The American Bicentennial Wing of The Metropolitan Museum of Art 1976

The American Bicentennial Wing of The Metropolitan Museum of Art 1976 Cover: Washington Crossing the Delaware by Emanuel Leutze, 1851. To generations of Americans, no other painting has conveyed with such symbolic power, the heroic dimensions of the American Revolution. The American Bicentennial Wing of The Metropolitan Museum of Art

To be dedicated in 1976, on the occasion of the nation's Bicentennial, to the genius and spirit of the American people and to the preservation of the priceless heritage of their art.

America is not anything if it consists of each of us. It is something only if it consists of all of us; and it can consist of all of us 3 £ only as our spirits are banded together £ in a common enterprise. That common enterprise | is the enterprise of liberty and justice and right. S ,1 Woodrow Wilson In 1976 the American people will celebrate the 200th anniversary of the founding of our nation. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, with the richest and most comprehensive collection of American art in existence, plans to build what we believe will be the most beautiful museum of American art in the world. It is to be named The American Bicentennial Wing of The Metropolitan Museum of Art. We hope to dedicate and open it in July 1976 as this institution's contribution to the nation's Bicentennial Celebration. This new Wing will be a permanent facility, exclusively devoted to the creative genius of the American people in the arts, and to what has been, and still is, the best and noblest in our artistic inheritance. The Wing has been recognized as an official National Bicentennial project by the American Revolution Bicentennial Commission in Washington, D.C, and has been endorsed by the New York City Bicentennial Corporation as a Heritage '76 project. The origins of this Wing go back to 1924, at which time the existing American Wing was built thanks to the generosity and leadership of Robert W. de Forest who was then President of the Metropolitan. But the germ of the idea goes back even further, to 1869 when William Cullen Bryant, in advocating the founding of the Metropolitan Museum, insisted on a "gallery to contain the greater works of our painters and sculptors" because the "American soil is prolific of artists." Among the Museum's founding Trustees were some of the nation's leading figures in the arts: the painters Frederick E. Church, Eastman Johnson, and John F. Kensett; architects Richard Morris Hunt and Russell Sturgis; the sculptor John Q. A. Ward; the art dealer and engraver Samuel P. Avery. Daniel Chester French, dean of American sculptors, served as Trustee for over thirty years and directed the acquisition of American sculpture for the collections. Native American art, however, was held in minor esteem by most of the country. Then in 1909, on the occasion of the Hudson-Fulton Celebration, the Museum held a major exhibition of American furniture, silver, glass, pottery, textiles, and paintings. That exhibition, unprecedented in a public institution, was an overwhelming popular success and the Museum began in earnest to collect and exhibit the country's native arts. Fifteen years later, in 1924, the Museum opened its American Wing, another unprecedented event for it was the first time an American museum had given a prominent place to the early domestic arts of this country, displaying them in a way that explained their historical development The Museum's example served to awaken broad national interest and pride in our heritage. Other institutions began to establish similar "wings." Concern began to be focused on the need to preserve our architectural heritage from neglect and destruction. Today the collections of American art at the Metropolitan Museum are the most comprehensive in existence. The paintings and sculpture form the largest single body of works of their kind anywhere. The decorative arts collection of furniture, silver, ceramics, glass, and textiles is unsurpassed in quality. Twenty-five period rooms from great historical buildings and re r~ i r homes, beginning with a parlor from an Ipswich, Massachusetts house built before 1675, present an unparalleled view of American history and domestic life spanning two-and-a-half centuries. However, the lack of space, which became increasingly serious as the collections grew, is now so critical that 80% to 90% of these holdings are kept from public view. Within the context of the Metropolitan's Comprehensive Architectural Plan, which will eventually bring the entire Museum to physical completion, the highest priority was given to a major expansion of the existing Wing. In conjunction with experts from the Museum's staff and across the country, the architects Kevin Roche John Dinkeloo have prepared plans for a new structure to surround the present Wing with three stories of public galleries. A total of 55,000 square feet of new space is to be added. A four-story glass-roofed enclosure, preserving the 1823 facade of the United States Branch Bank and its courtyard, will become a Garden Court for American sculpture usable the year-round and providing entrance to the Wing from Central Park. The new structure will provide permanent exhibition galleries for paintings, sculpture, watercolors, prints and drawings from the 17th century to the late 19th. All of the period rooms, including a magnificent recently acquired living room from one of Frank Lloyd Wright's famous prairie houses, will be installed. A system of study-storage will make the entire collections visually and physically accessible. We intend to make the Bicentennial Wing a joy to visit and a pleasure to learn from. A broad educational program will reach every segment of New York City and extend across the nation. Arts councils, historical societies, historical museums, houses and landmarks will benefit from an extensive program to include travelling exhibitions; the loan of objects of particular local significance; publications; and the expertise of the staff on such matters as preservation, restoration, and scholarly research. In short we intend this new Wing to be the vital resource for every cultural institution in the country interested in the American past The objects illustrated on the following pages of this booklet, a tiny fraction of the total holdings, give some indication of the variety of the collections which in their entirety constitute an almost unbroken record of America's development and achievement. These objects, enjoyable, fascinating and marvelous in themselves are also the vital artifacts of our history. They have the capacity to illuminate, long after they were made, the meaning of what we call the American experience and the makeup of our American character. They can make tangible and understandable what for us today may have become vague, historical abstractions, but which for our forebears were living principles and values. It is our conviction that in such an awareness of the American past lies the means for forging, in the words of the Bicentennial Commission, Douglas Dillon "a new national commitment, a new spirit for '76, a spirit which will President unite the nation in purpose and dedication..." This will be the higher purpose of the American Bicentennial Wing of Thomas Hoving The Metropolitan Museum of Art when it is dedicated. Director

