The Metropolitan Museum of Art’s collection of Greek and Roman art, comprising more than 30,000 works, ranging in date from the Neolithic period (ca. 4500 B.C.) to the time of the Roman emperor Constantine‘s conversion to Christianity in A.D. 312, naturally concentrates on items from the historical regions of ancient Greece and the Roman Empire.

Marble Statue of the Three Graces (Roman Imperial Period)

In 2007, the Greek and Roman galleries were expanded to approximately 6,000 m² (60,000 sq. ft.), allowing the majority of the collection to be on permanent display.

Marble Statue of Aphrodite Anadyomene

It represents a wide range of cultures and artistic styles, from classic Greek black-figure and red-figure vases to carved Roman tunic pins. Dating back to the founding of the museum, the museum collection’s first accessioned object was, in fact, a Roman sarcophagus that is still currently on display.

Marble Statue of Athena Parthenos

The collection, among the most comprehensive in North America, includes the monumental Amathus sarcophagus; the “Monteleone chariot” (a magnificently detailed Etruscan chariot);  several large classical wall paintings and reliefs from different periods (including an entire reconstructed bedroom from a noble villa in Boscoreale, excavated after its entombment by the eruption of Vesuvius in AD 79);  as well as many pieces from far earlier than the Greek or Roman empires(among the most remarkable are an abstract; seemingly almost modern collection of early Cycladic sculptures from the mid-third millennium BC).

Terracotta pointed neck amphora with stand (470 BC)

The collection of Greek and Roman art, representing the geographic regions of Greece (though not as delimited by modern political frontiers) and Italy (its geographical limits coinciding with the expansion of the Roman Empire), includes the art of prehistoric Greece (Helladic, Cycladic, and Minoan) ) as well as art from the Greek colonies (established around the Mediterranean basin and on the shores of the Black Sea) and the increasingly Hellenized Cyprus; and pre-Roman art of Italic peoples (notably the Etruscans).

Marble Head of a Young Woman From a Funerary Statue

The Metropolitan Museum of Art’s extensive collection of ancient Greek art, preeminent in the Western Hemisphere and among the finest in the world, feature masterpieces from the Archaic and Classical periods (sixth through fourth centuries B.C.).  They are presented in seven large galleries, named after distinguished American collectors and philanthropists such as Mary and Michael Jaharis, Judy and Michael Steinhardt, Joyce and Dietrich von Bothmer and Malcolm Wiener, all refurbished to their original Neo-Classical grandeur.

Marble Statue o a Wounded Amazon (Roman, 1st – 2nd century AD)

All are arranged in a contextual display that combines works of many media.  Objects in the New Greek Galleries embrace such themes as religion, funerary customs, civic life, and athletics.

Greek Art of the Sixth through Fourth Centuries B.C.

The grand, barrel-vaulted Mary and Michael Jaharis Gallery (Greek Art of the Sixth through Fourth Centuries B.C.), formerly used for the display of Cypriot and Roman art, is a soaring, 140-ft.-long space flanked, on each side, by three galleries that present a chronological progression of works in all media of large-scale sculpture and other monumental works of the sixth, fifth, and fourth centuries B.C..

It extends south from The Robert and Renée Belfer Court for Early Greek Art all the way to the Sardis column.

The Museum’s distinguished collection of works of the sixth century, presented more or less chronologically and in close relationship to the art shown in the adjacent galleries, include large-scale sculpture, Panathenaic amphorae, large vases of conventional shape and decoration (once filled with olive oil and presented as prizes to victors in contests held during the Panathenaic festival, which honored Athena, patron goddess of Athens).

Marble Sphinx on a Cavetto Capital

The large-scale marble copies, at the central section of the gallery, are among the finest sculptures that dominate this space.  Made during the Roman period, these over-life-sized bronze statues, created in Greece during the fifth and fourth centuries (but lost or melted down over time), include a wounded Amazon and a statue of the Greek hero Protesilaus (the first Greek to set foot on the shore of Troy during the Trojan War).

Towering above two original, fourth century B.C. marble statues of draped women as well as an over-life-sized head of a youthful goddess, in an area devoted to the works of the fourth century B.C., are large marble foliate sculptures that once crowned tall Athenian grave monuments.

The Judy and Michael H. Steinhardt Gallery (Greek Art of the Sixth Century B.C.), three galleries on the east side of the Mary and Michael Jaharis Gallery, is unique in the Western Hemisphere in its display of the three major types of Greek freestanding marble sculpture of the sixth century B.C. – the kouros and kore, which served as funerary monuments or dedications, and the pillar-like grave stele.

