Earlier this week I attended the opening of the newly refurbished American Wing at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Seeing the reinstallation of the collection was like attending a high school reunion —it was great to see old friends again. And, all of it looked exceptionally well in its flattering new environment. The new galleries, of which there are 26, are now positioned on one floor in a continuous flow of spaces. Ten years and $100 million in the making, it does not disappoint.
There are many artful touches and well considered details in the design of the galleries. One is the choice of a single neutral taupe color that provides a consistent backdrop throughout. Interestingly, many visitors made comparisons between the American Wings at the Met and the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston. The Museum of Fine Arts’ galleries have richly colored walls, several with period appropriate wallpapers. The Met took the opposite route, avoiding emphatic color to allow the art to stand out.
In general, I tend to favor placing paintings against colored walls in my own work to set them off — but, of course, there is a difference in mission. Because the Met has encyclopedic collections and they are trying to present the broader history of art, an academic approach where art is handled like scientific specimens to be studied is warranted. Art can be carefully examined in a neutral environment, whereas decorated rooms balance multiple themes and competing focal points.
Another interesting choice the Met made was to focus on placing paintings in original or period frames, allowing individual artworks to connect back with their original context. A prime beneficiary of this is Emanuel Gottlieb Leutze’s 1851 Washington Crossing the Delaware. This painting — which receives the most dramatic transformation by being placed alone on a long arched wall at the terminus of an enfilade of galleries — is set within a reproduction of its original lost frame by Eli Wilner. It is a triumph.
Leutze’s painting has had multiple frames during its existence, the current one being the fourth of its 161 years of existence. In the below photo the painting is seen in its original frame at the time of the Metropolitan Sanitary Fair of 1864 in New York. In 1897, John S. Kennedy purchased the painting for $16,000 and donated it to the Metropolitan Museum of Modern Art. Upon its arrival it was placed in a different frame, which can be seen in the image following dating from 1907.
Once again, the painting was reframed in 1918 in a shallow, flat frame. This very plain frame was maintained because it allowed one to focus on the painting alone – a very 20th century notion. Now, in a dramatic new course from previous decades, there is a growing movement to reunite paintings with their original or period frames. Frames are seen as part of the art and considered archeologically essential to their appreciation.
Additionally, not only has the painting been paired with a replica of its original frame, but it is also now hung in a gallery with Frederic Edwin Church’s 1859 The Heart of the Andes and Albert Bierstadt’s 1863 The Rocky Mountains, Lander’s Peak. These three paintings were first seen together at the time of the Metropolitan Sanitary Fair in 1864, but dwelled in different galleries afterwards. Bringing these important works together ties them historically and highlights the bonds of time and place between them.
There are other wonderful juxtapositions, often insightful and sometimes humorous. It is fun to see the lazy, light-hearted ease of Bingham’s Fur Traders Descending the Missouri where it will catch your eye at the entry way framing the grandly posed Washington Crossing the Delaware. I also admired how Sargent’s Wyndham Sisters is bracketed with his other famous works, Madame X and Mr. and Mrs. I. N. Stokes. The strong black and white tones of the latter form a bold frame to the softer and more ethereal painting in between.
I hope you will all consider a visit to the new American Wing at the Met. It is worthy of a trip to New York to see – but failing that, The New York Times interactive tour of the new galleries is an exceptional introduction.
