TIME

CRI
A

OF

SIS
THE METROPOLITAN MUSEUM OF ART BULLETIN FALL 2020
D
A TIME
OF CRISIS
This special issue of the Bulletin reflects on some of the crises gripping
our world in the present moment, including the catastrophic impact of
a pandemic and the continuing tragedy of racial injustice. In the pages
that follow, our Metropolitan Museum colleagues present their personal
perspectives on issues and challenges facing us all.

THE METROPOLITAN MUSEUM OF ART, NEW YORK

CONTENTS

DIRECTOR’S NOTE 3 ANTHEM TO THE MASK IN FOUR DIMENSIONS 22

ALISA LAGAMMA
A BUNDLE OF EMOTIONS:
RELATING TO A PANDEMIC 4 ONE LAST LOOK 25
SHANAY JHAVERI ADAM EAKER

REFLECTIONS 8 ARMOR, THE ORIGINAL PPE 28

KEITH PREWITT DONALD J. LA ROCCA

WALLS 11 STICKIES ART SCHOOL 30

IRIA CANDELA MIA FINEMAN

ON PAUSE AND POLYPHONY: THE MIRROR OF HISTORY:

MARTIN WONG’S ATTORNEY STREET 12 BLACK ARTISTS AS ANTIRACIST ACTIVISTS 33
IAN ALTEVEER DENISE MURRELL

THE MET AND THE GREAT DEPRESSION 14 MISSING THE MET 37

JAMES MOSKE KEITH CHRISTIANSEN

THE BLACK MOUNTED RIDERS 16 THE ART OF THE CURE 41

ANDREA MYERS ACHI BARBARA DRAKE BOEHM

“A VANISHED LIFE”: THE GLOBE IN A HANDSCROLL 45

MORTON SCHAMBERG AND CHARLES SHEELER 19 ANDREW SOLOMON
JEFF L. ROSENHEIM
DIRECTOR’S NOTE
It has been a year upended by crises the world over. At covering all the Museum’s activities. We will do every-
The Met, preparations for a full calendar of celebrations thing we can to be an arena for thoughtful communi-
to commemorate our 150th anniversary had been under- cation and expression for all as well as a provider of
way since before I began my tenure as Director. We were education about racial equality. We recognize, moreover,
just one month short of that landmark date when we that diversity of background, thought, and skills is an
closed on March 13 in response to the outbreak of COVID- essential goal for our community and our staff across
19. For nearly half the year, our buildings and collections the entire institution, and we will further increase our
remained shuttered to the public, something that had efforts there.
not happened for more than a few days since 1880, when The crises of this year have undoubtedly altered how
the Museum packed up to move to its permanent site in we see the world. This issue of the Bulletin is itself a
Central Park. disruption from our biennial feature of recent acquisi-
The world around us abruptly became unrecogniz- tions, now postponed until 2021. In its place we have
able as people began sheltering in place to stem the collected essays from a variety of staff members sharing
spread of the virus and refocused their attention on aiding new perspectives — filtered through the lens of 2020 — 
those in distress. As most of our staff began adjusting to on our Museum and collection. They offer historical
working from home, teams of essential workers kept context as well as deeply personal insights on the signifi-
watch over our collection and facilities, even the koi in cance of works of art and how we at The Met can channel
the Astor Court pond. Conservation and curatorial the lessons of this year to bring new meaning to our work
staff coordinated the donation of personal protective and new relevance to our presentation of art to the public.
equipment (PPE) — nitrile gloves, Tyvek suits, surgical We are profoundly grateful to our Trustees, friends,
booties, aprons, goggles, N95 masks — from the Museum’s donors, Members, and visitors who stepped forward to
labs and work areas to New York City medical centers in offer emergency support to the Museum in the darkest
need. At the same time, textile conservators spearheaded of times. Likewise, we remain indebted to our dedicated
an effort to sew cloth masks for healthcare workers. essential staff who monitored the empty building and
In previous times of crisis, the Museum served as a to the teams who assiduously prepared the galleries to
place of refuge for New Yorkers seeking solace or inspi- welcome visitors back with enhanced safety precau-
ration. Our closure challenged us to reach out to a global tions to keep them safe during their visits to The Met.
audience, grounded at home, by broadcasting more of There is no doubt that this is a difficult chapter for
our offerings online. In the face of adversity, these “restric- The Met, New York City, the nation, and the world. We
tions” stimulated the creativity of our staff and fostered rest our hope in the knowledge that together we are
a sense of shared experience that will continue to push stronger and that in this time of suffering we can learn
us forward to explore the digital realm and extend our from and support each other. Although we have not
connections with followers worldwide. marked our 150th anniversary as planned, the occasion
As an unusually chilly spring gave way to summer serves as a reminder of the Museum’s resilience and
heat, streets around the Museum and across the country ongoing commitment to sharing art and serving our
sprung from silence into sudden activity. Protesters public, staying true to our mission while evolving with
marched past our plaza calling for justice for George the times. Whether you have been able to revisit us
Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Ahmaud Arbery, and other Black on Fifth Avenue or at the Cloisters or remain engaged
Americans whose lives have been brutally cut short by from afar, I am grateful to count you as part of The
racial violence. Heated discourse surged through virtual Met community, from 1870 through 2020 and into a
platforms about how The Met and other institutions have hopeful future.
contributed to a culture of injustice and can instead
become agents of positive change. As a first step, we MAX HOLLEIN
responded with a series of antiracism commitments Director, The Metropolitan Museum of Art

3
ABUNDLE OF EMOTIONS:
RELATING TO A PANDEMIC
SHANAY JHAVERI Assistant Curator, Department of Modern and Contemporary Art