6th Century Greek Art

The gallery is devoted primarily to original marble sculpture of the Archaic and Classical periods when Athens supplanted Corinth as the center of pottery production.  It is exemplified by several works attributed to the Amasis Painter, one of the most skillful and innovative of the black-figure artists. The gallery opens this sequence with the museum’s outstanding collection of Athenian funerary monuments of the sixth century B.C.

The New York Kouros, a marble statue of a nude youth (kouros) standing in the center of the room, once marked the grave of a young member of a wealthy landowning family and is one of the earliest monumental kouroi to have survived complete.

Other grave markers, displayed nearby, include rectangular shafts decorated with finely carved and painted reliefs of the deceased.  One of the best preserved archaic Attic Greek stelai in existence, standing over 13 ft. high, bears traces of most of its original painted decoration.

Free-standing and relief sculptures, monuments demonstrating the rapid development in naturalistic representation, includes one in particularly good state of preservation, complete with the crowning member in the form of a sphinx.

Also displayed throughout the room are vases, small bronzes and other objects of this period, are all grouped in a way that elucidates important customs and beliefs concerning death, warfare and drinking parties (known as symposia) which were current in Athens throughout the Archaic period.

The Bothmer Gallery I (Greek Art of the Sixth Century B.C.), through the museum’s exceptional collection of painted terracotta vases, provides an insight into the lives of Athenians of this time.  The pieces in this gallery are arranged in a roughly chronological order – from ca. 600 B.C. to 525 B.C., covering the mature Archaic style in Athens and ending with a major historical development – the initial westward push of the Persian Empire (which ultimately was defeated by the Greeks in the Persian Wars).

Some vase painters were known from their signatures (such as Nearchos, Lydos, Exekias, among others) while others remain anonymous and are given modern names of convenience (such as the Affecter or Amasis Painter) which may stem from the name of a collaborator that is known (such as a potter); a significant location; a particular collector in modern times; or a feature of the artist’s style.

Whether their ancient names are known or not, the potters and painters revealed distinctive artistic personalities and a singular capacity to depict a story. Decoration included all manner of scenes from daily life as well as from the colorful and complex world of mythology.
In the black-figure technique, practiced from about 600 to 530 B.C., glazed portions of a work were black and the remaining surface was the deep orange color of the clay. Exekias, among the known leading artistic personalities represented in this gallery, was the consummate master of this technique. During the time of the initial westward push of the Persian Empire, the red-figure technique in vase painting was invented and, gradually, began to replace the earlier black-figure technique.

Prehistoric and Early Greek Art

The Robert and Renée Belfer Court (Prehistoric and Early Greek Art), next to the Great Hall on the first floor, provides the introduction to all the galleries of ancient Greek and Roman art and includes a map of the ancient world.

Prehistoric and Early Greek Art

It displays prehistoric and early Greek art as well as, from time to time, rotating major artworks on loan of varying periods.

Prehistoric and Early Greek Art

The Bothmer Gallery II (Greek Art of the Fifth Century B.C.), providing examples of Athenian vase painting between about 530 and 400 B.C. (when the flexibility of the newly developed red-figure technique permitted artists to draw freely over the convex and concave surfaces of vases), displays vases (a high proportion were made for containing, pouring, and drinking wine), bronzes, terracottas, and gems of this period.  Original works of art from a time when the great creations of bronze and marble sculpture are, in large part, lost or preserved only in later copies of the Roman period, these are particularly important.

Greek Art of the Fifth Century B.C.

Coinage on display here, significant not only for its historical and commercial aspects but also for its iconographical and aesthetic qualities, represents specific cities (the head of Athena for Athens or Pegasus, the flying horse, for Corinth, etc.) and is also recurrent motifs in other media. In this gallery, the museum’s collections of coins were supplemented by a loan, from the American Numismatic Society, of approximately 75 significant coins.

Figuring prominently in this gallery are an extraordinary group of Greek potters and vase painters active in Athens who mastered, during the first half of the fifth century, the organic representation of the human body.

They include Euphronios and Euthymides (innovators who exploited the expressive possibilities of the red-figure technique at the end of the sixth and the beginning of the fifth century B.C.) as well as their successors (who often specialized in specific vessel shapes) Brygos Painter, Douris and Makron, who devoted themselves to the embellishment of drinking cups, and Kleophrades Painter, the Berlin Painter, Myson, and others who devoted themselves to larger pots. For the first time in many years, the current reinstallation makes it possible to see the major works of the foremost painters grouped together.