186S61 "The American, Christopher Columbus, painted by This New Man" Sebastiano Del Piombo in 1519.

The story of America can be said to begin almost half a millennium ago, on a moonlit 2 a.m., October 12, 1492, when a lookout on the caravel Pinta sighted the limestone cliffs of what is today San Salvador in the Bahamas. Christopher Columbus, seeking a new route to ancient Asia, and prepared with a letter of introduction to the Grand Khan of China, had discovered instead, the New World. Columbus died in disrepute and scorn. But, as it turned out, his was what historians have come to call "the most important voyage of discovery in all history," which is why we honor him each October twelfth. The next hundred years saw the New World dotted with trading posts established by the Spanish, Dutch, French, and finally the English. England, however, also began to colonize America's wilderness and thus put her stamp on the continent's future. There was Jamestown in 1607, Plymouth, 1620, Massachusetts in 1628. Hardship, disease and starvation all but wiped out Jamestown. At Plymouth only fifty of the 102 Puritans aboard the Mayflower survived the first winter, yet when the ship set sail in the spring for England none wanted to return. For the Pilgrim Fathers at Plymouth this new world held the promise of a new beginning, a fresh start, a life free from oppression. This image of America has held true ever since. The American character was formed in the crucible of the Puritan struggle to endure and take root as a community. The stress on faith, hard work and sacrifice was necessary. The Mayflower Compact, requiring "obedience to... just and equal laws" contained the first seeds of democracy and self-government. It was the New England divine, Cotton Mather who in 1684 first applied the word Americans to the colonists. In 1774 Patrick Henry was to stand before the Continental Congress and declare that he was "not a Virginian, but an American." A national identity had been born. With the War of Independence Americans not only claimed the land as home, they gave the world a new model of self-government. In 1782, J. Hector St John Crevecoeur, in his Letters from an American Farmer, summed up our native character this way: "The American, this new man," he said, is one "who acts on new principles, new laws, a new social system."

The Puritan, (Deacon Samuel Chapin) by Augustus Saint-Gaudens Silver inkstand by John Coney, Boston, early 18th century. Containers held ink, blotting sand, and sealing wax.

View of New Amsterdam in 1651.

Room from the John Wentworth house built in Portsmouth, N.H., about 1700, some eighty years after the Mayflower landing at Plymouth. T The Assembly Room from Gadsby's Tavern, Va., where Washington held his last birthnight ball in 1798. This view of one of the Museum's most important period rooms shows the musicians' balcony.

