Metropolitan Museum of Art – serie

The definitive book on the work of a virtuosic and revered American photographer  “Irving Penn: Centennial . . . presents page after page of startlingly fresh images.”—Luc Sante, New York Times  Irving Penn (1917–2009) was among the most esteemed and influential photographers of the twentieth century. Over the course of a nearly seventy-year career, he mastered a pared-down aesthetic of studio photography that is distinguished for its meticulous attention to composition, nuance, and detail. This indispensable book features one of the largest selections of Penn’s photographs ever compiled, including famous and beloved images as well as works that have never been published, spanning the entirety of his groundbreaking career.  An enlightening introduction situates his work in the context of the various artistic, social, and political environments and events that affected the content of his photographs. Lively essays acquaint readers with Penn’s primary subjects and campaigns, including early documentary scenes and imagery; portraits; fashion; female nudes; peoples of Peru, Dahomey (Benin), New Guinea, and Morocco; still lifes; and much more. Irving Penn: Centennial is essential for any fan of this artist’s work or the history of twentieth-century photography.  Published by The Metropolitan Museum of Art/Distributed by Yale University Press  Exhibition Schedule:  de Young, Fine Art Museums, San Francisco (March 16–July 21, 2024)

A groundbreaking introduction to Scandinavian artist Helene Schjerfbeck through the paintings and drawings that mark her as an exceptional modernist Reevaluating the role of Finnish painter Helene Schjerfbeck (1862–1946) in the history of modernism, this publication highlights pivotal passages in her sixty-year career—from her training at the Finnish Art Society and remarkable early success to her studies in Paris and St. Ives and eventual return to Finland. There, in relative isolation, she pared down figure paintings and still lifes to near abstraction while introducing greater complexity in her canvases. Long celebrated in Finland and Sweden, Schjerfbeck is relatively unknown to the rest of the world. This book provides fresh insight into her idiosyncratic processes and discusses the series of haunting self-portraits that she painted in her final years, which stand among the twentieth century’s most extraordinary self-examinations. Seeing Silence: The Paintings of Helene Schjerfbeck introduces an extraordinary Nordic artist who realized her own unique vision with passionate determination, despite personal adversity and her homeland’s turbulent political history.Published by The Metropolitan Museum of Art/Distributed by Yale University Press Exhibition Schedule: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York(December 5, 2025–April 5, 2026)

A collection of reprinted articles offered to scholars whose principal interest is Egyptology, and for whom it may be more convenient to find all the material on their subject within a single volume.

Positioning Alice Neel as a champion of civil rights, this book explores how her paintings convey her humanist politics and capture the humanity, strength, and vulnerability of her subjects  “One of the most ambitious and thorough collections of Neel’s work to date.”—Allison Schaller, Vanity Fair  “For me, people come first,” Alice Neel (1900–1984) declared in 1950. “I have tried to assert the dignity and eternal importance of the human being.” This ambitious publication surveys Neel’s nearly 70-year career through the lens of her radical humanism. Remarkable portraits of victims of the Great Depression, fellow residents of Spanish Harlem, leaders of political organizations, queer artists, visibly pregnant women, and members of New York’s global diaspora reveal that Neel viewed humanism as both a political and philosophical ideal. In addition to these paintings of famous and unknown sitters, the more than 100 works highlighted include Neel’s emotionally charged cityscapes and still lifes as well as the artist’s erotic pastels and watercolors. Essays tackle Neel’s portrayal of LGBTQ subjects; her unique aesthetic language, which merged abstraction and figuration; and her commitment to progressive politics, civil rights, feminism, and racial diversity. The authors also explore Neel’s highly personal preoccupations with death, illness, and motherhood while reasserting her place in the broader cultural history of the 20th century.Published by The Metropolitan Museum of Art/Distributed by Yale University PressExhibition Schedule:The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York(March 22–August 1, 2021)  Guggenheim, Bilbao(September 17, 2021–January 30, 2022)  de Young Museum, San Francisco(March 12–July 10, 2022)

Portraits, an inherently personal subject, provide an engaging entry point to an exploration of the politics, patronage, and power in Renaissance Florence  The Medici family ruled Florence without interruption between 1434 and 1494, but following their return to power in 1512, Cosimo I de’ Medici demonstrated an unprecedented ability to wield culture as a political tool. His rule transformed Florence into a dynastic duchy and give Florentine art the central position it has held ever since. As Florence underwent these dramatic political transformations in the sixteenth century, portraits became an essential means of recording a likeness and conveying a sitter’s character, social position, and cultural ambitions. This fascinating book explores the ways that painters (including Jacopo Pontormo, Agnolo Bronzino, and Francesco Salviati), sculptors (such as Benvenuto Cellini), and artists in other media endowed their works with an erudite and self-consciously stylish character that distinguished Florentine portraiture. Featuring more than ninety remarkable paintings, sculptures, works on paper, and medals, this volume is written by a team of leading international authors and presents a sweeping, penetrating exploration of a crucial and vibrant period in Italian art.  Published by The Metropolitan Museum of Art/Distributed by Yale University Press  Exhibition Schedule:  The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York(June 26–October 11, 2021)

