Met's farewell show for de Montebello includes 5th century Mathura Buddha

The Philippe de Montebello Years,' the show which opened at the Metropolitan Museum of Art last week, is the museum's farewell tribute to de Montebello, its director of 31 years, who is leaving the institution, deemed the greatest museum in the world, at the end of 2008.

‘The Philippe de Montebello Years' contains 300 of the more than 84,000 art objects acquired during de Montebello's tenure.The show runs through February 1, 2009.

Among the 300 transformational exhibits at ‘The Montebello Years' is a red sandstone sculpture of Buddha from Mathura in India, late 5th century, bought in 1979. John Guy, curator of South and Southeast Asian art, Department of Asian Art at the museum, noted, "As the summation of Buddhist stylistic development in a period of Buddhist expansion, this type (the Mathuran style) became the benchmark for Buddha images throughout Buddhist Asia, emulated most successfully in Sui and Tang China."

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‘The Dragon's Gift' at Rubin Museum of Art: a glimpse of reclusive Bhutan

In its regulated lifting of the veil that has draped the Himalayan kingdom of Bhutan from the world's view so far, one major step is 'The Dragon's Gift: The Sacred Arts of Bhutan' which is coming to the Rubin Museum of Art (RMA) in New York from September 19, 2008 - January 5, 2009, after its historic opening at the Honolulu Academy of Art early this year.

Organized by the Honolulu Academy of Arts and the Department of Culture, Ministry of Home and Cultural Affairs of the Royal Government of Bhutan, 'The Dragon's Gift' is a history making exhibition of rare religious Buddhist art with a special focus on ancient ritual Buddhist dances that have been preserved intact in Bhutan.

The exhibition will have its only east coast showing at RMA. Apart from its museum showings -- early this year in Honolulu, in New York, and in San Francisco in early 2009 -- there was a public celebration by the Smithsonian Institution on the National Mall in Washington DC in the summer, over the June 29 and July 4 weekends.

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The de Montebello Years: Curators at the Met celebrate 3 decades of acquisitions

To celebrate Philippe de Montebello's 31 years as Director of The Metropolitan Museum of Art, the curators of the Museum announced on June 2 plans to organize an exhibition of approximately 300 of the more than 84,000 works of art acquired during his tenure.

Among the highlights of the celebratory exhibition will be a standing Buddha in mottled red sandstone from India (Gupta period, 5th century).

Montebello – the eighth and longestserving Director of The Metropolitan Museum of Art – announced in January his plans to retire at the end of the year.

The unique exhibition – ‘The Philippe de Montebello Years: Curators Celebrate Three Decades of Acquisitions,' -- which will be on view in The Tisch Galleries from October 24, 2008, through February 1, 2009 – will be a collaboration of the curators currently working in the Museum's 17 curatorial departments.

Special emphasis will be placed on works that were transformative to the Metropolitan Museum's collections by building on existing strengths and expanding into new areas of collecting.

"We wanted to create an exhibition to celebrate Philippe de Montebello's auspicious career by focusing on an area of spectacular achievement at the heart of the institution acquisitions," said Helen C. Evans, the exhibition's coordinator, who is the Metropolitan Museum's Mary and Michael Jaharis Curator of Byzantine Art.

"The breadth and greatness of the works on display in ‘The Philippe de Montebello Years' will tell multiple stories – of his stellar leadership of the Museum's more than 300 curators, conservators, scientists, librarians, and educators of the excellence of the collections in representing 5,000 years of human artistic achievement around the world; and of the Museum's vital evolution in terms of renovating, expanding, and reinstalling galleries, developing conservation and research facilities, and enhancing visitors' understanding and experiencing of art."

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