Shortly after The Met temporarily closed to the public professional photographers, still under-recognized —
on March 13 in response to the spread of COVID-19 — in his folio Scenes of the Plague in Bombay, 1896 – 97,
the same day America shuttered its borders to the and the Indian Famine, 1899 – 1900 (fig. 1).
European Union — I decided to fly home to Mumbai to In 2020, 122 years later, we might assume that such
be with my family. Always a long flight, the journey this a catastrophe might play out differently, but history,
time felt particularly endless, fraught with anxiety and unnervingly, mostly repeated itself, as Mumbai became
paranoia. After landing and finding myself back in my the worst affected city in India, its slums hotspots for
childhood bedroom, in the company of my parents, I the spread of the virus. Prime Minister Narendra Modi
felt reassured, but it was also unclear to me what to expect announced on March 24 at 8 p.m. that within four hours
from the next few weeks. How would India’s chronically the entire country would be subject to a severe national
understaffed and poorly resourced healthcare system
fare in the face of a pandemic? Unfortunately, history
provided a bleak foreshadowing. 1. Shivshanker Narayen (Indian, active 1860s – 90s). Scenes of the Plague
in Bombay, 1896 – 97, and the Indian Famine, 1899 – 1900, 1896 – 1900.
From 1896 to 1897, India faced an outbreak of
Albumen silver prints from glass negatives and gelatin silver prints,
bubonic plague that ultimately killed nearly ten million 10 7/8 × 14 3/8 in. (27.7 × 36.3 cm). Joyce F. Menschel Photography Library
people. The disease arrived via fleas carried by rodents Fund, 2006 (2006.216.1 [1 – 30])
on trading ships traveling from Hong Kong to Mumbai
2. Zarina (American, born Aligarh, India, 1937 – 2020). Letters from Home,
(then Bombay), a densely populated city with inadequate
2004. Portfolio of woodcut chine collé and metalcut chine collé on
civic facilities. The expressed desire of the British Empire paper, image 12 × 9 in. (30.5 × 22.9 cm). Gift of the artist, in honor of her
in the mid-nineteenth century had been to fashion sister, Kishwar Chishti, 2013 (2013.578a – k)
Mumbai as Urbs Prima — the “first city” of India —
prompting three decades of rapid industrialization and
the arrival of migrant workers from across the country,
who were employed in the expanding city’s mills and
docks. Hastily, and with scant regulations, chawls (a type
of tenement housing) were constructed for workers,
but these slipshod buildings lacked adequate light and
ventilation and were rife with other conditions that
made them particularly vulnerable to the spread of dis-
ease. As the plague took hold, the British government
reacted with harsh measures geared primarily toward
the working classes and poor, such as removing people
from their homes against their will and relocating them
to hospitals or “plague camps.” Many workers were
driven from Mumbai, leading to a decline in the city’s
population and a halt to trade. These dire circumstances
and the callous response by the authorities were docu-
mented by Shivshanker Narayen — one of India’s first

4
5
 many persisted, seeking not merely refuge but the com-
fort of being with their families. These humblest of
human impulses — to be at home, the longing for it, the
need to return to it — preoccupied the Indian artist
Zarina, whose moving Letters from Home is based on a
series of unsent letters to her in Urdu from her sister
Rani, who was writing from Pakistan. Rani recounts the
death of their parents, the sale of her home, the moving
away of her daughter, and everything else that had
transpired during Zarina’s absence (fig. 2). Spare and
monochromatic, the suite comprises eight woodblock and
metal-cut prints. Onto the Urdu script of the letters
Zarina overlaid floor plans, outlines of houses, and car-
tographic city maps to evoke her sense of displacement.
Although the artist never actually resided in Pakistan —
she lived a peripatetic life before settling in New York —
Zarina chose the portfolio’s title because, for her, “home
is not a place. It is wherever the people you care about
most are waiting for you.”1 Zarina died on April 25, in the
3. Seated Figure. Mali, Inland Niger Delta region, 13th century. Terracotta, midst of the lockdown.
H. 10 in. (25.4 cm). Purchase, Buckeye Trust and Mr. and Mrs. Milton F.
The Pakistani artist Anwar Jalal Shemza likewise
Rosenthal Gifts, Joseph Pulitzer Bequest and Harris Brisbane Dick and
Rogers Funds, 1981 (1981.218) evolved a distinctive aesthetic idiom for himself when
contending with his own feelings of dislocation as a
South Asian artist residing in Britain. In the elegant
lockdown. All economic activity was curtailed, and Love Letter 1 (2013.263), semicircular and quadrilateral
domestic transport was suspended entirely. This puni- elements resembling the letters B and D float within an
tive approach, enacted by the Indian government with elaborate lattice of black lines reminiscent of a jali, or
almost no notice, left millions of daily wage workers intricately carved stone screen, a common feature in
stranded in major metropolises. Many had no choice but Islamic architecture. Typically ornamented with geo-
to walk thousands of kilometers to return to their native metric patterns, jali also serve a practical function by dif-
towns, occasioning the largest internal mass migration fusing light and thus moderating temperatures. Shemza
since partition, in 1947. Images of these laborers gamely draws on Western modernism and Arabic cal-
attempting to cross the country — at times beaten by ligraphy to build an abstract visual vocabulary that tran-
police or accidentally run over by trains — shocked scends time, geography, and culture. Rather than words
and stunned the world, but they also served as an acute to discern, there is a lexicon of motifs to ponder.
reminder that such disenfranchisement had not hap- Both Zarina and Shemza invoked what is now a
pened overnight and was, instead, the result of a system- mostly bygone, epistolary pace of communication, attest-
atic dismantling of labor protections and regulations ing to a time when agonizing personal reconciliations
over decades. In the wake of the pandemic, India’s had to be made in private, with patience, while waiting
wealthy and privileged were shaken from their apathetic to feel connected. These works exist in a state of sus-
stupor and forced into an uncomfortable confrontation pended remoteness that contemporary electronic modes
with the country’s devastatingly extreme social and of exchange — the constant drone of text messages,
structural inequities. WhatsApp, and emails we face on a daily basis, all
With no recourse and facing possible starvation, delivered with great immediacy — aim to dispel and yet
these migrant workers were aware that they could poten- somehow fail. As I plodded through the lockdown,
tially carry the virus with them back to their villages, but responding with alacrity to friends and colleagues alike,

