of monumental bronzes by Benedetto da
Rovezzano that were temporarily reunited thanks to the generous partner-
ship of the V&A, the Ghent Cathedral, and the Flemish Government.
Following the exhibition’s debut at e Met, it was presented at e
Cleveland Museum of Art (February – May , ) and the Fine Arts
Museums of San Francisco (June – September , ).
e groundbreaking Cubism and the Trompe l’Oeil Tradition, another
October exhibition, oered a radically new view of Cubism by demon-
strating that many qualities seen as distinct to Cubism were, in fact,
exploited by trompe l’oeil specialists over the centuries. ese include
the at picture plane; the invasion of the “real” world into the pictorial
one; the mimicry of materials; and the inclusion of print media and
advertising replete with coded references to artist, patron, and current
events. Along with Cubist paintings, sculptures, and collages, it
presented canonical examples of European and American trompe l’oeil
painting from the th through the th century.
Lives of the Gods: Divinity in Maya Art opened in November and
was a thrilling presentation of more than rarely seen masterpieces
and recent discoveries — many of which were on view in the United
States for the rst time — by Maya artists of the royal cities of the Classic
period (A.D. – ), who lived in what is now Belize, El Salvador,
Guatemala, Honduras, and Mexico. From the monumental to the
miniature, their works — from exquisitely carved, towering sculptures to
jade, shell, and obsidian ornaments that adorned kings and queens —
evoked a world in which the divine, human, and natural realms are
interconnected and alive.
e rst of two focused exhibitions in Asian art last fall highlighted
the ways in which manifestations of the natural world are found nearly
everywhere in Chinese art — from simple objects for the home to fancy
vessels for the imperial court, from popular prints to meticulously
crafted paintings. Noble Virtues: Nature as Symbol in Chinese Art was a
reminder of how a vignette of the natural world could become a celebra-
tion of life, a wish for good fortune, or even a deant act of protest.
Ganesha: Lord of New Beginnings presented works from the th to the
st century — sculptures, paintings, musical instruments, ritual imple-
ments, and photography — that traced the depiction of the Hindu deity
Ganesha, son of Shiva and Parvati, across the Indian subcontinent, the
Himalayas, and Southeast Asia.
e year’s second installation in Drawings and Prints, e Power of
Portraiture, featured a selection of works from the early th century to
the present and included several new acquisitions. At the heart of this
presentation that explored themes of artistic lineage and homage with a
primary focus on portraiture were works by members of Black Women
of Print, a collective founded by Tanekeya Word to promote the visibil-
ity of Black women printmakers and create an equitable future within
the discipline of printmaking. e rotation also featured woodland
drawings created between the late th and the early th century as
wellas a group of witchcraft scenes.
e last exhibition to open in fall , New York Art Worlds, 1870 – 1890,
explored the lived experience of being an artist in New York City during an
era of rapid socio-economic change. With works mainly from the American
Wing collection, it displayed some paintings, sculptures, works on
paper, and decorative objects to highlight aesthetic innovations and trends
of the period as well as the roles of leading American artists as tastemakers,
organizers, and collaborators, including Cecilia Beaux, omas Eakins,
Winslow Homer, Louis Comfort Tiany, and Candace Wheeler.
Winter’s Richard Avedon: MURALS marked the iconic photographer’s
centennial with an exploration of some of his most innovative works.
Revolving around three monumental group portraits gifted to e Met
by the artist, it focused on the tumultuous period from to ,
when, after a ve-year hiatus, the photographer started making portraits
again, this time with a larger, tripod-mounted camera and new sense of
scale. Spotlighting the era’s preeminent artists, activists, and politicians,
he made huge photomural portraits, betting their outsized cultural
inuence. e group portraits in MURALS — of members of Andy
Warhol’s Factory, architects of the Vietnam War, and demonstrators
against that war — show how Avedon expanded photography’s artistic
possibilities, reorienting viewers and subjects in a subsuming, larger-
than-life view.
9
Taking viewers back to another time, January’s Beyond the Light:
Identity and Place in Nineteenth-Century Danish Art highlighted a
period of sociopolitical and economic change in Denmark in the th
century. rough some works, including drawings, oil sketches, and
paintings, it explored the close-knit communities that emerged in
Denmark among Danish artists following the disastrous fallout of the
Napoleonic Wars, the devastating bombardment of Copenhagen, bank-
ruptcy, and mounting antagonism with Germany. e works they
created, and that were featured in this luminous exhibition, explored
notions of place, identity and belonging and what it means to travel
and return home.
e focus of Drawings and Prints’ winter installation — Innocence and
Experience — considered how artists working in early Renaissance Italy,
late Georgian Britain, and th-century Europe and America sought
new approaches to record and shape visual imagery. e many highlights
included a treasured copy of William Blake’s “Songs of Innocence and
Experience,” acquired soon after the Print Department was established,
showing the radical new vision Blake oered late Georgian Britons,
along with th-century prints that conveyed the relationship of mother
and child as well as a group of etched portraits by artists and printmak-
ers in the circle of ÉdouardManet and Edgar Degas.
e depth and strength of the Museum’s Asian art collection was
again on view in winter with Celebrating the Year of the Rabbit, which
presented Chinese works illustrating how rabbits have been a promi-
nent artistic subject since ancient times, and Learning to Paint in
Premodern China, which considered the underexplored question of how
painters learned their craft in premodern China. It featured paintings
from e Met collection along with a selection of important works from
local private collectors to illuminate the many pathways to becoming a
painter in premodern China.
Shedding new light on the creative process of one of the great photo-
graphic artists of the th century, Berenice Abbott’s New York Album,
1929 was the last exhibition at e Met Fifth Avenue to open in winter.
It presented a selection of unbound pages from a unique album the
American photographer created after arriving back in New York City
following eight years in Europe. She found the city transformed and ripe
with photographic potential, and proceeded, with handheld camera, to
traverse it, photographing its skyscrapers, bridges, elevated trains, and
street life and pasting these “tiny photographic notes” into a standard
black-page album. With small black-and-white prints on pages,
the album marked a key turning point in her career.
At e Met Cloisters, Rich Man, Poor Man: Art, Class, and Commerce
in a Late Medieval Town opened in March and examined the emergence
of distinctly middle-class taste in late medieval England by showcasing a
rare set of large-scale domestic sculptures from Exeter commissioned by
a local merchant for the exterior of his house. Rustic in style and subject
matter, the fascinating sculptures — stock characters drawn from popular
prints and bawdy tales — came across as both amusing and menacing.
With more than works, including textiles, prints, furnishings, and
other decorative arts from e Met collection, the presentation high-
lighted how the home could serve as a form of individual self-expression
and a statement of social order.
With two once-in-a-lifetime exhibitions — on Karl Lagerfeld and
Vincent van Gogh — opening just weeks apart in May, along with several
landmark shows opening April, spring was one of the most antici-
pated seasons in the Museum’s history. Leading the lineup was an
unprecedented look at the life and artistic achievements of th-century
Afro-Hispanic painter Juan de Pareja (ca. – ). Largely known
today as the subject of e Met’siconic portraitby Diego Velázquez,
Pareja — born in Spain — was enslaved in Velázquez’s studio for over two
decades before becoming an artist in his own right. Juan de Pareja,
Afro-Hispanic Painter was the rst to tell his story and examine the ways
in which enslaved artisanal labor and a multiracial society are inextrica-
bly linked with the art and material culture of Spain’s “Golden Age.”
Representations of Spain’s Black and Morisco populations in works by
Francisco de Zurbarán, Bartolomé Esteban Murillo, and Velázquez
joined works charting the ubiquity of enslaved labor across media along
with e Met’s portrait of Pareja by Velázquez. It was the rst gathering
ever of Pareja’s rarely seen paintings, which engage with the canons of
Western art while reverberating throughout the African diaspora.
For more than years, Cecily Brown (born ) has transxed
viewers with sumptuous color, bravura brushwork, and complex narra-
tives that relate to some of Western art history’s grandest themes. In the
s, after moving to New York from London, she revived painting for
a new generation alongside a handful of other artists at a time when
critics were questioning its relevance. April’s Cecily Brown: Death and the
Maid, the rst full-edged museum survey of Brown’s work since
making New York her home, featured some paintings, drawings,
sketchbooks, and monotypes from across her career. e works explored
the intertwined themes of still life,memento mori,mirroring,
andvanitas — symbolic depictions of human vanity or life’s brevity —
that have propelled her impactful practice for decades.
