fflj The Metropolitan Museum of Art news release For release Communications Department 1000 Fifth Avenue Immediate New York, NY 10028-0198 Contact tel 212-570-3951 fax 212-472-2764 Harold Holzer email [email protected] SCHEDULE OF EXHIBITIONS JANUARY-APRIL 2002 EDITORS PLEASE NOTE: Information provided below is subject to change. To confirm scheduling and dates, call the Communications Department at (212) 570-3951. CONTACT NUMBER FOR USE IN TEXT IS (212)535-7710. New Exhibitions page 1 Upcoming Exhibitions Page 5 Continuing Exhibitions page 10 New and Recently Opened Installations page 15 Traveling Exhibitions page 19 Visitor Information page 21 OF SPECIAL NOTE • Surrealism: Desire Unbound, opening February 6, illustrates the shifting aspects of Surrealism's chief preoccupation, desire (see page 2). • Opening February 14, Orazio and Artemisia Gentileschi: Father and Daughter Painters in Baroque Italy is the first full-scale exhibition devoted to Caravaggio's most gifted and individual follower, Orazio, and his celebrated daughter, Artemisia (see page 3). • Treasures from a Lost Civilization: Ancient Chinese Art from Sichuan, opening March 6, explores the fascinating art and material culture of ancient Sichuan through recent archaeological discoveries (see page 3). • Also opening in March is Tapestry in the Renaissance: Art and Magnificence, the first major survey of tapestry production between 1460 and 1560 (see page 4). NEW EXHIBITIONS Earthly Bodies: Irving Venn's Nudes, 1949-50 January 15-April 21, 2002 Now in his mid-eighties, Penn is one of the world's finest photographers. Famous for portraiture, still life, and fashion work, he is less well known as a superb photographer of the female nude. His most important nudes were made more than 50 years ago when he collaborated with several artists' models in a series of sittings that were a personal and artistic antidote to the ephemeral, surface world of the stylish ladies' magazines. The NEW EXHIBITIONS PAGE 2 nudes are highly unorthodox by mid-20th-century standards: folded, twisted, and stretched, with extra belly, mounded hips, and puddled breasts, their fleshy torsos are sisters of Titian's or Rubens's Venus. Charged with powerful physical and sexual energy yet somehow chaste, they are among the most ambitious and successful nudes ever made. Never the subject of serious study, the great 1949-50 nudes are accompanied by a volume with 53 plates that display Penn's love affair with earthly goddesses. Press preview: Monday, January 14, 10:00 a.m.-noon Benjamin Brecknell Turner: Rural England through a Victorian Lens January 15-April 21, 2002 In the early 1850s, Benjamin Brecknell Turner (1815-1894) photographed picturesque, quintessentially English scenes: ruined abbeys and castles, thatched barns and half- timbered houses, crumbling cottages, ancient oak trees and woodland paths. His poetic images reveal the rough-hewn beauty of rustic subjects and the moral worth of tradition, nature, and rural life and labor. This exhibition of approximately 40 large-format photographs is drawn almost entirely from a magnificent album assembled by Turner and now in the Victoria and Albert Museum, London. The exhibition is made possible by The Hite Foundation. The exhibition is organized by the Victoria and Albert Museum. Accompanied by a catalogue. Press preview: Monday, January 14, 10:00 a.m.-noon Surrealism: Desire Unbound February 6-May 12, 2002 A central theme of Surrealism, a major artistic movement of the 20th century, was desire in its many manifestations. The first major survey of Surrealism in more than 20 years, this exhibition presents the richness and diversity of this obsessive but very human and constant theme through more than 300 paintings, sculptures, drawings, prints, photographs, and films. The selection ranges in date from the decade anticipating the first manifestations of Surrealism in 1924 to more recent years. Artists represented include Giorgio de Chirico, Joseph Cornell, Salvador Dali, Marcel Duchamp, Max Ernst, Alberto Giacometti, Arshile Gorky, Rene Magritte, Andre Masson, Joan Miro, Pablo Picasso, and Man Ray. Many of the icons of the Surrealist dream are displayed as well as important works by artists not yet widely known. The achievement of women associated with the Surrealists, sometimes overlooked in previous surveys, is represented by painters such as Leonora Carrington, Frida Kahlo, and Dorothea Tanning. The exhibition is made possible in part by Jane and Robert Carroll. The exhibition has been organized by Tate Modern, London. Accompanied by a caralogue. Press preview: Monday, February 4, 10:00 a.m.