6
4. The Sorrow of Radha, folio from the Tehri Garhwal series of the Gita as “a bundle of emotions,”2 a wholly apt description, and
Govinda, ca. 1775 – 80. India, Punjab Hills, kingdom of Kangra or Guler. part of what makes this work so relatable during these
Opaque watercolor and gold on paper, image 9 7/8 × 5 7/8 in.
(25.1 × 14.9 cm). Promised Gift of Steven Kossak, The Kronos Collections,
times of crisis. It also brings to my mind The Sorrow of
2015 (L.2018.44.24) Radha, a Kangra miniature painting from about
1775 – 80 in which the figure of Radha is seen similarly
crouching, bent over, all by herself, mourning the depar-
I found the “right” words elusive. As the days became ture of or, rather, her desertion by the Lord Krishna
weeks and then months, my reaction to the pandemic (fig. 4). Radha, heartbroken, has collapsed into herself,
and the inevitable fallout changed constantly from contemplating her grief in isolation, and yet if we step
anticipatory grief and despair to hopefulness and then back and consider the entire picture, she is in a land-
back again to frustration, despondency, and, above all scape of total natural beauty. Radha’s intense inward
else, exhaustion. loneliness is balanced by the serene surroundings. This
As the world endeavors to move forward and, some- diminutive painting poignantly illustrates a personal
how, to cohabit with the virus, how will this experience crisis of faith, but reciprocally it also recognizes the pass-
of the lockdown stay with me? Left to my own musings, ing of time and the possibility of renewal and regenera-
I recalled a singular sculpture that I walked by every tion. Despite Radha’s loneliness, the world does not fade
day as I entered and left the Museum: a terracotta figure away. Behind her is a tree, cut to a stump, whose branches
from the Inland Niger Delta region of present-day Mali have managed to grow out and flower once again.
that dates from the thirteenth century (fig. 3). Bent over,
huddled, and cradling one leg, he rests his head on one
1. Zarina Hashmi, “Letters from Home,” in Devi Art Foundation
knee; on his back are parallel columns of circles and
(Gurugram, Haryana, India, 2004); https://artsandculture
bumps, possibly tangible marks of disease or metaphori- .google.com/asset/letters-from-home-zarina-hashmi
cal allusions to wounds or scars carried within. Seem- /NQFx1kJIc0pzEQ?hl=en.
2. Yaëlle Biro, “Seated Figure (Djenné Peoples),” in The Met: Art,
ingly distilled into this sublime form are vicissitudes of Explained (New York, [2015]); https://www.khanacademy.org
feeling, from sadness and anguish to quietude and /humanities/art-africa/west-africa/mali1/v/bundle-of-emotions.
calmness: what my colleague Yaëlle Biro has described

7
REFLECTIONS
KEITH PREWITT Chief Security Officer

8
I grew up in the city of Memphis during the height of the Many of you know that I have had a long career in
civil rights movement. As a young man, I participated law enforcement — over forty years — beginning as a
in marches and demonstrations calling for racial equality, beat cop in Memphis and all the way up to my role as
and I witnessed firsthand the indignation of my Black Deputy Director of the Secret Service. What you may
community as protestors filled the streets following the not know is that my desire to serve in this field stemmed
assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr. Today, I look directly from my experience during the protests after
around with such a heaviness in my heart knowing that Dr. King’s assassination (fig. 5). I, a young Black man,
this country is still fighting these same fights — that we along with two of my friends, was caught outside in my
still have so much work to do to ensure that our own neighborhood after a government-mandated curfew. The
fellow Americans are treated with the equality, dignity, officer who stopped us was white, and at this moment
and respect that all human beings deserve. of unprecedented racial tension, I thought we were
New York City has been home to many protests over going to get arrested — or worse. Instead, the officer
the last few months, and there will surely be more in the demonstrated the true meaning of civil service. He did
future as people of color and their allies join together not see us as threats because of the color of our skin; he
to demand justice. In fact, a group of protestors gathered saw us as young men and human beings who deserved
on the plaza at The Met Fifth Avenue on a weekend in the chance to go home instead of to jail.
June. Our approach was, as always, to welcome those From that day forward, I was passionate about what
who wish to express their First Amendment rights. The it meant to truly serve one’s community. The officer I
Met is an iconic and high-visibility institution, and we encountered on that eventful night in Memphis became
are an important place of gathering for the community, one of my dearest mentors and advocates for my career.
even during our closure. We want to continue to serve Despite our different backgrounds, we always strove to
as that symbol for all New Yorkers. support, listen to, and foster understanding with each
Given all of this, I wish to reiterate the commitment other and with all the people we have served since then.
of our Security team to protecting our buildings, collec- I have now passed these same values to my sons, who
tions, and, most importantly, our community. We have proudly followed in my footsteps to their own careers in
a group of dedicated professionals who have been onsite law enforcement.
day in and day out during and after the closure to safe- But this is just one person’s story, and I know that
guard our museums and our fellow essential staff mem- there are countless other stories of how this same system
bers. These same individuals demonstrated exemplary has failed so many Americans. My friends and I had a
service to their fellow New Yorkers by handling protests peaceful encounter that fateful night, but I worry for all
peacefully and in a non-adversarial manner. In the those who one day may not be as lucky. I stand with
future, we will continue upholding these standards. As all of you who are calling for change, and I hope that
we aimed toward reopening the Museum, we offered we can mirror these values as we find a path forward.
training and guidance so that all of us who work for Together we can write a better story, one in which every-
The Met abide by the values of awareness, vigilance, one in America is finally treated with the equality, respect,
and partnership. and dignity they deserve.