During this time, white-ground vases found particular favor. The most popular vases in the collection are superlative examples by the Achilles Painter as well as a toilet box (pyxis), decorated with the Judgment of Paris, and a bobbin (yo yo), that was made as a dedication, both attributed to the Penthesilea Painter.

The Carolyn, Kate, Elizabeth, Thomas, and Jonathan Wiener Gallery (Greek Art of the Fifth Century B.C.) presents a collection of some of the museum’s finest marble grave markers from Athens dating from the mid-fifth century B.C. through the early fourth century B.C.

5th Century BC Greek Art

There are also cases with clay and bronze vases, small bronze statuettes, glass vessels, gold jewelry, and terracotta figurines, all arranged to provide an overview of Athenian society.

Beautifully carved funerary reliefs include the well-known relief of a girl with doves (conveying some of the ideal beauty and sweetness of expression that is found in figures on the great architectural frieze that embellished the upper walls of the Parthenon in Athens); that of a young woman and her servant, and another of an entire family group, all giving a sense of the unprecedented flowering of art and culture that took place during the fifth century in Athens.

Greek Art of the 5th and Early 4th Century

The Stavros and Danaë Costopoulos Gallery (Greek Art of the Fifth and Early Fourth Centuries B.C.), presenting the art of Athens during the second half of the fifth century B.C. (the time in which the Parthenon was being erected between 447 and 432 B.C. on the Athenian Acropolis and when vase painting attained its most serene and classical expression), prominent displays funerary vases covered with a white slip (known as white ground) and decorated in a range of colors not previously used in Greek ceramics.

The Museum’s collections represent the major artists and, most importantly, convey the innovations that they brought to traditional subjects such as warfare, the life of women, and mythology.

The Achilles Painter, the great master and innovator trained in the red-figure technique by the Berlin Painter whose greatest innovations can be seen in the funerary lekythoi (oil flasks) that were covered with a white slip (permitting the use of polychromy), is represented by an important krater as well as by a variety of smaller vases.

The Spyros and Eurydice Costopoulos Gallery (Greek Art of the Fourth Century B.C.) includes Athenian funerary monuments (including large-scale marble vases that were used as grave markers) of this period (when Athens was still a center of artistic excellence) that became more and more elaborate over the years.

4th Century BC Greek Art

The graceful charm of the Athenian sculptor Praxiteles (famous throughout antiquity for having carved the first nude statue of Aphrodite) can be seen in one pair of fully three-dimensional figures of young girls that stood over a tomb.  Four colossal, three-dimensional stone funerary monuments, in the form of marble vessels decorated with low reliefs and commonly used to hold oil or water during funerary rites, stand at the center of the gallery.

Terracotta statuettes in several cases, known today as “Tanagra figurines” (since great numbers were found during the late 19th century at the site of the ancient city of Tanagra in Boeotia, north of Attica), were first made in Athens (during the second half of the fourth century B.C.) and represent fashionable women or girls. These terracottas are still prized today for their naturalness, vitality and charm.

Also on display in this gallery are large bronze vases decorated with reliefs; elaborate bronze mirrors; silver and glass vessels; and gold jewelry of a type found in the rich Macedonian tombs. An exceptional pair of earrings, a superb set of jewelry found in Macedonia, has tiny figures of Zeus in the form of an eagle abducting the young Trojan prince, Ganymede, and carrying him through the air to Mount Olympus (home of the gods).

Leon Levy and Shelby White Court for Hellenistic and Roman Art

The spectacular Leon Levy and Shelby White Court for Hellenistic and Roman art, created by the renowned architectural firm of McKim, Mead and White between 1912 and 1926, has an atrium which evokes the ambulatory garden of a large private Roman villa, with a glass roof allowing the objects below to be viewed in natural daylight.

The Met’s representative collection of Roman portrait busts, depicting emperors, other members of the imperial family, and private individuals, is displayed, in chronological order, along the perimeter of the court while on display at the center of the court are nearly 20 Roman sculptures created between the first century B.C. and the third century A.D.  Some of the Roman art on display include:

