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History
America’s favorite museum was born, appropriately enough, on July 4, 1866, in a restaurant in Paris, where a group of American businessmen and financiers as well as leading artists and thinkers of the day rallied behind a proposal to create a “National Institution and Gallery of Art” for the United States. Under the leadership of John Jay, a distinguished public figure, the scheme quickly gathered support at home, and The Metropolitan Museum of Art was incorporated on April 13, 1870. That same year, three private European collections, 174 paintings in all — including masterpieces by Hals, Van Dyck, Poussin, and Guardi — became the museum’s first acquisitions. The exhibits were originally housed in the Dodworth Building on Fifth Avenue, and then the Douglas Mansion on West 14th Street, before finally moving to Central Park at 82nd Street and Fifth Avenue. The museum’s magnificent Neoclassical facade was erected in the early years of the 20th century, during an era that saw its collections increase a hundredfold and the gallery rise to prominence in the art world.
Beyond the museum’s Fifth Avenue address is its medieval adjunct, The Cloisters — a unique, integrated space in which carefully re-created gardens and architecture evoke a monastery of the Middle Ages. Overlooking the Hudson River in Fort Tryon Park, The Cloisters was purchased for the Met by John D. Rockefeller Jr. in 1924, providing a faithful and tranquil setting for an exceptional collection, including the famous Unicorn Tapestries.
The Met was the first public institution to recognize the brilliance of Matisse when it exhibited his paintings in 1910, quickly establishing the museum’s credentials as a leading repository and pioneer of Impressionist and post-Impressionist Art. As the collections grew, so did the museum itself, transforming over the following 80 years into a sympathetic configuration of galleries, each with its own distinctive character. This grand architectural plan was finally completed in 1991 and includes such extraordinary sights as the Egyptian Temple of Dendur (ca. 15 B.C.); the American Wing, with 25 period rooms offering an unequaled view of American art history and domestic life; and the Henry R. Kravis Wing, devoted to European sculpture and decorative arts from the Renaissance to the beginning of the 20th century. |
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