5. Demonstrators march in protest soon after the assassination of

Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., Memphis, April 1968 (photo by Robert
Abbott Sengstacke/Getty Images)

9
10
WALLS
IRIA CANDELA Estrellita B. Brodsky Curator of Latin American Art,
Department of Modern and Contemporary Art

Walls have become defining symbols of our times. They more complicated and sinuous that compels visitors to
demarcate national borders, plots of land, private prop- navigate the roof garden in a novel way. The Met’s
erty, and other constructs of advanced capitalism. Further- architecture — and by extension, the surrounding
more, mental walls, those that shape personal beliefs city — becomes a site for self-reflection. While Lattice
or public opinion, can be even more imposing and rigid. Detour seems to block the majestic view of Manhattan,
The outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic has made the visitor comes to realize that the cityscape remains
apparent that the major challenges facing humanity visible thanks to the perforated nature of the lattice wall,
today — health care, systemic racism, rampant unemploy- which becomes a sort of mesh or veil. Meshes reverber-
ment, climate change — are globally shared. Yet privi- ating with shadows act as filters of the spatial experi-
lege and prejudice continue to nurture and reinforce the ence, destabilizing a unified and harmonious idea of New
structures that divide society — walls (either physical or York as a cohesive city. From the top of the Museum,
virtual) unceasingly built to separate or to hide. the mystifying image of the city produced by the eye
As we know, The Metropolitan Museum of Art safe- obliterates New York’s everyday life at street level, with
guards five thousand years of cultural achievement in all its tensions and contradictions. That image has ideo-
galleries sheltered from the outer world. The Museum’s logical ramifications, and Zamora’s project succeeds in
masterworks remain shielded from variations in weather, reclaiming the site of the roof garden as a social space,
the passing of seasons, and the social and urban land- repositioning and reinserting the Museum and its artis-
scape rapidly evolving beyond its defensive walls. The tic treasures within the broader urban landscape.
Met’s only outdoor space for the display of art is the Iris Disruption, obstruction, and interference are com-
and B. Gerald Cantor Roof Garden, where this year’s mon denominators of Zamora’s spatial interventions,
artistic commission confronts visitors with a rough brick intended to convey the complex stories inscribed in the
wall as they emerge for fresh air in their itinerary. built environment. The artist’s critique of the naturaliza-
Héctor Zamora’s imposing, curvilinear structure tion of urbanism springs from a history of public art that
of terracotta bricks, measuring over 101 feet long and 11 is critical of the very notion of public space. Whether or not
feet high, stands right in the middle of the space (fig. 6). Zamora’s project ultimately alludes to the controversial
Its presence intercedes in an otherwise open rectangular wall currently being erected on the Mexican-American
plan clear of obstacles. The artist’s radical intervention border, the artist realizes that “amid the current pan-
seems disconcerting, for his work intrudes on or, even bet- demic, differences, divisions, and walls are increasing,
ter, interferes in the natural way of things. To reinforce this and regulations, bureaucracy, and the whole system are
effect, the materials he used are alien to North American becoming even more rigid. Protests against the same
architecture: orange-hued bricks transported from Mon- old problems continue to proliferate throughout the
terrey, Mexico, and turned to their sides as lattice bricks world. That makes this work current inasmuch as it
(celosías), a remainder of the architecture of the South. invites us to reflect on those basic problems that
The title of Zamora’s work, Lattice Detour, refers to a remain unresolved even when humankind has been
new kind of circulation being activated on the site, one pushed to the limit.”1

1. Email from Héctor Zamora to the author, June 6, 2020.

6. Héctor Zamora (Mexican, b. 1974). Lattice Detour, 2020. Terracotta

bricks, approx. L. 101 ft. (30.8 m), H. 11 ft. (3.4 m). Courtesy of the artist

11
ON PAUSE AND POLYPHONY:
MARTIN WONG’S
ATTORNEY STREET
IAN ALTEVEER Aaron I. Fleischman Curator, Department of Modern and Contemporary Art

This March, as New York paused in a desperate, neces- 1982, he was living in a walkup apartment on Ridge
sary attempt to curtail the spread of COVID-19, the city Street on the Lower East Side. Not far away was a hand-
started to empty out. Where I live, at the edge of Man- ball court that doubled as a canvas for a number of
hattan’s Chinatown, the streets had already grown quieter talented local taggers, and Piñero asked Wong to com-
for some weeks; tourism had begun to trail off, and memorate the newest addition, freshly painted by a
some were avoiding restaurants and stores in the area handsome young friend, to its palimpsest of a wall.
for deeply xenophobic reasons. In my newfound isola- Piñero composed a new poem expressly for the work,
tion, my mounting anxiety and anguish about the virus’s and Wong faithfully transcribed it before adding his
deadly progress were joined by melancholic thoughts own responsive epitaph at bottom, translated into his sig-
of the works from The Met collection that my colleague nature interpretation of American Sign Language’s
Kelly Baum and I were so eager to hang in an April finger-signed alphabet. Although the scene is devoid of
installation, among them many new acquisitions with people, the layers of language reverberate with the
exciting, fresh perspectives on the city in which we live vibrancy of Loisaida — the Nuyorican name for the Lower
and work. East Side, Wong’s newly adopted home.
My mind especially kept returning to a painting by When The Met purchased Wong’s painting soon
Martin Wong, Attorney Street (fig. 7), from the 1980s, after its completion in 1984, a different devastating epi-
which had been in the collection for some time (it was demic was unfolding, along with an attendant, odious
most recently on view in the Bronx Museum’s luminous plague of anti-gay bias and discrimination, as LGBTQ
2015 exhibition Martin Wong: Human Instamatic and people were scapegoated for a disease they neither
in Kelly’s brilliant Delirious: Art at the Limits of Reason invented nor controlled. Wong himself was diagnosed
at The Met Breuer in 2017). The work and its resonant, with HIV/AIDS in 1994 and left his beloved Ridge Street
biographical poem by Wong’s dear friend and erstwhile to return to his parents’ care in San Francisco, where
lover Miguel Piñero (1946 – 1988) tells cacophonous, he died in 1999. As I write this in the summer of 2020,
meaningful stories about a neighborhood in the city not what haunts me most about Wong’s painting is not only
far from my own. how much I miss the noise of that street — how quiet
Born to Chinese American parents in San Francisco, that handball court has once again become in the face of
Wong was involved in local radical queer performance a virus that, like so many, has disproportionately affected
troupes such as the Cockettes and the Angels of Light the vulnerable and the marginalized — but also the
before he moved to New York in the late 1970s. While terrible potential of such a crisis to silence so many
pursuing creative endeavors, he worked for a spell in The important voices for good. In the face of that muffling
Met’s bookstore. By the time he met Piñero — a talented stillness, I welcomed the shout of protest and the clangor
playwright, former convict, actor, and cofounder of the of a resounding call for justice that soon after rang
famous Nuyorican Poets Cafe —at the opening for an through our streets, as I am certain that Wong and Piñero
exhibition called Crime at the gallery ABC No Rio in would have.