• The Old Market Woman (Roman, Julio-Claudian, A.D. 14-68)
• The life-size bronze Portrait Statue of an Aristocratic Boy (Roman, Augustan, 27 B.C.-A.D. 14)
• Two larger-than-life-size statues of Hercules facing one another from either side of the court (both Roman, Flavian, A.D. 69-98) -both works were part of the Giustiniani Collection in Rome, first published in 1631
• A marble portrait head of the Emperor Augustus (Roman, Julio-Claudian, ca. A.D. 14-37)
• A fine marble bust of Caligula (Roman, Julio-Claudian, A.D. 37-41)
• A marble portrait of Antoninus Pius (Roman, Antonine, A.D. 138-161)
• The Marble Garland Sarcophagus (Roman, Severan, ca. A.D. 200-225) – found at Tarsus (southern Turkey) in 1863, it entered the Metropolitan in 1870 as the first object offered to and accepted by the museum.
• The marble statue of Hope Dionysos (Roman, Augustan or Julio-Claudian, 27 B.C.-A.D. 68) – named after the prominent collector Thomas Hope (who acquired it in 1796, it is an adaptation of a Greek statue of the fourth century B.C.
• A decorative support for a basin (Roman, Mid-Imperial, second century A.D.) – formed part of the collection of William Waldorf Astor (later Baron Astor of Hever) who assembled his collection of antiquities between 1890 and 1905.
• Architectural fragments from the Emperor Domitian‘s palace on the Palatine in Rome (Roman, ca. A.D. 90-92)
• The Badminton Sarcophagus (Roman, Late Imperial, A.D. 260-70) – carved in high relief from a single block of marble, it came from the collection of the dukes of Beaufort and was formerly displayed in their country seat, Badminton Hall in Gloucestershire, England.

Adjoining the Leon Levy and Shelby White Court are galleries designated for the presentation of South Italian art (fourth-first century B.C.); Hellenistic art and architecture, the Hellenistic treasury, and Hellenistic art and the Hellenistic tradition (third-first century B.C.); and the art of Augustan Rome (first century A.D.), Roman imperial art (second century A.D.), and the art of the later Roman empire (third century A.D.).

Highlights of these galleries are two actual rooms from Roman villas – with their stunning wall paintings – that were buried nearly two thousand years ago by the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in A.D. 79.

South Italian Art Fourth–First Century BC (Gallery 161)

South Italian Art (Fourth-First century B.C.) – One of the principal features of culture in South Italy, known since antiquity as “Magna Graecia” (“Greater Greece”), is its interest in Greek drama, often reflected in works of art. On display here are a number of kraters (bowls for mixing wine and water):

• A red-figure calyx-krater (ca. 400-390 B.C., Greek, South Italian, Apulian, Late Classical) – vase painting attributed to the Tarporley Painter.
• A terracotta column-krater (ca. 360-350 B.C., Greek, South Italian, Apulian, Late Classical). – at the entrance to the gallery.

Leon Levy and Shelby White Gallery for Helenistic Art and Architecture

Prominently displayed within the Leon Levy and Shelby White Gallery for Hellenistic Art and Architecture is the newly conserved, nearly 12 ft. high, fluted marble Sardis Column (Greek, Hellenistic, ca. 300 B.C.) – part of the shaft of a column, from the Temple of Artemis (one of the largest temples ever built in antiquity) at Sardis, that once stood some 58 feet high (from its scale-patterned base to its finely crafted Ionic capital) in its original setting.

It was excavated at Sardis (the ancient capital of Lydia, in western Turkey) early in the 20th century.

Marble column (Temple of Artemis, Sardis)

Also on display is a noble, radiant and monumental marble Head of a Ptolemaic Queen (Greek, Ptolemaic, ca. 270-250 B.C.).  Highly idealized in a pure Greek style and retaining its original polish, it ranks with the finest Ptolemaic royal portraits.

The Hellenistic Treasury is an intimate showplace for outstanding examples of luxury goods, primarily made of precious metals, gemstones or glass as well as coins (important loans from the American Numismatic Society) and refined small-scale objects having a private or religious use. Among those on display here are a pair of spectacular gold serpentine armbands (Greek, Hellenistic, ca. 200 B.C.) and a small bronze statue of a veiled and masked dancer (Greek, third-second century B.C.).

John Georgias Family Gallery for Hellenistic Art and Hellenistic Tradition

The John Georgas Family Gallery for Hellenistic Art and the Hellenistic Tradition (Third – First Century B.C.) displays a collection of bronze sculptures including a statue of Eros sleeping (Greek or Roman, Hellenistic or Augustan, third century B.C.-early first century A.D.), one of the few bronze statues that have survived from antiquity.

