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The Metropolitan Museum of Art hosted a press presentation on Monday, February 16, 2015, in the Museum’s Chinese Galleries to reveal early details about The Costume Institute’s upcoming exhibition "China: Through the Looking Glass," opening on May 7.

Silas Chou, Wendi Murdoch, Anna Wintour, Wong Kar Wai, and Joe Zee joined Museum President Emily K. Rafferty, Costume Institute Curator Andrew Bolton, and Douglas Dillon Chairman of the Department of Asian Art Maxwell K. Hearn in the Arthur M. Sackler Gallery for a glimpse at some of the Chinese art and film, as well as high fashion, to be featured in the exhibition, on view May 7–August 16, 2015, at the Met in New York City.

Maxwell K. Hearn remembers when he first arrived at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in 1971. “There were only two spaces for Asian art: the Great Hall Balcony, which housed Chinese ceramics, and an adjacent gallery of Chinese Buddhist art,” he recalled. “Douglas Dillon, then chairman, and Thomas Hoving, the director, surveyed the museum and realized that Asian art was the weakest department. They also recognized that it was too important an area to neglect.”

Since then the number of galleries devoted to Asian art has grown to over 50, and the Met now has one of the world’s greatest collections.