The first comprehensive, posthumous monograph and retrospective on Bernd and Hilla Becher, best known for their photographs of industrial structures in Europe and North AmericaFor more than five decades, Bernd (1931–2007) and Hilla (1934–2015) Becher collaborated on photographs of industrial architecture in Germany, France, Belgium, Holland, Great Britain, and the United States. This sweeping monograph features the Bechers’ quintessential pictures, which present water towers, gas tanks, blast furnaces, and more as sculptural objects. Beyond the Bechers’ iconic Typologies, the book includes Bernd’s early drawings, Hilla’s independent photographs, and excerpts from their notes, sketchbooks, and journals. The book’s authors offer new insights into the development of the artists’ process, their work’s conceptual underpinnings, the photographers’ relationship to deindustrialization, and the artists’ legacy. An essay by award-winning cultural historian Lucy Sante and an interview with Max Becher, the artists’ son, make this volume an unrivaled look into the Bechers’ art, life, and career. Published by The Metropolitan Museum of Art/Distributed by Yale University Press  Exhibition Schedule:The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York(July 11–October 30, 2022)San Francisco Museum of Modern Art(December 17, 2022–April 2, 2023)

A richly illustrated volume surveying the career of Caspar David Friedrich, the German landscape painter whose emotionally profound visions of nature are among the most iconic works of Romantic art The paintings and drawings of the nineteenth-century German landscape painter Caspar David Friedrich (1774–1840) brilliantly illuminate our experience of the natural world. This generously illustrated volume explores how Friedrich, who created some of the most indelible images of Romantic art, deployed signature motifs—moonlit skies, Gothic ruins, isolated figures, and misty panoramas—together with innovative compositional strategies to create paintings and drawings that are metaphorically rich and emotionally profound. Friedrich worked at the dawn of a new understanding in Europe of the human relationship with the environment, as German artists and intellectuals elevated the exploration of nature into a journey of self-discovery, yielding insights into spirituality, mortality, identity, and history. Essays by leading scholars examine Friedrich’s career, considering how he created a new and open-ended pictorial language to express the Romantic vision of nature. Placing his works in cultural and historic context, the authors evaluate his status as an icon of German Romanticism and as a touchstone for visual culture in the United States, while also exploring his working methods and the complex themes that underpinned his art. Published by The Metropolitan Museum of Art/Distributed by Yale University Press Exhibition Schedule: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York(February 8–May 11, 2025)

A reappraisal of the often-overlooked Chinese bronzes made from the twelfth through nineteenth centuries, demonstrating their profound impact on Chinese art and culture  Bronze vessels were the ultimate emblems of power in ancient China. Beginning in the twelfth century, the rediscovery of ancient bronzes as evidence of an earlier golden age led to a revival of bronze casting. This publication is the first comprehensive study of these later Chinese bronzes in archaic styles, which were commissioned by emperors and officials from the twelfth through the nineteenth centuries to assert political legitimacy and alignment with traditional values. Redressing the misconception that these works were mere imitations of the ancient vessels they emulated, Recasting the Past demonstrates that they were in fact creative reinterpretations of antique shapes and decorative motifs that were fundamentally new creations with their own aesthetic and functional character. Featuring nearly two hundred objects, many never before published—including ceremonial bells, incense burners, flower vases, ritual vessels, and writing utensils—Pengliang Lu explores their cultural and political significance from the Song dynasty through the Qing dynasty and shows their enormous influence on Chinese art and culture.  Published by The Metropolitan Museum of Art/Distributed by Yale University Press  Exhibition Schedule:  The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York(February 28–September 28, 2025)  Shanghai Museum(November 11, 2025–March 16, 2026)

A fascinating look at John Singer Sargent’s formative years as a young painter in Paris, a city that helped forge his artistic identity and sparked his rise to the pinnacle of the nineteenth-century art world  In 1874, eighteen-year-old American artist John Singer Sargent went to Paris to become a painter. Ten years later, he would become an art-world sensation when he sparked controversy with his scandalous portrait Madame X at the 1884 Salon. Sargent and Paris focuses on this decisive early decade in the artist’s career, when he first achieved recognition for ambitious portraits and bold canvases that pushed the boundaries of convention. Eight incisive essays by the world’s foremost Sargent scholars explore his life in Paris—then the epicenter of the cultural world—and the cosmopolitan circle of artists, writers, and cultivated patrons that nurtured his career and helped forge his artistic identity. Authors highlight the painter’s connections to giants of the Parisian art scene as well as the influential patrons who were key to Sargent’s progression as an artist. Presented alongside lavish images of more than a hundred paintings and works on paper—brought together from public and private collections throughout the United States and Europe—this publication offers an intimate look at the roots of Sargent’s signature, breathtaking style and his indelible experiences as a young artist in the French capital.  Published by The Metropolitan Museum of Art/Distributed by Yale University Press  Exhibition Schedule:  The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York(April 27–August 3, 2025)  Musée d’Orsay, Paris(September 22, 2025–January 11, 2026)

The first in-depth study of Man Ray’s groundbreaking rayographs of the 1920s and their interconnections with his Dada and Surrealist works  This is the first in-depth study of the rayograph (or camera-less photograph) pioneered by Man Ray (1890–1976) in 1920s Paris, between the Dada and Surrealist movements. The transformative, magical qualities of these experiments led the poet Tristan Tzara to describe them as capturing moments “when objects dream.” Oscillating between representation and abstraction, the rayograph was ambiguous in its making and subject matter, encapsulating avant-garde concerns of the day. This book highlights connections and shared motifs between the rayographs and Man Ray’s paintings, photographs, drawings, objects, and films. Stephanie D’Alessandro and Stephen C. Pinson analyze the artist’s innovative methods while also exploring key themes across a broad range of his art production, such as chance, indeterminacy, transformation, and preoccupation with dualities.  Published by The Metropolitan Museum of Art/Distributed by Yale University Press  Exhibition Schedule:  The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York(September 14, 2025–February 1, 2026)