12
7. Martin Wong (American, 1946 – 1999). Attorney Street (Handball
Court with Autobiographical Poem by Piñero), 1982 – 84. Oil on canvas,
35 1/2 × 48 in. (90.2 × 121.9 cm). Edith C. Blum Fund, 1984 (1984.110)

13
THEMET AND THE
GREAT DEPRESSION
JAMES MOSKE Managing Archivist, Museum Archives

Following the temporary closure of the Metropolitan Remarkably, however, this was also a time of bold
Museum in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, staff innovation as the Museum’s staff worked creatively in
in Museum Archives began researching how The Met the new economic and social environment to engage
had responded to other global crises that had taken place and inspire the public. With support from the federal
during its 150-year history. Staggering unemployment government and private donors, the Museum reached
figures and the bleak economic outlook for 2020 and out to audiences across New York City, and even opened
beyond soon invited immediate comparisons with the a new building, the Cloisters. An important resource
Great Depression of the 1930s, when The Met faced was the Works Progress Administration (WPA), a New
the most difficult fiscal challenge in its history. In April Deal government agency that employed millions of
1932, the director of the Museum, Herbert Winlock, Americans who carried out public works and commu-
reported that a “very serious financial situation is present- nity service projects. While many WPA workers built
ing itself to us and stringent economies will have to be roads, bridges, and other infrastructure, some of its
put into effect immediately.” Winlock implemented divisions assigned people to work in arts, culture, and
such cost-saving measures as a freeze on new hiring, related organizations, including museums. Several
pay cuts, reductions in building maintenance, and cur- dozen WPA staff served at The Met from 1934 to 1942.
tailment of object photography. Attendance at the They prepared maps and charts on art history themes
Museum’s main building declined from just under 1.3 for classroom and gallery instruction, photographed
million visitors in 1930 to 886,000 a decade later. and drew objects for use as illustrations in publications,

14
8. Neighborhood Circulating Exhibition on view at a public school in the 9. Plan for the Bonnefont Cloister garden prepared by
Bronx, 1939 the Works Progress Administration, 1941

guarded objects, presented lectures, installed exhibitions, introduced collection highlights in a copiously illustrated
and conserved the plaster cast collection. handbook format. “A page for every gallery and a pic-
WPA workers also supported a unique Met initiative ture on every page,” announced The Met proudly in
of the Great Depression known as Neighborhood Cir- the Bulletin (January 1934), “this is the scheme that makes
culating Exhibitions (fig. 8). A series of ten thematic the new Guide to the Collections . . . the indispensable
installations composed of artworks from the Museum companion for travelers in the Museum.”
collection traveled to public libraries, community cen- Perhaps the most remarkable accomplishment of
ters, schools, and municipal buildings across New York the 1930s was the design, construction, installation, and
City. More than two million people viewed these exhibi- opening of the Cloisters, conceived during the 1920s as a
tions, which featured Egyptian and Greek antiquities, museum dedicated to European medieval art. Ground
arms and armor, Japanese and Chinese art, and textiles was broken in 1934 for the Cloisters, the Museum’s
from around the world. Soon after the Museum reopened first satellite location, in today’s Fort Tryon Park. The mas-
in 2020, a special exhibition in the Antonio Ratti Textile sive effort, which included a reconfiguration of the
Center, Art for the Community, highlighted this ground- surrounding landscape as well as the construction of a
breaking effort to present Met objects in public spaces new building, was a source of much-needed income
outside the Museum walls. for the many laborers it employed (fig. 9). Financier and
Another impressive achievement of the 1930s was philanthropist John D. Rockefeller Jr. funded the proj-
the publication of a revised and enlarged edition of the ect, gave millions of dollars to purchase works for its
Museum’s Guide to the Collections. Acknowledging that galleries, and established an endowment that continues
“the Museum has become too vast for a single visit,” the to support acquisitions today. The Cloisters opened to
new Guide appeared in two volumes during 1934 – 35. the public on May 10, 1938, providing a beautiful new
Earlier versions were mostly text and led visitors along venue for art appreciation, learning, and inspiration as
a linear path following the floor plan of the building. the nation continued to struggle through the last years
The new Guide was instead arranged thematically and of the Great Depression.