Drawn largely from e Met’s renowned collection of Japanese art,
April’s Anxiety and Hope in Japanese Art shed light on the twin themes of
anxiety and hope through more than works from the th to the st
century. One of the rarest Japanese paintings in our collection — the
earliest illuminated handscroll illustrating the th chapter of the Lotus
Sutra(a sacred text fundamental to East Asian Buddhism) — joined other
sacred images from early Japan that speak to concerns about death,
dying, and the afterlife or that were created in response to uncertainties
such as war and natural disaster as well as medieval Buddhist images of
paradises and hells, Zen responses to life and death, depictions of war
and pilgrimage, and protective and hopeful images in everydaylife.
is year’s annual site-specic installation for e Met’s Iris and B.
Gerald Cantor Roof Garden also opened in April and was created by
American artist Lauren Halsey (born ). Imbued with the collective
energy and imagination of the South Central Los Angeles community
where Halsey was born and continues to work, the full-scale monumen-
tal construction, titledthe eastside of south central los angeles hieroglyph
prototype architecture (I), referenced sources as varied as ancient Egyptian
symbolism, s utopian architecture, and contemporary visual expres-
sions like tagging that reect the ways in which people aspire to make
public places their own.
Karl Lagerfeld ( – ), known for creating a diverse and prolic
body of work unparalleled in the history of fashion, was the focus of e
Costume Institute’s spring exhibition. Karl Lagerfeld: A Line of Beauty
presented the German-born designer’s stylistic vocabulary as expressed
in aesthetic themes that appear time and again in his fashions from the
s to his nal collection in to spotlight his unique working
methodology. Most of the approximately pieces on display were
accompanied by Lagerfeld’s sketches, which underscore his complex
creative process and the collaborative relationships with his premières.
Lagerfeld’s uid lines united his designs for Balmain, Patou, Chloé,
Fendi, Chanel, and his eponymous label, Karl Lagerfeld, and in this
exhibition viewers were given insight into the boundless imagination
and passion for innovation that fueled his creations.
May’s Van Gogh’s Cypresses wasthe rst exhibition to focus on the trees
immortalized in signature images by Vincent van Gogh ( – ).
Such iconic pictures asWheat Field with Cypressesande Starry Night,
reunited for the rst time since ,took their place as the centerpiece
in a presentation that aorded an unprecedented perspective on a motif
virtually synonymous with the Dutch artist’s ercely original power of
expression. Some works illuminated the extent of his fascination with
the region’s distinctive amelike evergreens as they successively sparked
his imagination over the course of two years in the South of France. It
juxtaposed landmark paintings with drawings and illustrated letters —
many rarely, if ever, lent or exhibited together — oering an extraordinary
opportunity to appreciate anew some of Van Gogh’s most celebrated
works in a context that revealed the backstory of their invention for
therst time.
e last of the Department of Drawings and Prints’ four installations
for the year, Light and Tone, also opened in May. It presented a selection
of drawings on prepared and dyed papers, ranging from Renaissance
masterworks by Wolf Huber and Peter Candid to dazzling sheets by
th- and th-century artists like Angelica Kauman and Alphonse
Legros, to demonstrate the versatility of colored grounds for studies and
for nished compositions, among other related topics. Other highlights
included notable works by John Constable and David Lucas, in one
grouping, and Edvard Munch, Vija Celmins, Denis Stéen, and Josef
Albers in another.
10
Fiscal year also included a number of special installations.
October’s Victorian Masterpieces from the Museo de Arte de Ponce, Puerto
Rico featured ve Victorian masterpieces from the collection of the
Museo de Arte de Ponce in Puerto Rico as part of a partnership that
allowed the public to continue viewing that institution’s most important
artworks while undergoing repairs following devastating earthquakes in
. e exceptional loans included Frederic Leighton’s iconicFlaming
June, John Everett Millais’se Escape of a Heretic, 1559, and Edward
Burne-Jones’s Small Briar Rose series, three paintings from – , in
apresentation that showcased their meaningful connections with works
in e Met collection.
In the American Wing, October’s Crossings explored modern and
contemporary responses to Emanuel Leutze’s epicWashington Crossing
the Delaware(). Next to Leutze’s iconic painting in its usual Met
gallery, visitors encountered powerful works by Black American artists
Robert Colescott and Kara Walker that directly addressed Leutze’s work.
March’s Renaissance Masterpieces of Judaica: e Mishneh Torah and e
Rothschild Mahzor paired two of the nest Hebrew illuminated manu-
scripts from the Italian Renaissance to spotlight the active role of Jewish
communities of northern Italy in the extraordinary ourishing of arts and
culture that dene the Renaissance. e Misneh Torah of Maimonides, a
landmark of Jewish jurisprudence, returned to e Met after a ve-year
sojourn at the Israel Museum in Jerusalem, and e Rothschild Mahzor,
a luxury prayer book on special loan from the Library of the Jewish
eological Seminary, was last shown to the public in the s.
e last special installation, Philip Guston: What Kind of Man Am I?
was also the last presentation to open in scal year . Although
Philip Guston ( – ) is often associated with Abstract
Expressionism, his career is too expansive to be understood solely in
relationship to that movement. is installation, a celebration of
anextraordinary promised giftof paintings and drawings from the
artist’s daughter Musa Guston Mayer, featured eight works created
during the last years of Guston’s life. As the title suggests, Guston
consistently interrogated his purpose and identity as an artist, giving rise
to a self-reexive body of work that embraces both abstract and repre-
sentational content that engages uninchingly with some of the most
distressing aspects of human nature. Broadening the scope of the ques-
tion embedded in the title, it becomes tting inspiration as we consider
e Met’s future as the largest repository of Guston’s work anywhere
inthe world.
Outgoing loan exhibitions are an important part of the Museum’s
work to deepen its relationship with audiences around the world, and
this scal year, e Shape of Time: Art and Ancestors of Oceania from e
Metropolitan Museum of Art traveled to the Museum of Art Pudong,
where it was on view June through August , . e featured
works from our Oceanic collection had not left e Met since they were
rst promised to the Museum in . e presentation in Shanghai was
not only an excellent reminder of e Met’s ability to connect all people
to creativity, knowledge, ideas, and one another, it was also a perfect
opportunity to preview new mounts, didactics, and displays in advance
of the reopening of our own Michael C. Rockefeller Wing, where
the Oceanic art collection is usually presented.
e productions of the Publications and Editorial Department,
including new titlesand reprints, were remarkable for their extraor-
dinary diversity. Among these were exhibition catalogues, including
such highly acclaimed volumes asHear Me Now: e Black Potters of Old
Edgeeld, South Carolina;e Tudors: Art and Majesty in Renaissance
England;Karl Lagerfeld: A Line of Beauty, which accompanied this year’s
Costume Institute exhibition;Lives of the Gods: Divinity in Maya Art;
Juan de Pareja: Afro-Hispanic Painter in the Age of Velázquez, which
details the remarkable career of the formerly enslaved painter;Cubism
and the Trompe L’Oeil Tradition;andBerndt & Hilla Becher, the rst
comprehensive monograph on the renowned German photographers.
Other notable publications includeOceania: e Shape of Time, which
accompanies a touring show and will act as a agship publication for
thereopening of the Michael C. Rockefeller Wing; as well as the
annualMetropolitan Museum Journaland four issues of the Bulletin. In
addition, the department edited and helped shape gallery texts for more
than exhibitions, installations, and collection-oriented projects,
seeing to completion over , new wall texts and object labels.
For a complete list of the Museum’s publications and exhibitions
andinstallations for scal year , see pages and .
Education
e Museum’s Education Department presented percent more
on-site events this scal year, compared to scal year , indicating a
welcome shift to normalcy post-pandemic. In scal year , a total of
, visitors attended , onsite events, at both e Met Fifth
Avenue and e Met Cloisters, while , worldwide engaged virtu-
ally in hybrid events as well as exclusively online ones.
e Met’s large-scale annual events — including the Lunar New Year
Festival (last held in ), World Culture Fest, Garden Day at e Met
Cloisters, and Museum Mile Festival — provided community among our
many audiences wishing to gather again, drawing more than ,
people of all ages and abilities for a host of activities, performances, and
other art experiences.
e Museum is committed to serving as a cultural and social hub for
young people with a long-term goal of fostering future visitors, partners,
and supporters. is year we welcomed a record , teens to the
annual spring Museum-wide Teens Take e Met! event for an evening
of performances, art-making activities, and more. We also launched
Teen Fridays, a twice-monthly drop-in program, which drew more than
teens to engage in creative activities and exhibitions with their
peers. Families with younger children took advantage of paid art-making
and art-exploration opportunities through three semesters of Children’s
Classes and an expansion of our camp program to four weeklong spring
and summer sessions. is audience also participated in free multigen-
erational programs engaging more than ,.
