The Charles Engelhard Court, the grand, light-filled pavilion that has long served as the formal entrance to The Metropolitan Museum of Art's American Wing, is open again after two years of construction and renovation.Twelve of the Met's historic interiors, mostly from the colonial period, located on three floors of the wing's historic core have been reordered, renovated, and reinterpreted.
The popular American Wing Café will also reopen in its previous location on the park side of the court.
The opening of the galleries marks the completion of the second part (begun in May 2007) of a project to reconfigure, renovate, or upgrade nearly every section of The American Wing by 2011.
Morrison Heckscher, the Lawrence A. Fleischman chairman of The American Wing, described the project as "architecture in the cause of art."
"The goal of the comprehensive renovation of The American Wing is to present the Museum's superlative collections in the clearest and most logical, as well as most beautiful, manner possible. Toward that end, we have called upon the building itself -in the use of clear glass for walls and parapets and even a new public elevator, for example - to provide visual access to all facets of the collections."
The American Wing's collections of ceramics, glass, silver, and pewter will be installed in the balcony galleries in an integrated chronological sequence, beginning with the colonial period on the east side and continuing into the 20th century on the west, overlooking Central Park.
Among the highlights of the silver display will be the work of such familiar names as Paul Revere, Jr., and Tiffany & Company. A newly constructed mezzanine-level balcony, accessible via a staircase in the northwest corner, will be devoted almost entirely to the display of a major recent acquisition - 250 examples of American art pottery crafted between 1876 and 1956, a promised gift of Robert A. Ellison Jr. - that has never before been publicly seen.
Stained-glass windows of the same period, by Frank Lloyd Wright (1867–1959), William Gray Purcell (1880–1965) and George Grant Elmslie (1869–1952), and George Washington Maher (1864–1926) that incorporate large amounts of clear glass will also be installed nearby, with Central Park visible through them.
The Metropolitan Museum gratefully acknowledges the following lead contributors to the project: Margaret and Raymond J. Horowitz, Anthony W. and Lulu C. Wang, Mr. and Mrs. Richard L. Chilton, Jr., The Peter Jay Sharp Foundation, Juliana and Peter Terian, Jan and Warren Adelson, Max and Heidi Berry, Ambassador and Mrs. W. L. Lyons Brown, Joyce Berger Cowin, Jane and Maurice Cunniffe, Barbara G. Fleischman and Martha J. Fleischman, Peggy N. and Roger G. Gerry Charitable Trust, The Henry Luce Foundation, Elizabeth and Richard Miller, Oceanic Heritage Foundation, Doris and Stanley Tananbaum, and Barrie and Deedee Wigmore.
For more about corporate support of the museum, as well as entertaining programs and planned giving, call the development office at (212) 570-3956, or e-mail development@metmuseum.org.
The Metropolitan Museum of Art, is located at 1000 Fifth Avenue in New York City.