-noon (more) NEW EXHIBITIONS PAGE 3 Orazio and Artemisia Gentileschi: Father and Daughter Painters in Baroque Italy February 14-May 12, 2002 This is the first full-scale exhibition devoted to Caravaggio's most gifted and individual follower, Orazio Gentileschi, and to Orazio's celebrated daughter, Artemisia. Featuring approximately 50 works by Orazio and 35 by Artemisia, this is the first exhibition to treat these two remarkable artists in depth. Orazio was among the first artists to respond to Caravaggio's revolutionary method of painting from posed models. From this experience he created his own very personal and poetic style, in which realism is tempered by a refined sense of beauty. In Italy he worked in Rome and Genoa as well as in the region of the Marches, and he was also active in Paris, where he worked for Marie de'Medici, and London, where he was court painter to Charles I. Artemisia has received much popular attention and is the subject of two biographical novels and a recent movie. However, her reputation as an artist has often been overshadowed by the notorious public trial that followed her rape by an associate of her father's when she was still a teenager. A figure of enormous determination and ambition, she became an artist of remarkable qualities: the first woman who managed to live exclusively by her brush and who refused to be bound by the conventions usually imposed on female artists (still- life painting and portraiture were the areas deemed proper for a woman). The exhibition is made possible in part by the Gail and Parker Gilbert Fund. Additional support has been provided by a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts. The exhibition has been organized by the Soprintendenza per i Beni Artistici, Rome, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, and the Saint Louis Art Museum. An indemnity has been granted by the Federal Council on the Arts and the Humanities. The exhibition catalogue is made possible by the Doris Duke Fund for Publications. Press preview: Monday, February 11, 10:00 a.m.-noon Treasures from a Lost Civilization: Ancient Chinese Art from Sichuan March 6-June 16, 2002 This exhibition presents the fascinating art and material culture of ancient Sichuan, in remote southwest China, uncovered by archaeology of the last 15 years. The 128 works of art on exhibit include monumental bronze images of deities, lively human figures, fantastic bronze vessels, exquisite jades, and spirited ceramic sculptures dating from the late phase of the Sanxingdui culture (13th-llth century B.C.) to the Han dynasty (3rd century B.C.-3rd century A.D.). They are among the most unusual and spectacular works of art from the ancient world, and most of them are being shown for the first time in the United States. This exhibition provides rare access to a previously unknown artistic and cultural tradition as well as an opportunity to reexamine the early phase of Chinese civilization. The exhibition was organized by the Seattle Art Museum in collaboration with The Bureau of Cultural Relics, Sichuan Province of the People's Republic of China. (more) NEW EXHIBITIONS PAGE 4 The Boeing Company provided the leadership grant for the exhibition with major support from the E. Rhodes and Leona B. Carpenter Foundation. Additional funding provided by the National Endowment for the Arts. This exhibition is supported by an indemnity from the Federal Council on the Arts and the Humanities. In New York, the exhibition is made possible in part by The Dillon Fund. Accompanied by a catalogue. Press preview: Monday, March 4, 10:00 a.m.-noon Tapestry in the Renaissance: Art and Magnificence March 12-June 19, 2002 The first major loan exhibition of tapestries in the United States in 25 years, and the first extensive survey of tapestry production between 1460 and 1560, this exhibition highlights the great cycles of the late 15th through the early 16th centuries as the unsung glories of Renaissance art. Considered the art form of kings, tapestries were a principal part of the ostentatious "magnificence" expected of any powerful ruler, and courts and churches lavished vast sums on costly weavings in silk and gold thread from designs by leading artists such as Raphael, Giulio Romano, and Bronzino. The exhibition features some 45 of the greatest tapestries of the period along with about 20 preparatory drawings and cartoon fragments drawn from 30 collections (including the Vatican, the Louvre, and the British Royal Collection) in 13 countries. The exhibition explores the stylistic and technical development of tapestry production in the Low Countries, France, and Italy and highlights the contributions that the medium made to the art, liturgy, and propaganda of the day. The exhibition is made possible in part by the William Randolph Hearst Foundation. Additional support for the exhibition and its accompanying publication has been provided by the Garen Family Foundation. An indemnity has been granted by the Federal Council on the Arts and the Humanities. The exhibition catalogue is made possible by the Samuel I. Newhouse Foundation Inc. and the Doris Duke Fund for Publications. Additional support for the exhibition catalogue provided by Furthermore, a program of the J.M. Kaplan Fund. Press preview: Monday, March 11, 10:00 a.m.-noon (more) UPCOMING EXHIBITIONS PAGE 5 UPCOMING EXHIBITIONS The Iris and B.