Wall painting (P. Fannius Synistor Villa, Boscoreale)

At its reception hall are several fresco panels, the largest of which is a grouping of three frescoes, from Boscoreale (located near Pompeii, it was buried by the eruption of Vesuvius in A.D. 79), the sumptuous villa of the wealthy Roman patron P. Fannius Synistor (Roman, Late Republican, ca. 50-40 B.C.), with figures that are generally agreed to be copies of a cycle of royal paintings created for one of the Macedonian courts of the Hellenistic period. They probably celebrate a dynastic marriage.

Wall painting (P. Fannius Synistor Villa, Boscoreale)

The Black Room (Gallery 165, Roman, Augustan, last decade of first century B.C.), a reconstruction of a room from the imperial villa (partially excavated between 1903 and 1905 after its accidental discovery during work on a railway) of Agrippa Postumus at Boscotrecase, incorporates surviving panels from the original walls.  The wall panels, set against a flat, monochrome surface, features Egyptianizing motifs and medallions with portraits of members of the imperial family.

The Black Room Late First Century BC (Gallery 167)

The Sylvia Josephs Berger and Joyce Berger Cowin Gallery for the Art of Augustan Rome (First Century A.D.) contains many exquisite examples of Roman imperial art.

Art of Augustan Rome Late First Century B.C.–First Century AD

They include:

• A sardonyx cameo (Roman, Claudian, A.D. 41-54) – a masterpiece in miniature carving, it was part of the celebrated 17th-century collection of Thomas Howard, Earl of Arundel.
• A beautiful cast glass bowl (Roman, Augustan, late first century B.C.)
• A glass jug (Roman, Julio-Claudian, first half of first century A.D.) – signed by Ennion (from the eastern Mediterranean coastal city of Sidon in modern Lebanon), the most famous and gifted of the known makers of Roman mold-blown glass.

Art of Imperial Rome Second Century A.D.

Roman Imperial Art (Second Century A.D.) focuses on the arts of Rome during the peaceful and prosperous second century A.D. It includes a recently acquired marble cinerary urn or container for the ashes of a cremated body (Roman, Julio-Claudian, first half of the first century A.D.), a singular example of Roman funerary art.

The John A. and Carole O. Moran Gallery for the Art of the Later Roman Empire (Third Century A.D.) prominently displays a collection of Roman sarcophagi figures including:

• A fine strigillated sarcophagus (a type that was very popular in Rome and Italy), although the marble from which it was made comes from northwest Asia Minor (Turkey).
• The bronze statue of Trebonianus Gallus (Roman, Late Imperial, A.D. 251-53)
• The monumental marble head of Constantine the Great (Roman, Late Imperial, ca. A.D. 325-70).

Also on display are gold, silver, and bronze coins that were minted primarily to supply money for state expenditure and to facilitate the collection of taxes. Additional galleries and a study collection are located on the mezzanine level. 

The dramatic Leon Levy and Shelby White Gallery for Etruscan Art (Ninth-Second Century B.C.), located at the Mezzanine Level, overlooking the Leon Levy and Shelby White Court to the north and Central Park to the south, is devoted to the art of the Etruscans, from their earliest creations to the time of Roman rule.

Its centerpiece is the newly restored, world-famous Etruscan chariot (second quarter of the sixth century B.C.), one of the great works in the museum’s collection and one of very few complete chariots to survive from antiquity. Made with bronze mounted on a wooden substructure, it is inlaid with precious elephant and hippopotamus ivory and richly decorated with scenes from the life of the Greek hero Achilles. It was probably used solely for ceremonial purposes before being buried in a tomb.

Displayed nearby is a rich array of smaller bronze and terracotta objects found in the same tomb as well as the Bolsena tomb-group, which includes works that were part of the burial of a woman.

Also on view are the following:

• A small, charming Etruscan vase (which may originally have contained ink) in the shape of a cockerel (ca. 630-620 B.C.), inscribed with the 26 letters of the Etruscan alphabet.
• A small bronze statuette of a young, elaborately dressed Etruscan woman (Archaic, late sixth century B.C.), most likely used as a religious offering in a sanctuary.
• The so-called “Morgan amber” (Etruscan, Late Archaic, ca. 500 B.C.) – the most complex and most important carved amber surviving from ancient Italy, it shows a couple reclining on a couch.  It came to the museum with the bequest of the collection of J. Pierpont Morgan.
• A set of jewelry found in a tomb (late archaic Etruscan, early fifth century B.C.) – the richest and most impressive set of Etruscan jewelry ever found, it comprises a splendid gold and glass pendant necklace, a pair of gold and rock-crystal disk earrings, a gold fibula decorated with a sphinx, a pair of plain gold fibulae, a gold dress pin, and five finger ring. Two of the rings have engraved scarabs. One is decorated with embossed satyr heads while the other two have decorated gold bezels.
• A group of Etruscan and Italic armor
• Elaborately carved cinerary urns
• 14 beautifully engraved Etruscan mirrors.