15
THE BLACK MOUNTED RIDERS
ANDREA MYERS ACHI Assistant Curator, Department of Medieval Art and The Cloisters

On June 9, 2020, a New York Times article, “Evoking It is almost impossible to know what messages the
History, Black Cowboys Take to the Streets,” highlighted Black figures would have conveyed to late antique view-
the history of African American cowboys and how their ers. The people living in Egypt during this period
presence “challenged the traditional idea of what a horse belonged to a multicultural society. Evidence of Egypt’s
rider could look like.” An integral presence in the Black multiple cultural spheres can be found both in the visual
Lives Matter protests from Compton to Houston, the arts and in texts. For example, interactions between
riders reclaimed “the traditional role of mounted riders Nubians and Egyptians can be detected in the presence
in demonstrations in urban communities.” 1 Just as of Nubian-style pots in the Western Desert of Egypt and
these cowboys draw attention to the presence of Black the Nile Valley (fig. 11). The geometric decoration on
cowboys in American history, the recent social upheavals these bowls appears on pottery from Nubia, which points
have prompted museums to share narratives of Black to the flow of visual ideas from up and down the Nile
peoples that are present in their collections. Valley. Multiculturalism is also evident in the numerous
In The Metropolitan Museum of Art’s collection, we languages spoken and written in the late antique and
have a depiction of Black mounted riders on a tapestry- medieval periods. Latin, Greek, Coptic, Arabic, Ethiopic,
woven textile from the late antique period in Egypt and Old Nubian are found on written materials from
(fig. 10). These mounted riders, woven in black wool, the region.
appear to race across the textile with their hunting dogs. In late antique texts, authors noted skin color when
Nude and harnessed, the men hold stones and bows. A describing people. The literature discusses the otherness
sloping Phrygian cap, associated with the Near East, rests of blackness, the negativity of blackness. In Sayings of
on each rider’s head. Hunting in such images was a the Desert Fathers, prejudice was a means to humiliate a
popular theme in late antique art and appears across the Black monk, Abba Moses, in a monastery in Egypt:
Mediterranean in a wide range of media. Aristocrats “Another day when a council was being held in Scetis,
flaunted excess through the slaughter of animals for sport. the Fathers treated Moses with contempt in order to test
To Christians, men on horseback also gained an escha- him, saying, ‘Why does this black man come among us?’
tological meaning, a hope of an ultimate victory soon to When he heard this he kept silent. When the council
be won. Men on horseback have traditionally represented was dismissed, they said to him, ‘Abba, did that not
symbols of political, military, or religious power. grieve you at all?’ He said to them, ‘I was grieved, but I
The other figures in the textile, winged women and kept silence.’”2
an additional rider, were sewn with pink and white According to tradition, Abba Moses was a reformed
threads. Accompanied by depictions of auspicious baskets robber who lived in the monastic community of Nitria.
of fruit, floral bands, and roundels of plumped-cheeked He eventually became one of the leaders of this com-
ladies, these images are depictions of victory, success, munity and a revered martyr in the Coptic Church. While
and prosperity. The textile itself shows signs of wear with ascetic humility was a valued component of monasticism,
both ancient and modern repairs. Although we do not the color prejudice used to impart this lesson is telling.
know exactly where it was found, it was likely excavated The short parable suggests the possible otherness of
from an Egyptian cemetery in the early twentieth cen- Black bodies in private, late antique Egyptian spaces —
tury. Textiles like these were wrapped around deceased
bodies and were preserved by Egypt’s dry climate. The
10. Fragment from a Coptic Hanging. Egypt, 5th century. Linen, wool; plain
weight of the fabric and the motifs suggests the textile weave, tapestry-weave, 41 × 24 7/8 in. (1041 × 63 cm). Gift of George F.
was a wall hanging for a domestic context. Baker, 1890 (90.5.905)

16
 11. Bowl with Interior Geometric Decoration. Coptic,
Kharga Oasis, Byzantine Egypt, 4th – 7th century.
Earthenware, slip decoration, 5 1/4 × 11 1/4 in.
(13.2 × 28.6 cm). Rogers Fund, 1925 (25.10.20.177)

in this case, an elite home — and offers insights into not only the multiculturalism in Mediterranean societies,
the reception of the mounted riders, with their foreign such as Egypt, but also to recognize the different experi-
dress and skin tone, on The Met’s textile. To date, schol- ences Black communities had during the period. Like
arship has not addressed the presence of figures with our modern Black cowboys, the presence of the Black
multiple ethnicities on the textile. Without knowing more mounted riders on the textile forces us to acknowledge a
about its original context and purpose, it is difficult to part of history that is little known and waiting to be told.
say anything more about how the original maker and
viewer would have understood the textile. However, given
1. Article by Walter Thompson-Hernández, with photographs by
the prominent and deliberate inclusion of figures with
Kayla Reefer.
different skin tones, we should take a moment to reflect 2. Benedicta Ward, trans., The Sayings of the Desert Fathers: The Alpha-
on why it mattered to make these distinctions. betical Collection, rev. ed. (1975; Kalamazoo, Mich.: Cistercian Publi-
cations, 1984), p. 139.
The recent focus on racial justice has prompted art
historians and museums to reexamine our assumptions
about our collective history and culture. This urgent call
to correct narratives provides an opportunity to address

18
“A VANISHED LIFE”:
MORTON SCHAMBERG
AND CHARLES SHEELER
JEFF L. ROSENHEIM Joyce Frank Menschel Curator in Charge, Department of Photographs

The so-called Spanish flu of 1918 led to the death of more

than fifty million people worldwide, more than twice
the estimated number of fatalities of World War I.
One victim of the pandemic was Morton Schamberg,
a pioneering yet still obscure American painter and
photographer. He took ill on October 10, 1918, and
died three days later — a severe shock to his family
and community, but especially to Charles Sheeler, his
closest friend, artistic ally, and studio partner (fig. 12).1
The two artists met while studying painting with William
Merritt Chase at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts
(PAFA) in Philadelphia, and they remained compan-
ions in American avant-garde circles until Scham-
berg’s untimely death.
A brief survey of an artist whose career was cut short
by a global pandemic seems especially meaningful in
light of the coronavirus crisis of 2020. In particular,
Schamberg’s unique gelatin silver print View of Rooftops
(fig. 13), an early modernist masterpiece, offers a reso-
nant entry point for understanding the artist, his work,
and what was lost. A closely related photograph by
Sheeler, Doylestown House — The Stove (fig. 14), from the
same year highlights the parallels and divergences of the
artists’ paths in the war years.
Born in Philadelphia, Schamberg was a quick master
of multiple artistic genres, earning a degree in architec-
ture from the University of Pennsylvania in 1903 and
another in painting at PAFA in 1906. While at the acad-
emy, he and Sheeler spent their summers in Europe
with Chase studying old and new masters and learning
about trends in contemporary art firsthand from the likes
of Cézanne, Picasso, Braque, and Matisse. By 1908 the
former classmates were sharing a studio in Philadelphia
and a weekend house in nearby Doylestown, where they 12. Morton Schamberg (American, 1881 – 1918). Self-Portrait, ca. 1912.
both produced groundbreaking work in a variety of Gelatin silver print. Gift of Jean Loeb Whitehill, 1973 (1973.664.18)

