Metropolitan Museum of Art
Metropolitan Museum of Art
AN OVERVIEW OF THE MUSEUM
The Metropolitan Museum of Art is one of the world's largest and finest art museums. Its collections include more than two million works of art spanning 5,000 years of world culture, from prehistory to the present and from every part of the globe.
Founded in 1870, the Metropolitan Museum is located in New York City's Central Park along Fifth Avenue (from 80th to 84th Streets). Last year it was visited by 5.2 million people.
Collections
The Museum's two-million-square-foot building has vast holdings that represent a series of collections, each of which ranks in its category among the finest in the world. The American Wing, for example, houses the world's most comprehensive collection of American paintings, sculpture, and decorative arts, presently including 24 period rooms that offer an unparalleled view of American history and domestic life. The Museum's approximately 2,500 European paintings form one of the greatest such collections in the world – Rembrandts and Vermeers alone are among the choicest, not to mention the collection of Impressionist and Post-Impressionist canvases. Virtually all of the 36,000 objects constituting the greatest collection of Egyptian art outside Cairo are on display, while the Islamic art collection is one of the world's finest. Other major collections belonging to the Museum include arms and armor, Asian art, costumes, European sculpture and decorative arts, medieval and Renaissance art, musical instruments, drawings, prints, antiquities from around the ancient world, photography, and modern art.
Major gallery areas have opened recently, greatly enhancing the presentation of collections. In June 1998, the Arts of Korea gallery opened to the public, completing a major suite of galleries – a "museum within the Museum" – devoted to the arts of Asia. In October 1999 the renovated Ancient Near Eastern Galleries reopened. And a complete renovation and reinstallation of the Greek and Roman Galleries is underway: the first phase, The Robert and Renée Belfer Court for early Greek art, opened in June 1996; the New Greek Galleries premiered in April 1999; and in April 2000 the Cypriot Galleries will open to the public.
Exhibitions
The Metropolitan Museum presents more than 30 exhibitions each year, representing a wide range of artists, eras, and cultures. Some of the best-known of these have been Treasures of Tutankhamun (1978), The Vatican Collections (1983), Van Gogh in Arles (1984) and Van Gogh in Saint-Rémy and Auvers (1986-87), Degas (1989-90), Mexico: Splendors of Thirty Centuries (1990-91), Seurat (1991-92), Origins of Impressionism (1994-95), Splendors of Imperial China (1996), The Glory of Byzantium (1997), and The Private Collection of Edgar Degas (1997-98).
Education
The Museum serves New York City, the United States, and people around the world with a large variety of educational training programs, fellowships, and loans of works of art. The Museum's educational programs are attended annually by approximately 350,000 general Museum visitors, students from the grade school to the university level, and teachers. These programs include tours, lectures, symposia, film showings, teacher-training workshops, visitor information, reference library services, and apprenticeship and fellowship programs.
In addition, more than 5,000 works of art are loaned each year by the Metropolitan Museum to other museums and cultural institutions throughout the United States and the world.
Governance
For more than a century, the City of New York and the trustees of The Metropolitan Museum of Art have been partners in bringing the Museum's services to the public. The complex of buildings in Central Park is the property of the City, and the City provides for the Museum's heat, light, and power. The City also pays for about half the cost of maintenance and security for the facility and its collections. The collections are held in trust by the trustees. The trustees, in turn, are responsible for meeting all expenses connected with conservation, education, special exhibitions, acquisitions, scholarly publications, and related activities, including security costs not covered by the City. In addition, the New York State Council on the Arts provides an annual grant toward basic operating expenses.
Finances
The Metropolitan Museum is a not-for-profit institution. In 1997-98, revenue and support for ongoing operations was $115 million. Contributing sources were: the City of New York, 15 percent; endowment, including The Cloisters, 22 percent; gifts and grants, including special exhibitions, 29 percent; membership, 14 percent; admissions, 12 percent; other and net income from auxiliary activities, 10 percent.
Staff
There are 17 curatorial departments. The staff presently consists of approximately 1,800 full-time employees and 900 volunteers.
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The Metropolitan Museum of Art
1000 Fifth Avenue
New York, New York 10028-0198
Phone: 212-535-7710
TTY: 212-650-2921 Online: http://www.metmuseum.org/visit
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