Displaying items by tag: thomas hoving

"New York Painting and Sculpture: 1940 – 1970" was the Met’s most exciting exhibition to date under the auspices of director Thomas Hoving, who turned Henry Geldzahler loose to prick the art world to alertness. Paul Kasmin Gallery announces "The New York School, 1969: Henry Geldzahler at the Metropolitan Museum of Art," on view at 293 Tenth Avenue from January 13 – March 14, 2015. Curated by Stewart Waltzer, this comprehensive group show reprises Geldzahler’s seminal exhibition and includes exemplary works by Josef Albers, Alexander Calder, John Chamberlain, Joseph Cornell, Mark di Suvero, Dan Flavin, Helen Frankenthaler, Adolph Gottlieb, Hans Hofmann, Donald Judd, Ellsworth Kelly, Roy Lichtenstein, Morris Louis, Robert Motherwell, Isamu Noguchi, Kenneth Noland, Claes Oldenberg, Jules Olitski, Robert Rauschenberg, James Rosenquist, Frank Stella and Andy Warhol, featuring works from the original exhibition.

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.