19
13. Morton Schamberg (American, 1881 – 1918). View of Rooftops, 1917. pictures of the devastation in war-torn Europe began to
Gelatin silver print, 9 5/­16 × 7 1/2 in. (23.7 × 19 cm). Ford Motor Company haunt American newspapers in summer 1914, the pacifist
Collection, Gift of Ford Motor Company and John. C. Waddell, 1987
(1987.1100.116)
artist moved away from figuration to an intense and radi-
cal form of abstraction that established him as an early
American Dadaist. The basic elements in Schamberg’s
late drawings, paintings, and sculptures are fragmented
media. Searching for a viable means to make a living, industrial parts (bookbinding machines, telephones,
they even taught themselves photography: Schamberg plumbing hardware) rendered with studied precision. He
would make studio portraits and Sheeler art reproduc- continued to pursue photography, but shifted his focus
tions for other artists, galleries, and their clients. As from portraiture to urban subjects and geometries. In
emerging artists in the 1910s with a thorough under- March 1917, seven months before his death, he had his
standing of the lessons of international contemporary first exhibition of photographs, alongside Sheeler and
art, each presented their newest paintings in the New the New York photographer Paul Strand at the Modern
York Armory Show, the landmark survey of European Gallery in New York.2
and American modernism that opened in February Shamberg made View of Rooftops either while pre-
1913 and featured some 1,300 works by 300 artists. paring this show in Philadelphia or while attending its
Although Schamberg showed a suite of Fauve- opening in New York. Formerly owned by Sheeler, the
inspired portraits in the Armory Show, as soon as photograph presents a detailed rendering of the built

20
environment, but its formal composition — strong diag-
onal lines and a compression of pure shapes — reveals a
well-crafted Cubist sensibility. The work carefully denies
what is typically expected from a rooftop view — a
glimpse of the street below. Instead, it offers more and
more rooftops in a kind of endless repetition that sug-
gests Surrealist techniques long before their time.
Doylestown House—The Stove is Sheeler’s equally
novel study of domestic details inside the eighteenth-
century fieldstone house that he shared with Schamberg.
Sheeler also left behind the Impressionist methods
taught by Chase and adopted a rigorous formalism, but
before turning to the industrial subjects favored by
Schamberg, he first focused his attention on vernacular
elements in their farmhouse and nearby barns. Here,
the artist constructs a rather eerie scene by choosing to
depict the room at night, likely using a kerosene lamp
hidden behind the stove to illuminate the whitewashed
back wall and help draw the stove’s powerful silhouette.
The pictorial effect is dramatic, paradoxically both
intensely real and wholly artificial. Reducing the room’s
otherwise romantic elements to pure form and technol-
ogy — a heating stove, its chimney, a twelve-pane win-
dow, a door, and a pair of latches — Sheeler built a pho-
tograph as taut and precise in its composition as View of
Rooftops. Like his roommate’s urban view, Sheeler’s
experimental house study earns its authority by denying
expectations: the window is not transparent, but as
14. Charles Sheeler (American, 1883 – 1965). Doylestown House — The
opaque as the black stove; the light source seems to come Stove, 1917. Gelatin silver print, 9 1/8 × 6 7/16 in. (23.1 × 16.3 cm). Alfred
from the floor; and what in another artist’s hands might Stieglitz Collection, 1933 (33.43.259)
have been a picture celebrating the region’s endless nos-
talgia for colonial Americana, in Sheeler’s becomes one
1. Henry Schamberg, the artist’s father with whom he was living, also
as modern and contemporary as a new Ford Model T.3 died during the pandemic.
A year after Schamberg’s death from the flu, Sheeler 2. “Photographs by Sheeler, Strand, and Schamberg” ran from March
29 to April 9, 1917, and was the first public showing of photographs
moved to New York. Devastated by his friend’s passing, by Sheeler and Schamberg. For more on the exhibition, see Theo-
which he described as “an overwhelming blow,” he vis- dore E. Stebbins and Norman Keyes, Charles Sheeler: The Photographs,
exh. cat. (Boston: Museum of Fine Arts, 1987).
ited the Doylestown farmhouse less and less until he
3. The photograph entered The Met in 1933 as one of some five hun-
finally gave up the lease in 1926.4 The innovative photo- dred icons of early twentieth-century photography, a landmark gift
graphs Sheeler produced there, however, continued to from the New York artist and gallerist Alfred Stieglitz.
4. Charles Sheeler interview by Martin Friedman, June 18, 1959,
inspire him for the rest of his life, serving as critical Archives of American Art, Tape 2, pp. 17 – 18.
source material for works in other media, including 5. See National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C. (2000.181.1). See
also The Met’s conté crayon drawing, The Open Door, 1932 (1992.24.7),
remarkably precise copies. In 1932, for example, the art-
an exact copy of his 1917 photograph, a gelatin silver print of which
ist remade Doylestown House — The Stove as an oversize is in the collection of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.
drawing in conté crayon.5 Sheeler described this reca- 6. See New York Times, book review section, September 1, 1957, p. 1,
quoted in Karen Lucic, Charles Sheeler in Doylestown: American Mod-
pitulation of his earlier work as a kind of homage to ernism and the Pennsylvania Tradition, exh. cat. (Allentown, Pa.: Allen-
Schamberg, “A vanished life that is part of me.”6 town Art Museum, 1997), p. 108.