Building and sustaining relationships with New York City’s many and
varied communities is a key departmental goal. In continued support of
older adults, we distributed new thematicYour Met Art Boxpackages
based on e Met collection to hundreds of senior recipients across all
ve boroughs in partnership with NYC Aging and Older Adult Centers
citywide. We also introduced bimonthly, in-person Met Memory Cafes
for people with dementia and their care partners to socialize and engage
in art exploration and art making over refreshments. In a longstanding
partnership with the Filomen M. D’agostino Greenberg Music School
for people of all ages with vision loss, after a ve-year hiatus, we hosted
the nd Fil at e Met Concert in Grace Rainey Rogers Auditorium,
where an audience of enjoyed music and soundscapes inspired by
omas Hart Benton’s mural cycle America Today in e Met collection.
And at e Met Cloisters, new programming initiatives deepened
engagement and encouraged repeat visitation with core, existing audi-
ences. We developed relationships with our Upper Manhattan neighbors
through community outreach, strategic partnerships, and an array of
onsite and osite educational experiences for adults, teens, and families,
such as a Family Afternoon related to the exhibition Rich Man, Poor
Man: Art, Class, and Commerce in a Late Medieval Town, which attracted
more than intergenerational participants.
rough our Civic Practice Partnership artist-in-residence program
we continued to partner with artists to connect substantial collaborative
social justice – oriented art projects with New York City communities. In
scal year , Artist in Residence John Gray culminated his residency
to explore the historical and cultural legacies of food ways across the
African Diaspora with a celebration at Bruckner Mott Haven Garden in
the South Bronx. Together with his Ghetto Gastro cofounders, Pierre
Serrao and Lester Walker, we celebrated the launch at e Met of their
cook book manifesto, Black Power Kitchen, inspired in part by the exhi-
bition Hear Me Now: e Black Potters of Old Edgeeld, South Carolina.
Artist in Residence Mei Lum and W.O.W. Project marked the conclu-
sion of their residency with a Chinatown community celebration that
introduced participants to ancient tools for spiritual alignment, includ-
ing deep breathing, meditation, and self-reection.
is year, another remarkably broad range of performances, talks,
panels, and symposia activated and elucidated exhibitions, e Met
collection, and capital projects with contemporary voices engaged in
critical, timely issues, oering audiences compelling experiences.
Musician Pat Boy closed out the exhibition Lives of the Gods: Divinity in
Maya Art with a show-stopping contemporary Maya rap performance
11
showcasing his creative practice centered on the promotion of his
mother tongue to support Indigenous language speakers. e Hear Me
Now exhibition invited visitors of all ages with and without disabilities
to examine two vessels made by the enslaved th-century potter and
poet David Drake through touch and close looking, while a moving
spoken-word event with poets Ama Codjoe, Aracelis Girmay, Aja
Monet, and Najee Omar illuminated the themes and ideas presented in
the exhibition. We also launched Research Out Loud: Met Fellows Present,
a reimagined series of online research presentations and in-gallery activa-
tions by our fellows; it pushed beyond traditional disciplinary
boundaries and engaged more than , from countries.
In keeping with the Museum’s goal to be a place where thought lead-
ers gather, the daylong Creative Convening on Afrofuturism presented the
foremost artists and scholars engaged with the ideas, histories, and prac-
tices featured in the Before Yesterday We Could Fly: An Afrofuturist Period
Room in a dynamic event marking the exhibition’s rst anniversary. A
two-day symposium in conjunction with the exhibition Chroma: Ancient
Sculpture in Color focused on new discoveries and the signicance of
polychromy with multidisciplinary and international art historians,
conservators, curators, imaging specialists, and scientists. e talk series
Designing Tomorrow’s Met featured renowned architects Frida Escobedo,
Nader Tehrani, and Kulapat Yantrasast, who are leading the Museum’s
major gallery renovation projects for theOscar L. Tang and H. M.
Agnes Hsu-Tang Wing for modern and contemporary art, the galleries
for Ancient Near Eastern and Cypriot Art, and the Michael C.
Rockefeller Wing, respectively, sharing their design insights in dynamic
conversation with their Met curatorial collaborators; it drew in
person and more than , online.
Internal Museum-wide programming collaboration is foundational,
and this year the Education Department began work with the Michael
C. Rockefeller Wing (MCRW) curatorial team and other departments
across the Museum to develop the scope, goals, and methodology for
international initiatives. As part of the MCRW capital project, we
launched the African Art Residency Program and e Met-Nigeria
Initiative and welcomed two scholars from the Nairobi National
Museum, Kenya, and the National Museum, Lagos, Nigeria, to guide us
in interpretive strategy planning in anticipation of the opening of the
new wing. is year, Education also expanded its cross-departmental
work in the area of interpretive strategy, facilitating active conversation
with a wide range of departments with regard to interpretive planning in
order to develop a learning community around this critical and cross-
institutional area of practice.
Professional development and contributing to the advancement of a
diverse museum eld continued to be a priority in scal year . We
hosted high school interns — percent of whom were from Title I
and District schools — and over undergraduate and graduate
interns for museum training, networking, and community building. We
also hosted international fellows from dierent countries for
research and projects in departments across the Museum.
e Met remained an essential resource for teaching, training, and
learning at all levels in scal year , with more than , K –
teachers and students participating in , virtual and , guided
tours of e Met collection, and , in self-guided tours — close to
pre-pandemic attendance. We launched two new tours for students in
grades – to support scientic inquiry and the exploration of art from
a musical perspective. In addition, more than , teachers and school
leaders participated in programs focused on integrating art into the
classroom, and further strengthened multidisciplinary art learning to
attract educators from a wider variety of disciplines. We continued our
partnership with Microsoft Flip to host a live event at e Met with
Peter Reynolds, author of e Dot, which was livestreamed throughout
the world, reaching , classrooms, libraries, and families from
countries with an estimated attendance of more than ,.
Live Arts
e scal year’s MetLiveArts season was highlighted by several key site-
specic commissions and premieres by major performing artists working
today. e projects were a testament to the department’s vision to incor-
porate performance into the fabric of the Museum: enlivening the
diverse stories told in the collection and expanding the ways visitors
engage with the Museum’s unique spaces.
e season began with world-renowned Indian dancer and choreogra-
pher Bijayini Satpathy’s new dance work, Dohā, a project that was the
culmination of Satpathy’s two-year residency at e Met. In December
, the performance artist and costume designer Machine
Dazzlecreated Bassline Fabulous, transforming the American Wing’s
Vanderlyn Panorama into a subversive playground alongside a
soundscape — a new transcription of J.S. Bach’s Goldberg Variations —
by our Quartet in Residence, Catalyst Quartet. In January, Rhiannon
Giddensled an all-star ensemble in the premiere of Shawn Okpoebholo’s
song cycle Songs in Flight, setting to song an archive of runaway slave
advertisements that added dimension to the historic struggle for free-
dom. e season ended with a new dance work from American Ballet
eatre principal dancer Herman Cornejo and a site-specic creation by
Madeline Hollandercalled Hydro Parade, in which performers danced
through the galleries mimicking the ancient ow of water on e
Met’sland.
A series of digital premieres throughout the season reached audiences
around the world: a live digital discussion with Bijayni Satpathy around
the online release of her Met performances was streamed by audiences in
India, Asia, and across the United States, signicantly expanding the
reach of activities from the Department of Live Arts. ese projects were
realized alongside MetLiveArts’ robust series of in-gallery and pop-up
performances throughout the year, including celebrations of Black
History Month, Asian American and Pacic Islander Heritage Month,
and Pride Month.
Digital — Website, Social Media, and Email Marketing
e Museum’s website ended scal year with more than million
users, of which percent were international. Behind the scenes, the
Digital Department began a major initiative with the ongoing goal of
improving the user experience, modernizing technology infrastructure,
and enhancing long-term sustainability. is year, the Museum also
received funding and began work on the implementation of a documen-
tation system called Conservation Studio that will provide a streamlined,
centralized system for conservation and scientic information across the
Museum’s collection.
In September , the Digital Department published the ninth and
nal episode in the rst season of e Met’s podcast series Immaterial,
about artistic materials. e season included dierent voices —
from outside the Museum and Met sta — reecting on work from
Museum departments representing countries, including Peru,
Colombia, the United States, New Zealand, Egypt, Italy, Mexico, Spain,
Iran, China, Indonesia, Ghana, and France. e show has seen ,
downloads to date, exceeding our goal of ,.
In March , as part of e Met’s long-standing copyist program,
Digital released a short lm, e Art of the Copyist, that documented
contemporary artist Jas Knight reproducing Diego Velázquez’s master-
piece Juan de Pareja in the galleries. Knight gives viewers an inside view
of his studio and his process and invites them to join him for a look into
Velázquez’s mind, while reecting on the tradition of copying paintings
and the power of prolonged observation. e video has received more
than , views on YouTube and garnered more than , new
subscribers to e Met’s YouTube channel.
roughout the year, the department commissioned prominent
authors to write personal essays reecting on e Met collection. ese
“Met Reections” have expanded the perspectives represented on our
website and are building a foundation for future commissions and
collaborations. Writers to date have included Alexander Chee, Ada
Calhoun, Tanekeya Word, Camille Dungy, Musa Guston Mayer, Hettie
Judah, Georgina Kleege, and Tadao Ando.
e Digital Department supports special exhibitions through a wide
range of content. is year, the team produced audio guides for Lives of
the Gods: Divinity in Maya Art and Juan de Pareja, Afro-Hispanic Painter
that were made available digitally on the website’s exhibition listings
using a web-based app. In collaboration with an external vendor and
several departments across the Museum, Digital also launched an
Augmented Reality app for the exhibition Chroma: Ancient Sculpture in
12
Color that allowed users to interact virtually with the sphinx of a Greek
funerary monument. e department also supported the traveling exhi-
bition of objects from the Museum’s Oceania collection by producing an
introductory video, an audio experience featuring Pacic poets, and a
video honoring the legacy of Michael C. Rockefeller.
is was a banner year for e Met’s social media team as we
expanded our capacity with video and creator engagement. Our
TikTok channel is noteworthy in its growth, now exceeding ,
followers. Our video program across channels has garnered more
than million views — far exceeding any previous years — and our
work with content creators and inuencers has elicited enormous reach
as well. Since fall , the team has engaged inuencers totaling
more than million engagements and . million video views on
creator pages.
Other social media initiatives include a four-part video series with
actor and HGTV personality Rajiv Surendra; our ongoing Seconds of
Art History series; our spotlight on sta members and conservation
projects, garnering millions of views and engagement; e Met’s most
popular video of all time (totaling million views alone) during the
Met Gala; and collaborations with Broadway’s Six, the Empire State
Building, e National Gallery in London, e Mets baseball team,
New York City drag queen Flippe Kikee, and internal partners such as
e Met Cloisters.
e Museum’s email marketing program now reaches . million
subscribers, up from . million in the previous year. In scal year ,
we increased email acquisition through custom sign-up pages and a paid
social acquisition campaign to bring in younger and more diverse audi-
ences across the tristate. Working with our partners in Development,
Technology, and Retail, we also launched several backend data improve-
ments that allowed us to implement better customer and visitor transac-
tion notications both pre- and post-visit. Our current priorities are to
continue laying the groundwork for future initiatives in customer
relationship management, promotional activities around exhibitions,
and diversifying our audiences.
Visitorship
In scal year , the Museum continued last year’s visitation trends,
making steady progress toward regaining the high visitor levels it experi-
enced pre-COVID, when e Met saw record annual attendance in
scal year , with over . million ticketed visitors (at e Met Fifth
Avenue and e Met Cloisters). In scal year , after closing for
several months, we welcomed . million ticketed visitors, followed by
. million ticketed visitors in scal year . is year, Museum atten-
dance experienced further recovery to . million ticketed visitors
(including . million at e Met Cloisters).
e Met historically is one of New York’s most visited tourist attrac-
tions for domestic and international audiences, and in scal year ,
visitor categories — international, domestic, tristate, and local —
continued last year’s trend toward pre-pandemic proportions, with a
notable increase in international tourism. is year, local visitors made
up percent of our attendance, compared to percent pre-COVID
and percent last year; tristate visitors, for the second year in a row,
made up percent, compared to percent pre-COVID; domestic visi-
tors (outside the tristate area) fell slightly from percent to percent
last year, still higher than the percent pre-COVID; and international
visitors increased to percent from percent last year, compared to
percent pre-COVID.
Exhibitions that contributed to the Museum’s increased attendance in
scal year included: Lives of the Gods: Divinity in Maya Art, draw-
ing , visitors (November , – April , ); e Tudors: Art
and Majesty in Renaissance England, with , visitors (October ,
– January , ); and Cubism and the Trompe l’Oeil Tradition, with
, visitors (October , – January , ). Also well
attended was Bernd & Hilla Becher, with , visitors (July –
November , ) and several exhibitions that opened in scal year
but closed this scal year: Kimono Style: e John C. Weber
Collection, with , (July , – February , ); Water
Memories, with , (July , – April , ); and In America:
AnAnthology of Fashion, with , (July – September , ).
Several exhibitions that opened in scal year but were still on
view as of June , , also contributed to this year’s strong atten-
dance, and their nal attendance gures will be listed in the next Annual
Report: as of June , Karl Lagerfeld: A Line of Beauty had ,
(opened May , ); Van Gogh’s Cypresses, , (opened May ,
); Richard Avedon: MURALS, , (opened January , );
Learning to Paint in Premodern China (rotation one), , (opened
February , ); e Roof Garden Commission: Lauren Halsey, ,
(opened April , ); Juan de Pareja, Afro-Hispanic Painter, ,
(opened April , ); and Anxiety and Hope in Japanese Art (rotation
one), , (opened April , ).
e omas J. Watson Library saw , visits by outside researchers
in scal year and registered , new outside researchers. e
Museum libraries circulated , items to readers and continued to
digitize rare collection materials, both printed and manuscript, and
tomake them available online, averaging , hits per month.
Capital Projects
e scal year was an extremely productive one for Museum’s Capital
Projects Department — a new department name that acknowledges the
breadth of the department’s scope, which encompasses the planning,
architecture, and construction of the permanent alterations that improve
the Museum’s edice (it was formerly known as the Construction
Department). e aim of the Capital Projects Department is to establish
the institution as an engine for economic development, a leader in
carbon footprint reduction, and a proponent of architecture as a
contemporary art that organizes resources in a manner sympathetic
withour values.
Tremendous progress has been made on the design of the Oscar L.
Tang and H.M. Agnes Hsu-Tang Wing. e past year saw an intensive
period of collaboration between architect Frida Escobedo, the
Department of Modern and Contemporary Art curatorial team, Capital
Projects, and Met leadership in developing a cohesive concept design
proposal for the new wing. A visionary addition to our institution, it
will prioritize the presentation and showcasing of th- and st-century
art, providing , square feet of gallery space and , square feet of
exterior terrace space. Encompassing approximately , square feet
overall, the proposed wing will sit within the existing building’s foot-
print. e project is currently in the nal stages of concept design,
withthe schematic design phase expected to begin this fall.
Construction of the Michael C. Rockefeller Wing advanced signi-
cantly this year. e project, which transforms how the Museum pres-
ents its collections of the art of sub-Saharan Africa, Oceania, and the
ancient Americas, also consists of major upgrades to the building’s infra-
structure, including the construction of a new sloped glass wall on the
south side of the Museum. Construction will conclude in fall and
art installation will follow closely behind. e project is being overseen
by the architect Kulapat Yantrasast of the rm wHY and Beyer, Blinder,
Belle Architects LLP, and the new galleries are expected to open in .
e reimagined Ancient Near Eastern and Cypriot Art galleries will
introduce an innovative and forward-thinking approach to presenting
art from a vast region that includes ancient Iraq, Iran, Turkey, Syria, the
Eastern Mediterranean coast, Yemen, and Central Asia. Boston-based
architectural rm NADAAA, led by principal designer Nader Tehrani, is
overseeing the project, which includes signicant modications to the
skylights and attics above. It is currently in design development and
construction is slated to begin in summer .e galleries have been
closed for art deinstallation and preconstruction activities and are sched-
uled to reopen in .
e st Street Studio, the Museum’s new discovery and play space for
kids ages to , opened as this report was being prepared for publication,
in September , and in its rst few weeks has already seen enormous
success. Designed by KOKO Architecture + Design, the space — atrans-
formation of the former Nolen Library — reimagines how the Museum
can inspire exploration of its encyclopedic collection, amplify curiosity,
and create new experiences for our youngest visitors through play, read-
ing, and digital and musical interactives.
e renovated galleries dedicated to European Paintings from to
have been completed as part of the ambitious Skylights Project
13
initiated in , and art installation is underway. e galleries are on
track to reopen in November . Upgrades to the Museum’s electrical
and mechanical infrastructure also continue throughout the campus,
including the completion of signicant upgrades to our air quality in
response to the COVID- pandemic and extensive electrical upgrades
that are nearing completion.In addition, the Museum received
million in funding from the City of New York for the infrastructure
upgrades related to the Ancient Near Eastern and Cypriot Art galleries
renovation project. For this critical funding, we are grateful to the Mayor
of New York City, Eric Adams; his administration; the Manhattan
Borough President, Mark Levine; and the New York CityCouncil.
Institutional Advancement
With a total of more than million in new gifts and pledges secured
through fundraising, Membership, and Special Events, scal year
was an especially remarkable year for e Met.
e Museum’s Trustees and friends demonstrated unparalleled gener-
osity through their leadership support of our transformative Oscar L.
Tang and H.M. Agnes Hsu-Tang Wing and its future programming.
Notable donors during the past scal year included Maureen and
Richard Lockwood Chilton, Jr.; Betsy Z. and Edward E. Cohen and the
Aretê Foundation; Cheryl and Blair Eron; Je and Kim Greenberg;
Amy and John Grin; the Hamilton James Family; Michael B. Kim and
Kyung Ah Park; Rosalind and Kenneth Landis; Judy and Leonard
Lauder; Jennifer and Philip Maritz; the Naddisy Foundation; Betsey and
Edward Pick; Harvey Sawikin and Andrea Krantz; and the Winter
Family. Musa Guston Mayer and her husband, omas Mayer, made
generous commitments to the Tang Wing and the Department of
Modern and Contemporary Art in addition to her collection gift of a
trove of artworks by her late father, the artist Philip Guston.
We also received numerous leadership gifts in support of many other
departments and projects across the Museum, including Ancient Near
Eastern Art, e Costume Institute, Digital, Egyptian Art, European
Paintings, European Sculpture and Decorative Arts, Greek and Roman
Art, Imaging, Islamic Art, the Robert Lehman Wing, Live Arts, Musical
Instruments, Paintings Conservation and other conservation programs,
Scientic Research, programs promoting resilience in the arts, and many
other areas. Notable donors included the Arison Arts Foundation,
Adrienne Arsht, Candace K. and Frederick W. Beinecke, Bloomberg
Philanthropies, om Browne, Amy and Gary Churgin, the Charles W.
Curtis Estate, Condé Nast, the Sherman Fairchild Foundation, Marina
Kellen French and the Anna-Maria and Stephen Kellen Foundation, the
Alexis Gregory Foundation, Carol B. Grossman, the Estate of Nanette
Rodney Kelekian, Onur and Demet Kumral, Aerin Lauder, the Robert
Lehman Foundation, the Leon Levy Foundation, the New York City
Department of Cultural Aairs, Nancy C. and Richard R. Rogers,
Leonard N. Stern, Tory Burch LLC, and the Jayne Wrightsman Estate,
among many others.
We secured more than . million in unrestricted operating
support, including . million raised through the Trustee Fund for e
Met and . million from various other Fund for e Met appeals. In
addition, revenue from Membership dues and ticket sales for Member
events and classes totaled . million. We also continued to oer
complimentary one-year memberships to individuals in the IDNYC
program and, with the addition of more than , IDNYC members,
had a combined Member count of , at scal year-end.
Funding for the year’s exhibitions, including endowment allocations,
totaled . million. Signicant grants were received from the Aretê
Foundation/Betsy and Ed Cohen for Chroma: Ancient Sculpture in
Color; the Barrie A. and Deedee Wigmore Foundation for Cubism and
the Trompe l’Oeil Tradition; the William Randolph Hearst Foundation
for Lives of the Gods: Divinity in Maya Art; the Sherman Fairchild
Foundation for Juan de Pareja, Afro-Hispanic Painter; Chanel, Fendi,
Karl Lagerfeld, and Condé Nast for Karl Lagerfeld: A Line of Beauty; and
the Iris & B. Gerald Cantor Foundation for Van Gogh’s Cypresses.
e successful year for the Special Events team saw more than
internal and external events produced, raising activity levels to where
they were pre-COVID. Revenue from events hosted at the Museum by
corporate, nonprot, and social clients totaled . million.
Trustees, Sta, and Volunteers
e Museum’s Board of Trustees elected two new members in scal year
: Julia Koch and Aerin Lauder. Adrienne Arsht, Musa Mayer, and
Ming Chu Hsu were elected Honorary Trustees, and Jerey M. Peek
and Andrew M. Saul were elected Trustees Emeriti. e Board also
re-elected Richard Lockwood Chilton, Jr. as Vice Chair of the Board.
Stacie NC Grant was appointed by the Speaker of the New York City
Council, Adrienne Adams, to be the Speaker’s Representative to
theBoard.
We were deeply saddened this year by the loss of Trustee Emeritus
and esteemed former Chair James R. Houghton, who died in December
. Jamie was a beloved and gracious Chair of e Met’s Board of
Trustees for nearly years, following his service as Vice Chair, and he
served the Museum faithfully as a Trustee and Trustee Emeritus for
years. With his wife, Maisie, he gave generously in support of a wide
range of capital projects and acquisitions at the Museum and was the
very embodiment of the leadership qualities he believed in: personal
integrity, teamwork, earned trust, thirst for self-improvement, optimism,
gratitude, and humor.His own success as a leader in business, educa-
tion, and the arts was belied by his modesty, and at the Museum Jamie
won the aection of everyone he encountered.
In sta news, as mentioned above, in January the Board announced a
new leadership structure, with the Director adding the role of CEO to
his title as of July , , following the retirement of President and
CEO Dan Weiss on June , and the newly created position of COO,
reporting to the Director, and in May of this year, the Board appointed
Jamie Kelleher, e Met’s Chief Operating Ocer, Chief Financial
Ocer and Treasurer, to the new position.
In January, Whitney W. Donhauser was appointed Deputy Director
and Chief Advancement Ocer, overseeing a broad range of develop-
ment, special events, and membership activities, leading the Museum’s
eorts to deepen and broaden its engagement with current and prospec-
tive donors locally, nationally, and internationally and supporting
Trustee relations activities. She rejoined e Met after previously serving
as Senior Advisor to the President under Emily K. Raerty and most
recently as Director and President of the Museum of the City of New
York since .
Following a comprehensive, monthslong international search, David
Breslin was appointed the Leonard A. Lauder Curator in Charge of the
Department of Modern and Contemporary Art, joining us in fall .
He previously served as the Whitney Museum of American Art’s
DeMartini Family Curator and Director of Curatorial Initiatives, and
prior to that as Curator and Director of the Collection, and before that
was at the Menil Drawing Institute, where he created an ambitious
program of exhibitions and helped to shape the design of the institute’s
new facility. He joined e Met at a pivotal moment, as planning and
implementing the renovation of the Oscar L. and H.M. Agnes
Hsu-Tang Wing for modern and contemporary art gets underway. In his
new role, Breslin will be a creative and organizational leader with the
project’s architect, in collaboration with the Museum’s leadership and
curatorial departments across the Museum.
We also appointed Shirin Fozi as the Paul and Jill Ruddock Associate
Curator, Department of Medieval Art and e Cloisters. Dr. Fozi joined
us in summer and was previously Associate Professor in History of
Art and Architecture and Director of the Program in Medieval and
Renaissance Studies at the University of Pittsburgh. In her new role, she
will work primarily at e Met Cloisters.
We also welcomed this year a new Head of Visitor Experience — Sara
DeYoung, who was previously at the Brooklyn Museum — and a new
Chief Membership Ocer — Amanda Riley, who joined us from the
Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco.
ere were a number of sta appointments this year. Dita Amory was
named the Robert Lehman Curator in Charge, e Lehman Collection,
and Rachel Mustalish was named the Sherman Fairchild Conservator in
Charge, Department of Paper Conservation. Additionally, Andrea Achi
was appointed the Mary and Michael Jaharis Associate Curator of
Byzantine Art, Department of Medieval Art and e Cloisters; Monika
Bincsik, was appointed the Diane and Arthur Abbey Curator for Japanese
Decorative Arts, Department of Asian Art; Charlotte Hale was named
the Walter Burke Conservator, Department of Paintings Conservation;
14
Medill Harvey was named the Ruth Bigelow Wriston Curator of
American Decorative Arts and Manager, e Henry R. Luce Center for
the Study of American Art, e American Wing; Pengliang Lu was
named the Brooke Russell Astor Curator of Chinese Art, Department of
Asian Art; Joseph Scheier-Dolberg was appointed the Oscar Tang and
Agnes Hsu-Tang Curator of Chinese Paintings, Department of Asian Art;
and Sarah Szeliga was appointed the Leonard N. Stern Associate Visual
Resource Manager, Department of Greek andRoman Art.
In other sta news, Deniz Beyazit was promoted to Curator,
Department of Islamic Art; Wolf Burchard was promoted to Curator,
Department of European Sculpture and Decorative Arts; Christina
Hagelskamp to Conservator, Department of Objects Conservation; John
Lindaman to Museum Librarian, e omas J. Watson Library;
Melina Plottu to Conservator, e Costume Institute; Katherine
Sanderson to Conservator, Department of Photograph Conservation;
Anna Serotta to Conservator, Department of Objects Conservation; and
Georgia Southworth to Conservator, Department of Photograph
Conservation.
Finally, the Museum is grateful to have a devoted group of volunteers
whose passion and loyalty is exemplary. is year, we commend Grace
Gorman, Chair of the Volunteer Organization, and outgoing Manager
of Volunteer Activities Stephanie Katz and welcome a new manager,
Mary Leheny. e Met would not be the world-class institution it is
without the support of our volunteers, as well as our Members and
friends, and also, especially, our Trustees and sta. eir professionalism
and commitment to excellence are what allow e Met to advance its
mission, innovate on so many fronts, and connect with a global audi-
ence that looks to us for joy and inspiration. anks to their extraordi-
nary work and dedication, the Museum is able to deepen its engagement
and set the bar for what it means to be a truly universal museum in
service to the world.
Max Hollein
Marina Kellen French Director and Chief Executive Ocer
15
T
he Metropolitan Museum of Art was founded on April , ,
“to be located in the City of New York, for the purpose of estab-
lishing and maintaining in said city a Museum and library of art,
of encouraging and developing the study of the ne arts, and the applica-
tion of arts to manufacture and practical life, of advancing the general
knowledge of kindred subjects, and, to that end, of furnishing popular
instruction.”¹
is statement of purpose has guided the Museum for over years. e
Met is devoted to a universal collection of art in the service of the public.
During the strategic-planning process, the need for anupdated,
more inclusive and welcoming mission statement with a more tightly
articulated expression of that purpose became apparent.
To that end, on May , , the Trustees of e Metropolitan Museum
of Art rearmed the above statement of purpose and supplemented it
with the following statement of mission:
e Metropolitan Museum of Art collects, studies, conserves, and
presents signicant works of art across time and cultures in order to
connect all people to creativity, knowledge, ideas, and one another.
Core Values
• Respect: Engage one another with collegiality, empathy, and kindness,
always.
• Inclusivity: Ensure that all are and feel welcome and valued.
• Collaboration: Reach across boundaries to exchange ideas and work
together toward our shared mission.
• Excellence: Lead the cultural world in quality and expertise — and
inspire curiosity and creativity.
• Integrity: Hold ourselves to the highest moral standards, admit when
we fall short, and then evolve.
Vision
As we look to the future, we seek to be an institution in service to the
world and a valued resource to our local communities. Further, we aspire
to bridge the past and the present moment, drawing connections between
our vast cultural history and contemporary communities around the
world. e Museum aims to become increasingly relevant to a con-
stantly evolving contemporary society and to facilitate new connec-
tions between our objects and the issues of our time. By emphasizing the
broader themes and larger questions that art has posed throughout the
centuries, the Museum seeks to draw connections between our collections
and the public. We must remain alert to the needs of our audiences and
work harder to meet people where they are rather than assume that they
will be drawn to the Museum regardless of what is on view and how it is
presented. In so doing, the Museum will identify opportunities to present
important and unfamiliar narratives and cross-cultural perspectives and
foster a more diverse and expanded canon of art history.
ere is much more that we would like to accomplish as a global
leader in scholarship, including deepening and disseminating knowl-
edge across a breadth of disciplines and balancing our dedication to
object-centered scholarship grounded in the collection with a concern
for larger historical and theoretical questions. We will increase resources,
time, and support for the serious and sustained use of primary and sec-
ondary research materials for the creation of new knowledge. We will
Charter of e Metropolitan Museum of Art, State of New York, Laws of , Chapter , passed April , , and amended L., ch. ; L. , ch. .
support the work of our own sta and visiting scholars to present new
insights and ideas that will engage both general and specialist audiences
in the galleries and online.
Programmatically, we will expand our cross-departmental collabora-
tions, including exhibitions and publications, that engage multiple per-
spectives. We will highlight the interconnectedness and multidimensional
nature of culture through the ages. Such new interpretations involve
broadening the voices that we invite to share their stories to include art-
ists and our diverse audiences, for whom we aspire to create an inspiring
and welcoming visitor experience. To advance this objective, we plan
to add signicant, impactful works that strategically transform the collec-
tion and gallery displays.
e Met of the future is both increasingly global and more locally
engaged. e Museum will grow its international programming and
institutional partnerships, in part by expanding access to its digital con-
tent. e Museum will also become more multilingual, multicultural,
and inclusive in its outreach and will deepen its relationships with local
communities.
Internally, the Museum is committed to fostering a workplace that is
inclusive, equitable, and transparent, which requires that we become
more diverse, welcoming, supportive, and collaborative. Further, we
seek to provide new opportunities and resources for professional devel-
opment and personal well-being. We will work to build a culture that
embraces continuous improvement, experimentation, and innovation
and that insists on fairness, opportunity, recognition, and accountability
within every department and across the institution.
rough the ambitious and thoughtful redesign and development of
new gallery and storage spaces, the Museum will enhance the presenta-
tion, protection, and preservation of our collections. In particular,
our deep investment in the rethinking of gallery spaces will support the
achievement of our programmatic and community engagement vision.
Finally, as a perpetual institution, we must increase our focus on
environmental and nancial sustainability as well as our investment
in and integration of emerging technologies. e Museum will prioritize
the preservation and strategic use of resources. As it creates new public
spaces, it will ensure that they are environmentally sound and exible for
multiple potential future uses. Financially, the Museum will continue to
recognize and nourish the philanthropic relationships that provide essen-
tial resources for core mission-related work, while also advancing oppor-
tunities to create new earned-revenue streams and philanthropic support
thatwill sustain e Met into the future.
Five-Year Strategic Goals 2022–27
To realize our vision, we dened six primary goals to guide our activities
over the next ve years. e goals are supported by strategies and priority
initiatives.
I. Build a universally relevant institution that connects to contemporary
audiences and rearm our commitment to scholarship
II. Increase and promote the Museum’s global presence
III. Deepen the Museum’s relationship with local communities
IV. Strengthen e Met as a professional community and workplace
V. Enhance the presentation, protection, and preservation of the
collection
VI. Maintain sustainable approaches to nancial management,
operations, and facilities
Mission Statement
16
Exhibitions and Installations
e Met Fifth Avenue
Unless otherwise noted, all exhibitions are organized solely by
eMetropolitan Museum of Art.
A Passion for Jade: e Bishop Collection. July 2, 2022 – January 4,
2026. e exhibition is made possible by the Florence and Herbert
Irving Fund for Asian Art Exhibitions.
Embracing Color: Enamel in Chinese Decorative Arts, 1300 – 1900.
July2, 2022 – January 4, 2026. e exhibition is made possible by the
Florence and Herbert Irving Fund for Asian Art Exhibitions.
Chroma: Ancient Sculpture in Color. July 5, 2022 – March 26, 2023.
e exhibition is made possible by the Aretê Foundation/Betsy and Ed
Cohen. Additional support is provided by Mary Jaharis and Cathrin M.
Stickney and Mark P. Gorenberg. is exhibition is organized by e
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York City, in collaboration with the
Liebieghaus Sculpture Collection, Frankfurt am Main.
Van Gogh, Mondrian, and Munch: Selections from the Department of
Drawings and Prints. July 7 – October 11, 2022.
Bernd & Hilla Becher. July 15 – November 6, 2022. e exhibition is
made possible by Joyce Frank Menschel, the Barrie A. and Deedee
Wigmore Foundation, the Edward John & Patricia Rosenwald
Foundation, and Linda Macklowe. It is organized by e Metropolitan
Museum of Art, in association with Studio Bernd & Hilla Becher and
Die Photographische Sammlung/SK Stiftung Kultur.
Jegi: Korean Ritual Objects. August 6, 2022 – October 15, 2023.
eexhibition is made possible by the Lady Dasher Sojo Fund.
Michael Lin: Pentachrome. Opened August 15, 2022. e installation
ismade possible by Barbara A. Wolfe and the Director’s Fund.
Hear Me Now: e Black Potters of Old Edgeeld, South Carolina.
September 9, 2022 – February 5, 2023. e exhibition is made possible
by Kathryn Ploss Salmanowitz, e Met’s Fund for Diverse Art
Histories, the Terra Foundation for American Art, Anthony W. and
LuluC. Wang, e Peter Jay Sharp Foundation, and the Henry Luce
Foundation. It is organized by e Metropolitan Museum of Art
andthe Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.
Noble Virtues: Nature as Symbol in Chinese Art. September 10, 2022 –
January 29, 2023. e exhibition is made possible by the Joseph
Hotung Fund.
e Facade Commission: Hew Locke, Gilt. September 15, 2022 –
May30, 2023. e exhibition is made possible by the Jane and Robert
Carroll Fund, Art Mentor Foundation Lucerne, and Cynthia
HazenPolsky and Leon B. Polsky.
e Tudors: Art and Majesty in Renaissance England. October 10, 2022 –
January 8, 2023. e exhibition is made possible by Alice Cary Brown
and W.L. Lyons Brown, Frank Richardson and Kimba Wood, Barbara A.
Wolfe, the Diane Carol Brandt Fund, e Coby Foundation, Ltd., e
Klesch Collection, Ann M. Spruill and Daniel H. Cantwell, and Sharon
Wee and Tracy Fu. is exhibition is supported by an indemnity from the
Federal Council on the Arts and the Humanities. It is organized by e
Metropolitan Museum of Art and e Cleveland Museum of Art, in
collaboration with the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco.
e Power of Portraiture: Selections from the Department of Drawings
and Prints. October 13, 2022 – February 7, 2023.
Cubism and the Trompe l’Oeil Tradition. October 20, 2022 – January
22, 2023. e exhibition is made possible by the Barrie A. and Deedee
Wigmore Foundation. Additional support is provided by the Gail and
Parker Gilbert Fund, the Eugene V. and Clare E. aw Charitable Trust,
an Anonymous Foundation, the Diane W. and James E. Burke Fund,
and the Janice H. Levin Fund. is exhibition is supported by an
indemnity from the Federal Council on the Arts and the Humanities.
Ganesha: Lord of New Beginnings. November 19, 2022 – June 16, 2024.
e exhibition is made possible by the Florence and Herbert Irving
Fund for Asian Art Exhibitions.
Lives of the Gods: Divinity in Maya Art. November 21, 2022 – April 2,
2023. e exhibition is made possible by the William Randolph Hearst
Foundation, the Placido Arango Fund, the Diane W. and James E. Burke
Fund, the Gail and Parker Gilbert Fund, the Mellon Foundation, and
eInternational Council of e Metropolitan Museum of Art. It is
organized by e Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Kimbell Art
Museum.
New York Art Worlds, 1870 – 1890. December 12, 2022 – July 21, 2024.
e exhibition is made possible by the William P. Rayner Fund.
Richard Avedon: MURALS. January 19 – October 1, 2023. e
exhibition is made possible by Joyce Frank Menschel.
Celebrating the Year of the Rabbit. January 21, 2023 – February 4, 2024.
e exhibition is made possible by the Joseph Hotung Fund.
Beyond the Light: Identity and Place in Nineteenth-Century Danish
Art. January 26 – April 16, 2023. e exhibition is made possible by
Gilbert and Ildiko Butler. Additional support is provided by e Schi
Foundation. e exhibition is organized by e Metropolitan Museum
of Art and the J. Paul Getty Museum, in collaboration with SMK –
eNational Gallery of Denmark.
Innocence and Experience: Selections from the Department of
Drawings and Prints. February 9 – May 16, 2023.
Learning to Paint in Premodern China. February 18, 2023 – January 7,
2024. e exhibition is made possible by the Joseph Hotung Fund.
Berenice Abbott’s New York Album, 1929. March 2 – September 4,
2023. e exhibition is made possible by e Robert Mapplethorpe
Foundation, Inc.
Juan de Pareja, Afro-Hispanic Painter. April 3 – July 16, 2023. e
exhibition is made possible by the Sherman Fairchild Foundation. Major
support is provided by Denise Sobel. Additional funding is provided by
Laura and John Arnold, Fundación María Cristina Masaveu Peterson,
Ann M. Spruill and Daniel H. Cantwell, and e Met’s Fund for
Diverse Art Histories. is exhibition is supported by an indemnity
from the Federal Council on the Arts and the Humanities.
Cecily Brown: Death and the Maid. April 4 – December 3, 2023. e
exhibition is made possible by e Modern Circle and Agnes Gund.
Additional support is provided by Neuberger Berman Private Wealth,
the Jerey and Leslie Fischer Family Foundation, and Barbara and
JohnVogelstein.
17
Anxiety and Hope in Japanese Art. April 8, 2023 – July 14, 2024. e
exhibition is made possible by e Miriam and Ira D. Wallach
Foundation Fund.
e Roof Garden Commission: Lauren Halsey. April 18 – October 22,
2023. e exhibition is supported by Bloomberg Philanthropies.
Additional support is provided by e Daniel and Estrellita Brodsky
Foundation, the Barrie A. and Deedee Wigmore Foundation, Cynthia
Hazen Polsky and Leon B. Polsky, and Vivian and Jim Zelter.
Karl Lagerfeld: A Line of Beauty. May 5, 2023 – July 16, 2023. e
exhibition is made possible by CHANEL. Major support is provided by
FENDI. Additional support is provided by KARL LAGERFELD
andCondé Nast.
Van Gogh’s Cypresses. May 22 – August 27, 2023. e exhibition is
made possible by the Iris & B. Gerald Cantor Foundation. Additional
support is provided by the Janice H. Levin Fund, Katharine Rayner, and
the Aaron I. Fleischman and Lin Lougheed Fund. is exhibition is
supported by an indemnity from the Federal Council on the Arts and
the Humanities.
Light and Tone: Selections from the Department of Drawings and
Prints. May 18 – September 5, 2023.
Special Installations
Victorian Masterpieces from the Museo de Arte de Ponce, Puerto Rico.
October 8, 2022 – February 2024. ese loans are supported in part by
the Lillian Goldman Charitable Trust.
Crossings. October 27, 2022 – February 28, 2023.
Christmas Tree and Neapolitan Baroque Crèche. November 22, 2022 –
January 8, 2023. e exhibit of the crèche is made possible by the
Loretta Hines Howard Fund.
Baseball Cards from the Collection of Jeerson R. Burdick. January 26,
2023 – July 18, 2023.
Renaissance Masterpieces of Judaica: e Mishneh Torah and e
Rothschild Mahzor. Opened March 16, 2023.
e Jousting Armor of Philip I of Castile. May 11, 2023 – April 1, 2026.
Philip Guston: What Kind of Man Am I? May 25 – August 2, 2023.
e Met Cloisters
Rich Man, Poor Man: Art, Class, and Commerce in a Late Medieval
Town. March 6, 2023 – February 4, 2024. e exhibition is made
possible by the Michel David-Weill Fund.
Outgoing Loan Exhibitions
e Shape of Time: Art and Ancestors of Oceania from e Metropolitan
Museum of Art. Museum of Art Pudong, Shanghai, China. June 1–
August20, 2023.
18
Museum Publications
Published by the Publications and Editorial Department
Bernd & Hilla Becher (). Je L. Rosenheim, with essays by Gabriele
Conrath-Scholl, Virginia Heckert, and Lucy Sante, and an interview
with Max Becher. pp. illus. Hardcover ..
Beyond the Light: Identity and Place in Nineteenth-Century Danish Art
(). Edited by Freyda Spira, Stephanie Schrader, and omas
Lederballe, with contributions by Gry Hedin and Karina Lykke Grand.
pp. illus. Hardcover ..
Cecily Brown: Death and the Maid (). Ian Alteveer, with a
contribution by Adam Eaker. pp. illus. Hardcover ..
Cubism and the Trompe l’Oeil Tradition (). Emily Braun and
Elizabeth Cowling, with essays by Claire Le omas and Rachel
Mustalish. pp. illus. Hardcover ..
Hear Me Now: e Black Potters of Old Edgeeld, South Carolina ().
Adrienne Spinozzi, with contributions by Michael J. Bramwell, Vincent
Brown, Katherine C. Hughes, Ethan W. Lasser, Simone Leigh, and
Jason R. Young. pp. illus. Hardcover ..
How to Read European Decorative Arts (). Daniëlle
Kisluk-Grosheide. pp. illus. Paperback with aps ..
Juan de Pareja: Afro-Hispanic Painter in the Age of Velázquez ().
David Pullins and Vanessa K. Valdés, with essays by Luis
Méndez-Rodríguez and Erin Kathleen Rowe. pp. illus. Hardcover
..
Karl Lagerfeld: A Line of Beauty (). Andrew Bolton, with
contributions by Tadao Ando, Anita Briey, Stefania D’Alfonso, Olivia
Douchez, Amanda Harlech, Patrick Hourcade, Mellissa Huber, Nicole
Lefort, Kai Toussaint Marcel, Jacqueline Mercier, Loïc Prigent, and
Anna Wintour. Photographs by Julia Hetta. pp. illus.
Hardcover..
Lives of the Gods: Divinity in Maya Art (). Edited by Oswaldo
Chinchilla Mazariegos, James A. Doyle, and Joanne Pillsbury, with
contributions by Iyaxel Cojtí Ren, Caitlin C. Earley, Stephen D.
Houston, and Daniel Salazar Lama. pp. illus. Hardcover ..
Oceania: e Shape of Time (). Maia Nuku, with a contribution by
Leali’ifano Albert L. Reti. pp. illus. Hardcover ..
e Roof Garden Commission: Lauren Halsey (). Abraham omas
and Douglas Kearny. pp. illus. Paperback with aps ..
e Tudors: Art and Majesty in Renaissance England (). Elizabeth
Cleland and Adam Eaker, with contributions by Marjorie E. Wiesman
and Sarah Bochicchio. pp. illus. Hardcover ..
Van Gogh’s Cypresses (). Susan Alyson Stein, with contributions by
Charlotte Hale, Silvia A. Centeno, Alison Hokanson, and Marina
Kliger. pp. illus. Hardcover ..
Live Arts at e Met. MMAB , no. (Summer ). Limor Tomer
and Megan Metcalf, with contributions by Adam Gopnik, Lee Mingwei,
Bijayini Satpathy, Andrea Miller, Silas Farley, Louisa Proske, and Vijay
Iyer. pp. illus. Paperback ..
Recent Acquisitions: A Selection, 2020-2022. MMAB , no. (Fall ).
pp. illus. Paperback.
Gosford Wellhead: An Ancient Roman Masterpiece. MMAB , no.
(Winter ). Seán Hemingway, with a contribution by Dorothy H.
Abramitis, Federico Carò, and Adriana Rizzo. pp. illus. Paperback
..
Containing the Divine: Ancient Peruvian Pots. MMAB , no. (Spring
). Hugo C. Ikehara-Tsukayama, Dawn Kriss, and Joanne Pillsbury.
p. illus. Paperback ..
Metropolitan Museum Journal 57 (). pp. illus. Paperback
..
19
Fiscal Year 2023 Operating Revenue, Support, and Transfers
(Excluding Auxiliary Activities)
$307.4 Million
A
s reported in the “Report from the Director,” during a year of
leadership transition, building across disciplines, and deepening
engagement with our global audience, the Museum further
strengthened its operations and nances in scal year , made prog-
ress on priorities outlined in the – Strategic Plan, and is in a
strong position to support its people and program as we adapt to the
conditions of the ongoing pandemic environment.
Direct evidence of e Met’s strong recovery in scal year can
be seen in its total revenue and other income improvement, which
increased by . million, or , compared to the prior scal year.
Operating expenses also increased, by . million, or over the
prior year, due to non-union hiring costs and other union and
non-union wage adjustments. e Museum ended the year with a
reduced decit — . million in scal year , compared with
.million in scal year .
Revenue
Unrestricted revenue (including auxiliary activities) increased this scal
year, totaling . million, compared to . million in scal year
— a . million () increase. Admissions and membership
revenue contribute most signicantly to the Museum’s unrestricted reve-
nue, and both rebounded signicantly due to the recovery of visitors.
e growing visitation trends that started two years ago continued in
scal year , with a notable increase in international visitors ( of
visitors this year, compared to in scal year ), while domestic,
tristate, and local visitors continued to approach pre-pandemic propor-
tions. In scal year , admissions revenue increased by . million
(.) to reach . million, while membership revenue decreased
by. million (.) to reach . million.
Revenues from auxiliary activities, primarily the Museum’s retail
andrestaurant operations, also beneted from the strong trends in
Report from the Chief Financial
Ocer
Endowment
support
23%
Gifts, grants,
funds released
39%
Appropriations
from NYC
8%
Admissions
16%
Membership
8%
Other
6%
20
visitation. Revenues increased by . million (.) to end scal year
at .million, while operating expenses from auxiliary activities
increased by . million (.) to . million. e year’s net loss
from auxiliary activities was . million, compared to a . million
net income in the prior year. A successful year in events held at the
Museum, along with the income streams associated with them, also
beneted revenues in scal year .
Support and Transfers
Contributions and grants used to fund Museum operations, including
net assets released or transferred from restrictions, totaled . million,
a . million (.) increase compared to the prior scal year. e
annual support from the Museum’s endowment, as set by e Met’s
Spending Policy, continues to provide a signicant source of nancial
strength and stability to the Museum on the way to regaining the high
visitor levels we experienced pre-COVID. In scal year , the
Museum appropriated . million from its endowment through its
Spending Policy, representing a increase over the prior year. e
Museum’s spending rate (i.e., the dollars appropriated annually as a
percentage of the endowment’s prior year-end market value) was .
inscal year , compared to . in the prior year.
Operating Expenses
Unrestricted operating expenses (excluding auxiliary activities) increased
by . million () compared to the prior year, totaling . million
in scal year . e key driver was a rebound in activity levels,
compared to prior years, including higher levels of activity in program-
ming, events, and marketing.
e Museum’s interest expense on its bond and interest rate swaps is
reported as a non-operating charge and totaled . million in scal
year , relatively at with the prior year. Interest expense is fully
funded through a designation of the Museum’s unrestricted general
operating endowment support, which is reected in the Non-Operating
section of the Statement of Activities in the Audited Financial
Statements.
Fundraising
anks to the Museum’s dedicated community of supporters and driven
by signicant progress in priority capital projects, fundraising increased
by . million (.) compared to the prior year, to . million
in scal year .
Capital Expenditures
Capital construction and infrastructure-related expenditures totaled
. million in scal year , up from . million in the prior year.
Key projects included the renovation of the Michael C. Rockefeller Wing
and infrastructure upgrades related to the project to renovate the galleries
for Ancient Near Eastern and Cypriot Art. For the latter, we received an
allocation of million from the City of New York, from whom we also
received . million in support of our ongoing close work together on
vital programs in outreach, diversity, and energy conservation.
Statement of Financial Position
Net assets at the end of scal year were . billion, compared to
. billion a year ago. Driven by the year’s strong fundraising, net assets
increased by . million (.), and the Museum’s investments
increased by . million (.).
Looking Forward
e Met looks ahead to further visitor recovery, especially in the local
and international categories (both of which are still below pre-COVID
levels). Alongside steady progress toward regaining high visitor levels,
the Museum will continue to reinstate programmatic activities and sta-
ing levels, enhance the overall visitor experience, implement operational
improvements, and support our infrastructure. As the Director noted in
his report, visitation numbers have been higher than our estimates and
the Museum is in a strong nancial position. As we balance our nances
and operations against many external factors, we are optimistic about
our continued recovery and strength as one of the world’s preeminent
cultural institutions.
Statement of Operations (unaudited) for the year ending June 30, 2023, with comparative totals for 2022 (in thousands)
2023 2022
, , :
Admissions ........................................................................ $ 49,059 $ 31,952
Membership ....................................................................... 23,574 26,170
Gifts and grants .................................................................... 37,268 42,861
Operating appropriations from the City of New York ........................................ 26,242 22,560
Endowment support for current activities ................................................. 71,814 65,350
Retail and other auxiliary activities ...................................................... 46,194 45,589
Other income ...................................................................... 17,369 15,903
Net assets released from donor restrictions ................................................ 82,068 78,518
Total revenue, support, and transfers ....................................................... 353,588 328,903
:
Program services .................................................................... 230,434 213,456
Auxiliary activities ................................................................... 46,396 44,382
Supporting services .................................................................. 80,635 76,644
Total expenses ........................................................................ 357,465 334,482
Change in net assets from operating activities ................................................. $ (3,877) $ (5,579)