Leon Levy And Shelby White Gallery For The Greek And Roman Study Collection (Prehistoric Greek-Late Roman), located at the Mezzanine Level, features a large display of study material, comprising more than 3,400 works in all media and covering the entire cultural and chronological span of the department’s collection, from the art of prehistoric Greece through late Roman art. Among its noteworthy works are:

• A collection of prehistoric Greek vases – given to the Metropolitan Museum in 1927 by the Greek government
• A Roman transport amphora – given by the noted underwater explorer Jacques Cousteau.
• Several hundred examples of Roman glass in fantastic shapes and colors, ranging from clear colorless to darkest blue, and from greenish yellow to deep amber.

In lieu of traditional labels inside the display cases, an interactive system, developed specifically for the Metropolitan, allows the information to be kept up-to-date with the latest scholarship on each object. Six wall-mounted computer touch screens, located throughout the study collection, allow visitors to access information about each object on view.

An additional gallery, also on the mezzanine level, is devoted to the display of special exhibitions. 

The Norbert Schimmel Gallery (Prehistoric Art from Cyprus: Seventh Millennium–ca. 1000 B.C.), focusing on objects of the Bronze Age (ca. 2500–1050 B.C.), houses a collection of ancient art from Cyprus that was acquired by the Museum in 1874, having been assembled on the island by Gen. Luigi Palma di Cesnola (American consul and later Met’s first director). Though not surely from Cyprus, the bronze ingot represents the island’s single most significant resource.

Archaic Art from Cyprus ca. 1000–ca. 480 BC

Archaic Art from Cyprus (ca. 1000–ca. 480 B.C.) displays stone sculpture of the sixth through third century B.C., made from soft local limestone.  The works, preserving considerable polychromy, reflect the successive influence of Assyrian, Egyptian, Persian and Greek domination.  The most significant object, in terms of scale, quality, and importance, is the sarcophagus from the site of Amathus. Also well represented here are metal vases, particularly of silver. 

Classical Art from Cyprus ca. 480–ca. 310 BC

A.G. Leventis Foundation Gallery (Classical Art from Cyprus: ca. 480–ca. 310 B.C.) displays Cypriot sculpture demonstrating Greek influence (though in a form modified by the variety of peoples that occupied the island).  The sarcophagus from Golgoi is the most important work.

Hellenistic and Roman Art from Cyprus ca. 310 B.C–AD 330

Hellenistic and Roman Art from Cyprus (ca. 310 B.C–A.D. 330) features works of Cypriot art from the periods of Hellenistic and Roman rule. On display are glass and jewelry as well as sculpture (including sculptures of “temple boys”).

Metropolitan Museum of Art: 1000 5th Ave, New York, NY 10028, USA. Tel: (212) 535-7710 and (212) 570-3951. Fax: (212) 472-2764. E-mail: communications@metmuseum.org.  Website: www.metmuseum.org. Open 10 AM – 9 PM. Admission: US$25/adult, children below 12 years old is free.

Museum of Modern Art

The first place we visited, upon arrival in New York City, was the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA),  an art museum located in Midtown Manhattan. One of the largest and most influential museums of modern art in the world. MoMA’s admission cost of US$25 makes it one of the most expensive museums in the city.

The crowd that day inside the museum

However, it has free entry on Fridays, sponsored by clothing company Uniqlo, after 4PM and this we availed of. As such, the museum was more crowded (including the inevitable Oriental selfie snappers) than I would have liked and it was hard to move around but who can complain?

Photography (minus the camera flash) was allowed here, though my pictures didn’t capture the impact of the in-real-life viewing. There are 5 floors of artwork to admire and the huge galleries, whose overall chronological flow presents a perspective of stylistic progression and place in time, were well laid out. I allow a minimum of two hours to explore the museum.

The author besides Joan Miro’s The Hunter – Catalan Landscape (1923-24, Oil on Canvas)

MoMA  has been important in developing and collecting Modernist art and its collection offers an overview of modern and contemporary art, including works of sculpture,  architecture and design, drawing, painting,  photography, prints, illustrated books and artist’s books, film and electronic media.

A private non-profit organization, MoMA is the seventh-largest U.S. museum by budget (its annual revenue is about US$145 million, none of which is profit).