21
ANTHEM TO THE MASK
IN FOUR DIMENSIONS
ALISA LAGAMMA Ceil and Michael E. Pulitzer Curator in Charge,
Department of the Arts of Africa, Oceania, and the Americas

At its most basic level, a mask is defined as “a covering ians: “Masks! Oh Masks/ . . . we are the men of the
for the face, worn either as a disguise or for protection.”1 dance whose feet only gain power when they beat the
In the worldwide response to the COVID-19 pandemic, hard soil.”3
the wearing of a mask has become a necessity in allow- Since the nineteenth century, the wood face mask
ing us to emerge from isolation and socially reengage. has become the quintessential artifact associated with
In this context, the mask shields us from exposure to Africa’s artistic and cultural heritage. Both Dunbar and
contagion while also safeguarding the health and safety Senghor may have had in mind a genre of mask carved
of others. by Baule sculptors in Côte d’Ivoire as a visual point of
In the broader cultural realm, masks have long fea- reference for their generalized commentaries. The styl-
tured in explorations of the human condition, from ized elegance of one such idealized female face is
ancient Greek tragedy and the commedia dell’arte to a unmarked by wrinkles or the passage of time (fig. 15).
plethora of traditions developed across sub-Saharan Its highly polished, jet-black surface reflects its handling
Africa. Among the earliest examples of the latter are a by Western collectors, who favored monochromatic
series of sixth-century terracotta helmet masks from the works or those stripped of the pigments that originally
southern African site of Lydenburg, which may have enlivened them in performance. An example in The
been worn in ceremonial performances related to initi- Met collection figures notably in the earliest of many
ation. In the ancient Yoruba city-state of Ife, the leader European avant-garde publications and exhibitions that
Obalufon II — traditionally credited with the introduc- sought to define an aesthetic of African art removed
tion of bronze casting — is immortalized by an arrest- and isolated from any cultural context.4
ing lifesize mask of pure copper that has been kept on Masks, at least as we experience them in museums,
a palace altar since its creation in the twelfth century. are for the most part static and silent artifacts, admired
This legacy is reflected in the appropriation of the for their inventiveness as works of sculpture. Many dis-
mask as a literary metaphor for existential states ranging tinct genres were produced, each adapted to evolving
from repression to liberation. In his poem “We Wear social circumstances. While historical mask forms that
the Mask,” Paul Laurence Dunbar (1872 – 1906) speaks failed to remain socially relevant were abandoned over
to the experience of Black Americans who present a time, new ones continue to be introduced. Their public
joyous face to the world in order to conceal profound display in dynamic performances foregrounds both
suffering: “We smile, but, O great Christ, our cries/To the talents of the author of a mask and those of the
thee from tortured souls arise./We sing, but oh the clay dancer. Donning a mask often conferred upon its wearer
is vile/Beneath our feet, and long the mile;/But let the additional layers of social identity, moreover, such as
world dream otherwise,/We wear the mask!”2 induction into an association or as the virtuoso master
Following the banishment of colonialism in West of complex and thrilling choreography. The fleeting
Africa, Léopold Sédar Senghor (1906 – 2001) — a poet experiences and excitement of past performances, which
who was the leader of the Négritude literary movement ranged from entertainments to rites of passage, are elu-
and Senegal’s first head of state — called out to the plural- sive to us now. Instead, we are left with the fixed materi-
ity of mask forms in his “Prayer to Masks,” advocating ality of the sculptural element as an abiding testament
for their revival and continuing role as ancestral guard- to those traditions.

22
15. Portrait mask (Gba gba). Côte d’Ivoire, Baule peoples, before 1913. 16. Portrait mask (Mblo). Côte d’Ivoire, Baule peoples, late 19th – early
Wood, H. 10 in. (24 cm). Bequest of Adrienne Minassian, 1994 (1997.277) 20th century. Wood and pigment, H. 16 1/2 in. (41.9 cm). Purchase, Rogers
Fund and Daniel and Marian Malcolm Gift, 2004 (2004.445)

The Baule operatic entertainment known as Mblo armed with bow and arrow. The Mbunda artist respon-
comprises a hierarchical succession of masquerades sible for one such commanding evocation captured ideas
personifying different elements of the community, from of metamorphosis and transformation through the
lowly domestic animals to its most accomplished citi- mask’s intense red hue, the crescent-shaped eyes, which
zenry, who were celebrated with portrait masks con- are engulfed in ever-widening concentric ripples, and
ceived to be their artistic doubles. These depictions some- the cavernous aperture of the mouth framed by carefully
times translate the visages and achievements of specific defined teeth (fig. 17).
individuals into an idealized portrayal with fantastic Sculptors across Côte d’Ivoire and Liberia have carved
metaphorical features, such as the refined physiognomy countless examples of oval face masks featuring convex
of the bearded male elder crowned with three prong- foreheads and sharply narrowed chins (fig. 18). Their
like horns as attributes of strength (fig. 16). A synthesis relatively homogenous appearance belies the singularity
of delicacy and bold force, his facial expression is of the circumstances that informed their patronage and
serenely introspective. After one of the horns was usage across regional cultures. Among the Dan, for
damaged through use, an indigenous intervention example, powerful but immaterial nature spirits were
extended the mask’s life through careful recarving. said to visit a carver through dreams as a catalyst for
Across central and southern Africa, adolescent boys the mask’s creation. That force was believed to inhere in
undergo circumcision and, during a period of seclu- the mask and authorize an individual to wear it in per-
sion, are given instruction in the qualities expected of formance. In the Mano and Gio communities of north-
them as men. The return of initiates at the close of east Liberia, a warrior recognized for his success in
these rites, called mukanda, is marked by mask perfor- military contests or a mother of many children might
mances. Among the most imposing is the major cultural inspire a formally similar living mask, or ge. Endowed
archetype known as Sachihongo, an ancestral hunter with divine attributes, these singular creations took

23
17. Sachihongo mask. Zambia, Mbunda peoples, 19th – early 20th cen- 18. