This is the story of the origins of Buddhist art. The religious landscape of ancient India was transformed by the teachings of the Buddha, which in turn inspired art devoted to expressing his message. Sublime imagery adorned the most ancient…

Van Gogh’s Cypresses is the first exhibition to focus on the trees—among the most famous in the history of art—immortalized in signature images by Vincent van Gogh (1853–1890). Such iconic pictures as Wheat Field with…

This exhibition will consider the underexplored question of how painters learned their craft in premodern China. Some painters learned at home, from fathers, mothers, or other relatives among whom painting was a shared language of familial…

The Department of Drawings and Prints boasts more than one million drawings, prints, and illustrated books made in Europe and the Americas from around 1400 to the present day. Because of their number and sensitivity to light, the works can only be…

American artist Lauren Halsey (b. 1987, Los Angeles) has been commissioned to create a site-specific installation for The Met's Iris and B. Gerald Cantor Roof Garden. Halsey will create a full-scale architectural structure imbued with the collective…

Water is the most intimate of all natural resources. We depend on and share our lives with water in its many forms—the soothing trickle of freshwater springs, meandering rivers, the rhythmic waves of a northern Great Lake, the thunderous roar…

In January 1929, after eight years in Europe, the American photographer Berenice Abbott (1898–1991) boarded an ocean liner to New York City for what was meant to be a short visit. Upon arrival, she found the city transformed and ripe with…

In 1969, Richard Avedon was at a crossroads. After a five-year hiatus, the photographer started making portraits again, this time with a new camera and a new sense of scale. Trading his handheld Rolleiflex for a larger, tripod-mounted device, he…

Rituals and customs help celebrate life’s milestones, remember the past, and mark time. In addition to their significance as social conventions, rituals often reaffirm state, governmental, and religious principles. In Korea, performing…

Drawn largely from The Met’s renowned collection of Japanese art, this exhibition explores the twin themes of anxiety and hope, with a focus on the human stories in and around art and art making. The exhibition begins with sacred images from…

The Department of Drawings and Prints boasts more than one million drawings, prints, and illustrated books made in Europe and the Americas from around 1400 to the present day. Because of their number and sensitivity to light, the works can only be…

An integral part of the Museum’s collection of ephemera, the Burdick collection of baseball cards tells the history of popular printmaking in the United States. In 1947, after having approached A. Hyatt Mayor, the Museum’s curator of…

An integral part of the Museum’s collection of ephemera, the Burdick collection of baseball cards tells the history of popular printmaking in the United States. In 1947, after having approached A. Hyatt Mayor, the Museum’s curator of…

Ganesha, the son of Shiva and Parvati, is a Brahmanical (Hindu) diety known to clear a path to the gods and remove obstacles in everyday life. He is loved by his devotees (bhakti) for his many traits, including his insatiable appetite for sweet…

For more than twenty-five years, Cecily Brown (b. 1969) has transfixed viewers with sumptuous color, bravura brushwork, and complex narratives that relate to some of Western art history’s grandest and oldest themes. After moving to New York…

Denmark in the nineteenth century experienced the disastrous fallout of the Napoleonic Wars, the devastating bombardment of Copenhagen, bankruptcy, and mounting antagonism with Germany. Yet, this sociopolitical and economic tumult also gave rise to…

In Maya art, the gods are depicted at all stages of life: as infants, as adults at the peak of their maturity and influence, and as they age. The gods could die, and some were born anew, serving as models of regeneration and resilience. In Lives of…

Gilt is the third in a series of commissions for The Met’s historic facade. Borrowing the format of trophies—emblems of competition and victory—Hew Locke has created four sculptures that reflect on the exercise and representation…

This exhibition offers an unprecedented look at the life and artistic achievements of seventeenth-century Afro-Hispanic painter Juan de Pareja (ca. 1608–1670). Largely known today as the subject of The Met’s iconic portrait by Diego…

The Costume Institute’s spring 2023 exhibition will examine the work of Karl Lagerfeld (1933–2019). Focusing on the designer’s stylistic vocabulary as expressed in aesthetic themes that appear time and again in his fashions from…

This exhibition will offer a radically new view of Cubism by demonstrating its engagement with the age-old tradition of trompe l’oeil painting. A self-referential art concerned with the nature of representation, trompe l’oeil…

Focusing on the work of African American potters in the 19th-century American South—in dialogue with contemporary artistic responses—the exhibition presents approximately 50 ceramic objects from Old Edgefield District, South Carolina, a…

This exhibition will trace the transformation of the kimono from the late Edo period (1615–1868) through the early 20th century, as the T-shaped garment was adapted to suit the lifestyle of modern Japanese women. It will feature a remarkable…

Ancient Greek and Roman sculpture was once colorful, vibrantly painted and richly adorned with detailed ornamentation. Chroma: Ancient Sculpture in Color reveals the colorful backstory of polychromy—meaning “many colors,” in…

Organized around a single object—the marble bust Why Born Enslaved! by French sculptor Jean-Baptiste Carpeaux—Fictions of Emancipation: Carpeaux Recast is the first exhibition at The Met to examine Western sculpture in relation to the…

Louise Bourgeois: Paintings is the first comprehensive exhibition of paintings produced by the iconic, French-American artist Louise Bourgeois (1911–2010) between her arrival in New York in 1938 and her turn to sculpture in the late 1940s.…

Renowned for his powerful paintings of American life and scenery, Winslow Homer (1836–1910) remains a consequential figure whose art continues to appeal to broad audiences. This exhibition reconsiders Homer’s work through the lens of…

The Costume Institute’s In America: A Lexicon of Fashion, launches a two-part exploration of fashion in the United States in the Anna Wintour Costume Center. It establishes a modern vocabulary of American fashion based on its expressive…

The Costume Institute’s In America: An Anthology of Fashion is the second portion of a two-part exhibition exploring fashion in the United States. Presented in collaboration with The Met’s American Wing, this section of the exhibition…

Within the Buddhist traditions of the Himalayas, three bodhisattvas emerge as personifications of Buddhist ideals. Manjushri, who cuts through ignorance and personifies correct knowledge; Avalokiteshvara, a compassionate protector of the devout that…

This exhibition features more than 289 works of art and 206 works of writing by New York City teens who received the highest regional recognition in the 2022 Scholastic Art & Writing Awards—the Gold Key Award. Presented by the Alliance for…

The Department of Drawings and Prints boasts more than one million drawings, prints, and illustrated books made in Europe and the Americas from around 1400 to the present day. Because of their number and sensitivity to light, the works can only be…

Lacquerware with mother-of-pearl inlay has a long and rich tradition in the history of Korean art. This exhibition showcases nearly thirty outstanding works of Korean lacquerware from The Met collection and marks the Museum’s first exhibition…

Following the nation’s Centennial in 1876, American ceramics, often inspired by Europe, China, and Japan, quickly developed into an art form that demonstrated the nation’s own artistic originality. This exhibition of over 150 works…

Amar Kanwar's The Lightning Testimonies (2007) is an installation of eight synchronized video projections that play on a thirty-two-minute loop. The work is a constellation of accounts of women who have experienced sexual violence. Beginning with…