Washington Before the Battle of Trenton by John Trumbull. Crossing the ice-choked Delaware Christmas Day 1776, Washington surprised the Hessian troops at Trenton and a week later at Princeton drove the British from New Jersey. The brilliant campaign reversed the tide of the war and saved the American cause.

Silver tea pot made by Revere after the revolution. A Revolution to "determine whether Americans are to be Freemen or Slaves...."

"The Fate of unborn millions will now depend under God, on the Courage and conduct of this Army... .We have, therefore, to resolve to conquer or die" wrote Washington two days before the fourth of July, 1776, the day the Declaration of Independence was signed by John Hancock and sent to the states. Unfair taxes, England's high-handed colonial policies and other grievances had contributed to the outbreak of the war in 1774. But the war was being half-heartedly supported. Then on July 10, Thomas Paine's pamphlet Common Sense galvanized the country. "I bring reason to your ears, and in a language as plain as ABC hold up truth to your eyes." Paine argued with compelling logic that only complete independence, which meant an all out war, would really guarantee American liberty. Then came the times that tried men's souls. After losing the Battle of Long Island, and later at Valley Forge, Washington thought "the game pretty near up." But the brilliant victories in New Jersey and at Saratoga turned the tide. Cornwallis, caught in a hopeless trap at Yorktown, Va., on October 19,1781, Portrait of surrendered and the war was over. Matthew Clarkson The American experiment in democracy by Gilbert Stuart. Clarkson enlisted at and representative government drew the the outbreak of the interest and admiration of the world. The revolution and was political documents of the Revolution noted for his gallantry at the Battle of Saratoga eloquently defined the rights of the individual He wears the badge of and the conduct of a just society under a the Society of the Cincinnati, a patriotic government of law. The Declaration of Rights organization of officers adopted by the state of Virginia, for example, who had served in the became the model not only of the Bill of Rights Continental Army. in our Constitution, but 200 years later inspired the United Nations' Declaration of Human Rights. Religious liberty, freedom of speech and of the press became the touch­ stones of future democratic governments else-where. At the height of the Revolution, the French minister Turgot noted that Americans were "the hope of the world. They may become its model." "Liberty" said Horace Walpole in 1779, "has still a continent to live in." An Era of Prosperity and Good Feelings Girandole mirror, about 1825, expresses the prosperous, confident mood of the nation in the early 19th century.

Fur Traders Descending the Missouri by George Caleb Bingham. The mood of the new nation following the Revolution Our early presidents strengthened the nation's was confident and optimistic and extended well into democratic institutions. Jefferson in his first inaugural the early decades of the 19th century. address stressed the need to take "jealous care of the Benjamin Franklin's prediction, expressed towards right of election by the people." the end of the Revolution, that "our country The successful conclusion of the War of 1812, flourish, as it will amazingly and rapidly after the war fought to protect American trade and freedom of the is over, like a field of Indian corn," proved accurate. seas, contributed to the rising spirit of national pride The new nation began to explore its western and unity. American seamen in their swift, sleek reaches. Lewis and Clark traveled up the Missouri frigates could outsail anything afloat. Shipping River in 1804 and gave Americans their first real increased as merchants sought a share of the profits knowledge of the vast territory beyond the to be made in foreign trade, especially with China, Mississippi. Fur traders following the trail into the in the Far East. At the height of the China Trade, newly acquired Louisiana Territory pushed the when Houqua was the senior Hong merchant in frontiers further. Canton, some forty American ships crowded the The country was put on a sound economic waterfront, doing an annual trade of about ten foundation thanks to Hamilton's astute fiscal policies. million dollars.

Houqua, the senior Hong merchant in Canton, 1825. Dolphin-footed sofa in tbe Empire style made about 1820.

z]raraFaramfl3f3fr Democratic Vistas

Walt Whitman is the great poet of the American grandeur of the American landscape, as did land and the common people. In Democratic Vistas, Washington Irving and James Fenimore Cooper in a prose v/ork published in 1871, Whitman's their writings. all-embracing vision of the American experience The works of the Hudson River School, found perhaps its richest expression. America's first homegrown, indigenous school of A feeling for the native landscape, and a faith in painting, revealed a reverent respect for the beauty the individual and the possibilities of democracy of nature. Painters such as William Sidney Mount were part of that American experience. It is a took an intimate look at village and rural life in strain that runs through the literature, art, and the years of burgeoning Jacksonian democracy and political thought of the 19th century. In the 1830's, depicted it with optimistic truthfulness. The that astute observer of American life, Alexis de primitive artist Joseph Hidley in a bird's eye view Tocqueville, remarked that "nothing struck me of his native town of Poestenkill, New York, more forcibly than the general equality of portrayed each neighbor's residence with conditions.... It is evident to all alike that a great affectionate detail. democratic revolution is going on...." "We have founded for us the most positive of Painters like Thomas Cole began to celebrate lands," declared Whitman, and much of the art of on canvas the freshly perceived beauty and the the nation shared his exultation.

The 9:45 Accomodation out of Stratford, Conn, by Edward Lamson Henry, 1867.

%vm Poestenkill, N. Y. by Joseph Hidley, about 1855.

Overleaf: The Rocky Mountains with Shoshone Indian encampment, by Albert Bierstadt, 1863.

Mahogany table by the French immigrant cabinetmaker, Antoine-Gabriel Quervelle who made three similar tables for the White House during the Andrew Jackson administration.

An arrangement of "plain and simple" Shaker Furniture.

The brightly painted panels (above) from a New Jersey farmhouse, were probably done by a Swedish settler, 18th century. Silver candlestick, 1770-75, by Myer Myers, who made ceremonial silver for synagogues in New York, Newport, and Philadelphia. E Pluribus Unum

From many into one" reads the motto on the Great Seal of the United States. From thirteen separate colonies into one United States. From a multitude of individuals of diverse background, religious belief, and national origin, into one people. For more than three centuries this part of the world has been haven and refuge to millions, a place to breathe free and give open rein to hopes and plans for a better future. Such has been the American promise, fulfilled in some times more perfectly than in others, perhaps, but durable to the present day. Beginning with the Puritan Separatists, hounded out of Europe in the 17th century, each group of immigrants has left its legacy to the country. The Quakers under William Perm not only founded Pennsylvania, but established the principle of religious liberty as a cornerstone of our political system. Others, like the Marquis de Lafayette, came to give their energies and fortunes to the cause of American ideals, and many like the Pole Casimir Pulaski, who fell at Savannah during the Revolution, gave their lives. In America's vast and primitive wilderness, uncorrupted by an older civilization's mistakes, Transcendentalists, Harmonites, and Shakers could freely pursue their vision of a heaven here on earth. "We are all a little wild here with numberless projects of social reform," wrote one observer. When in the mid 1800s great waves of immigrants again fled troubled homelands abroad, Emerson affirmed that "The energy of Irish, Germans, Poles... Africans and Polynesians, will reconstruct a new race, a new state, a new literature..."

Quaker family on a Sunday morning in front of the Arch Street Meeting House, Philadelphia. Watercolor by Paul Svinin, 1811-12.

Detail from a Pennsylvania-German Birth Certificate, 1789. Renaissance in the Heartland

"The Arts have always traveled westward" Benjamin Franklin assured the painter Charles Willson Peale in 1771. In the next century, as the nation's western boundary edged across the Central Lowlands, the Great Plains, and over the Rockies to the Pacific, the arts followed and flourished. By the century's close the French sculptor Rodin declared that "America has had a renaissance." Inventive, ingenious Americans, seeking new forms, new ways of doing things, began to forge distinctly native traditions. Hiram Powers, the most famous American sculptor of his day, got his start in Cincinnati, thanks to that city's enlightened patron Nicholas Longworth. The forceful marble bust of Andrew Jackson (bottom of page), dated 1837, is perhaps Powers' finest work. Later in the century the painter Frank Duveneck, whom Sargent called "the greatest talent with a brush of his generation," worked and taught in Cincinnati. The full-length portrait of Whistler (below) is by William Merritt Chase who was born and raised in Indiana and studied in the Midwest Ohio became a leading center of pottery, with Rookwood the first and most famous of American art potteries. The brilliant iridescent earthenware vase (above) was made by a major Zanesville firm in 1903. When American architecture burst into flower and international prominence in the late 19th century, it was Chicago that provided fertile soil. In the 1880s Louis Sullivan was erecting magnificent skyscrapers whose effect was heightened by superb ornamentation. One of his most important commissions was the Chicago Stock Exchange Building designed in 1893. When the building was razed recently, the Metropolitan acquired a section of the elegantly designed staircase (shown opposite). Frank Lloyd Wright came to Chicago in 1887 to work and study under Sullivan and soon began designing his famous "prairie houses" that seemed to spring organically from the landscape. One of these, the Francis W Little house built 1912-15 outside Minneapolis, has been purchased by the Museum to prevent its loss. The living room from the house (center) will be incorporated in the new Bicentennial Wing, as will the Sullivan staircase. tf

1 .^r^F I

Overleaf: An Album of American Faces ' v^^^B i*"*?*"!

^•| . p

Drawing showing location of American Bicentennial Wing (upper right), and its physical relationship to the Museum and to other elements in the Comprehensive Architectural Plan.

The American Bicentennial Wing

In 1924 when The Metropolitan Museum of Art However, lack of space and facilities has kept opened its American Wing, it was the first time an 80% to 90% of these holdings from public view. American museum had given pride of place to the The New American Bicentennial Wing will add early native arts of this country. 55,000 square feet of new space around the existing The Museum's example not only provided Wing which will remain intact A glass-roofed national impetus for the establishment of similar enclosure, preserving the 1823 facade of the United "wings" in other institutions, it helped stimulate States Branch Bank and its courtyard, will become appreciation of American art, and focus concern a Garden Court usable the year-round and provide on the need to preserve our architectural heritage access from Central Park. from neglect and destruction. Main Floor: 19th- and early 20th-century The preceding pages of this booklet give small decorative arts, Period Rooms, and Exhibition indication of the variety and scope of the Museum's Galleries for watercolors, prints, and drawings. Collections of American Art which today have Mezzanine Floor: 18th-century period rooms, become the most comprehensive in existence. Special Exhibition Galleries for Paintings and Included are 1,000 paintings and 1,000 watercolors, Sculpture; Study-Storage facilities making the constituting the largest body of works of their kind. entire collections, for the first time, visually and Over 1,000 pieces of furniture, 850 pieces of silver, physically accessible to all members of the public. and hundreds of examples of ceramics, glass, and Second Floor: Permanent Painting Galleries, textiles, form a collection of decorative arts 17th to 19th centuries; 17th-century period rooms. unsurpassed in quality. Twenty-five period rooms Penthouse Floors: Classrooms and Seminar with original woodwork and furnishings of the time Rooms serving educational needs from elementary present an intimate view of American history and through higher education; Study Carrels for visiting domestic life from the mid 17 th to the end of the scholars; Conservation Studios, Curatorial Offices, 19th centuries. Library and information services. I I I I I I

Schematic cross section of new Wing: A. Main Floor; B. Mezzanine; C. Second Floor; D. Penthouse.

Architect's model of the enclosed Garden Court with the United States Branch Bank facade preserved and protected. Garden Court Entrance restores access to the Museum from Central Park as was Olmsted and Vaux's original intent.

Typical American Painting and Sculpture Gallery, Second Floor.

i I Van Rensselaer Hall J Painting, Joseph Badger K Painting, William M. Harnett Colonial Period 19th Century

E Assembly Room

G Study-Storage H Painting, Eastman Johnson

F Study-Storage

C Tiffany Glass D Winslow Homer Watercolor

A Duncan Phyfe Dining Room

B Belter Parlor Second Floor: 17th and 18th Century Period Rooms; Permanent Exhibition Galleries for 17th to 19th Century Paintings.

H

AMERICAN PAINTINGS AND SCULPTU STUDY /STORAGE UM HJUL " ARTS F

Mezzanine Floor: 18th Century Period Rooms; Study-Storage Facilities for American Painting, Sculpture, and Decorative Arts; Special Exhibition Galleries.

ENTRY FROM CENTRAL PARK tUl _h—LQ

Main Floor: American Bicentennial Wing Garden Court Entrance, Access from Central Park; 19th and 20th Century Decorative Arts; Watercolor, Print and Drawing Galleries. THE METROPOLITAN MUSEUM OF ART

BOARD OF TRUSTEES Douglas Dillon, President J. Richardson Dilworth, Vice-President Roswell L. Gilpatric, Vice-President Elective Mrs. Vincent Astor Robert M. Pennoyer John R. H. Blum Richard S. Perkins R. Manning Brown, Jr. Francis T. P. Plimpton Mrs. McGeorge Bundy Roland L. Redmond Terence Cardinal Cooke Francis Day Rogers Daniel P. Davison Henry Saltzman Mrs. James W. Fosburgh David T. Schiff Peter H. B. Frelinghuysen Sol Shaviro James M. Hester Mrs. Richard Silberstein Arthur A. Houghton, Jr. Arthur O. Sulzberger John N. Irwin II Joseph A. Thomas Arnold P.Johnson Lila Acheson Wallace Andre Meyer Arthur K. Watson Henry S. Morgan Mrs. Sheldon Whitehouse Richard M. Paget Charles Wrightsman Mrs. Charles S. Payson Ex Officio John V. Lindsay, Richard Clurman Mayor o/ the City of New York Administrator for Parks, Recreation Abraham D. Beame, and Cultural Avoirs Comptroller of the City of New York Alfred Easton Poor, Sanford D. Garelik, President of the National Academy of Design President of the City Council, Thomas Hoving, City of New York Director of the Metropolitan Museum of Art Honorary Nathan Cummings Nelson A. Rockefeller Alastair B. Martin Craig Hugh Smyth Millard Meiss Kurt Weitzmann Roy R. Neuberger R. Thornton Wilson C. Michael Paul Mrs. William Zeckendorf Emeritus Malcolm P. Aldrich Irwin Untermyer Cleo Frank Craig Arnold Whitridge Devereux C. Josephs

Thomas Hoving, Director Ashton Hawkins, Daniel K. Herrick, Secretary Vice-Director for Finance Arthur Rosenblatt, Edward M. M. Warburg, Vice-Director for Vice-Director for Public Affairs Architecture and Planning Richard R. Morsches, Theodore Rousseau, Vice-Director for Operations Vice-Director, Curator in Chief Ann Leven, Harry S. Parker III, Treasurer Vice-Director for Education

CURATORIAL DEPARTMENTS American Paintings and Sculpture American Wing John K. Howat, Curator Berry B. Tracy, Curator in Charge Lewis I. Sharp, Assistant Curator Morrison H. Heckscher, Curator Natalie Spassky, Assistant Curator Marilynn Johnson Bordes, Associate Curator Mary C. Glaze, Associate Curator Frances M. Gruber, Assistant Curator

CONSULTANTS Kevin Roche John Dinkeloo and Associates, Architects Coffey and Levine, Landscape Architects

James Delihas, Writer Irwin Glusker, Design Mary Ann Joulwan, Design Associate

Set in Linofilm Goudy Old Style and Goudy Extra Bold by Quad Typographers Inc. and printed by Colorcraft Offset Inc. on Warren Lustro Offset Enamel Dull paper in the United States of America.

All objects illustrated are from the Metropolitan Museum's collection.

Open flap for captions to Album of American Faces.

^6-19^

The American Bicentennial Wing of The Metropolitan Museum of Art has been officially recognized by the American Revolution Bicentennial Commission in Washington, D.C., as a project in keeping with the goals of the Bicentennial celebration of the United States in 1976: "... to forge a new national commitment, a new spirit for 76, a spirit which will unite the nation in purpose and dedication to the advancement of human welfare as it moves into its third century."

The American Bicentennial Wing has also been endorsed by the New York City Bicentennial Corporation as a Heritage '76 project. 7^6-!9lfe