Andre Derain (Bathers, 1907, Oil on Canvas)

Vasily Kandinsky (Picture with an Archer, 1909, Oil on Canvas)

Rene Magritte (The Lovers, 1928, Oil on Canvas)

MOMA is considered, by many, to have the best collection of modern Western masterpieces in the world.  Its holdings include more than 150,000 individual pieces in addition to approximately 22,000 films and 4 million film stills (access to the collection ended in 2002 and the collection is mothballed in a vault in Hamlin, Pennsylvania).

Claude Monet (Agapanthus, Oil on Canvas, 1914-26)

Andrea Bowers (A Menace to Liberty, 2012)

All the classics were here and it was moving, inspiring, immersive and absorbing but also a bit overwhelming. The nicely curated collection at the fifth floor houses such important and familiar works as the following:

• Francis Bacon, Painting (1946)
• Umberto Boccioni, The City Rises
• Paul Cézanne, The Bather
• Marc Chagall, I and the Village
• Giorgio de Chirico, The Song of Love
• Salvador Dalí, The Persistence of Memory
• Max Ernst, Two Children Are Threatened by a Nightingale
• Paul Gauguin, Te aa no areois (The Seed of the Areoi)
• Albert Gleizes, Portrait of Igor Stravinsky, 1914
• Jasper Johns, Flag
• Frida Kahlo, Self-Portrait With Cropped Hair
• Roy Lichtenstein, Drowning Girl
• René Magritte, The Empire of Lights
• Henri Matisse, The Dance
• Jean Metzinger, Landscape, 1912–14
• Piet Mondrian, Broadway Boogie-Woogie
• Barnett Newman, Broken Obelisk
• Barnett Newman, Vir Heroicus Sublimis(Man, Heroic and Sublime)
• Pablo Picasso, Les Demoiselles d’Avignon
• Jackson Pollock, One: Number 31, 1950
• Henri Rousseau, The Dream, 1910
• Henri Rousseau, The Sleeping Gypsy
• Andrew Wyeth, Christina’s World

Claude Monet (The Japanese Footbridge)

Jackson Pollock (One Number 31, 1950)

It also holds works by a wide range of influential European and American artists including Georges Braque, Marcel Duchamp, Walker Evans, Helen Frankenthaler, Alberto Giacometti, Arshile Gorky, Hans Hofmann, Edward Hopper, Paul Klee, Franz Kline, Willem de Kooning, Dorothea Lange, Fernand Léger, Roy Lichtenstein, Morris Louis, René Magritte,  Joan Miró, Henry Moore, Kenneth Noland, Georgia O’Keeffe, Jackson Pollock, Robert Rauschenberg, Auguste Rodin, Mark Rothko, David Smith, Frank Stella, and hundreds of others.

Fernand Leger (The Mirror, 1925, Oil on Canvas)

Fernand Leger (Woman with a Book, 1923, Oil on Canvas) (1)

Many of the paintings have an audio option which is great for some background information.

Vincent Van Gogh (The Starry Night, 1889, Oil on Canvas)

Seeing the original painting of Vincent van Gogh’s famous The Starry Night was certainly a moving experience that I shall not soon forget. I could actually see the layers and layers of paint, the small brush strokes and all of the colors of paint that are far more vivid on canvas.

Claude Monet (Reflections of Clouds on the Water-Lily Pond)

Claude Monet’s Water Lilies triptych, breathtaking to see in person, was also a big highlight worth seeing. The Picasso’s were also stunning, It was also great to see the full set of Andy Warhol, Campbell’s Soup Cans.

Any Warhol (Campbell’s soup cans, 1962)

An acquired taste is required for the temporary exhibits at the 3rd and the 4th floors which were very contemporary and not to my liking. The perplexing abstract pieces, using garage components such as snow shovels and car tires hammered (which begs the question “what was that supposed to be?”), didn’t excited me but they were still worth seeing how imaginative (and indulgent) modern artists have become.

Check out “Unfinished Conversations: New Work From the Collection,” “Robert Rauschenberg: Among Friends” and “Making Space: Women Artists and Postwar Abstraction”  

Shirana Shahbazi (Composition 40 2011)

Certain pieces here challenged my preconceived ideas, making me scratch your head and ask the question “Is that’s art?” upon seeing 7 boards of wood painted white being called art.

Frank Lloyd Wright at 150

However, being an architect, the very informative Frank Lloyd-Wright exhibit, with its original drawings (painstakingly rendered the old fashion way), blueprints, sketches and models for many of his projects (both completed and proposed); was very interesting.

Check out “Frank Lloyd Wright at 150: Unpacking the Archive” 

Frank Lloyd Wright

Articles about the the myth of the great American architect provide interesting insights into his thinking and inspirations, portraying how advanced his ideas were in many ways.

Henri Matisse – Music (Sketch, 1907, Oil and Charcoal on Canvas)

Henri Matisse (Periwinkles-Morrocan Garden, Oil, Pencil and Charcoal on Canvas, 1912)

Henri Matisse (Still Life with Aubergines, Oil on Canvas, 1911)

Henri Matisse (The Rose Marble Table, Oil on Canvas, 1917)

MoMA’s Department of Architecture and Design, was founded in 1932, is the first museum department in the world dedicated to the intersection of architecture and design.  Philip Johnson, the department’s first director, served as curator between 1932–34 and 1946–54.

Henri Matisse (La Serpentine, Bronze, 1909)

Henri Matisse (Dance-1, 1909, Oil on Canvas)

Henri Matisse (The Morrocans, Oil on Canvas, 1915-16)

The collection consists of 28,000 works including architectural models, drawings and photographs and one of its highlights is the Mies van der Rohe Archive. It also includes works of legendary architects and designers Frank Lloyd Wright, Paul László, the Eameses, Isamu Noguchi, and George Nelson.

Pablo Picasso (Les Demoiselle d’Avignon, Oil on Canvas, 1907)

Pablo Picasso (Woman with Pears, 1909, Oil on Canvas)

Pablo Picasso (The Studio, Oil on Canvas, 1927-28)

The Design Collection contains many industrial and manufactured pieces, ranging from a self-aligning ball bearing to an entire Bell 47D1 helicopter.

Bell 47D1 helicopter

In 2012, the department acquired a selection of 14 video games, the basis of an intended collection of 40 which is to range from Pac-Man (1980) to Minecraft (2011). The world-renowned Art Photography Collection, founded by Beaumont Newhall in 1940, includes photos by Todd Webb.

Pablo Picasso (Nude with Joined Hands, Oil on Canvas, 1906)

Pablo Picasso (Two Nudes, 1906, Oil on Canvas)

Pablo Picasso (Ma Jolie, 1911)

Pablo Picasso (Bather, Oil on Canvas, 1908-09)

The building also features an entrance for school groups, a 125-seat auditorium, an orientation center, workshop space for teacher training programs, study centers, and a large lobby with double-height views into the beautiful outdoor Sculpture Garden, at the mile of the museum, which features Aristide Maillol’s The River, a great statue of a woman diva laying on her back above the water.

Aristide Maillol (The River)

Alexander Calder (Sandy’s Butterfly, 1964)

From about 1.5 million a year, MoMA has seen its average number of visitors rise to 2.5 million after its new granite and glass renovation. In 2009, the museum reported 119,000 members and 2.8 million visitors over the previous fiscal year.

Paul Cezanne (Still Life with Apples, 1895-98, Oil on Canvas)

Paul Cezanne (L’Estaque, 1879-83, Oil on Canvas)

Paul Cezanne – Château Noir 1904-06, Oil on canvas, 73.6 x 93.2 cm.)

During its 2010 fiscal year, it attracted its highest-ever number of visitors of 3.09 million. However, in 2011, attendance dropped 11% to 2.8 million.

Paul Cezanne (The Bather, 1885, Oil on Canvas)

Paul Cezanne (Pines and Rocks – Fountainbleau)

Since its founding in 1929, the museum was open every day until 1975, when it closed one day a week (originally Wednesdays) to reduce operating expenses. In 2012, it again opened every day, including Tuesday, the one day it has traditionally been closed.

Henry Rosseau (The Sleeping Gypsy, 1897, Oil on Canvas)

Henri Rosseau (The Dream, 1910, Oil on Canvas)

The museum’s awesome gift shop had a lovely selection of gifts such as magnets, prints and more unique items like socks and scarves with art on them as well that summed up all of the amazing art throughout the museum. 

Vasudeo S. Gaitonde (Painting No. 4, 1962)

Mademoiselle Pogany (Constantin Brancusi)

Museum of Modern Art (MoMA): 11 West 53rd St. (between Fifth and Sixth Ave.) , New York City, NY 10019, USA. Open 10:30 AM – 5:30 PM (8 PM on Fridays). Admission: US$25/adult, children below 12 years old is free. 

How to Get There:

Bus: Any line to 53rd Street

Metro: Any line to Fifth Avenue or 53rd Street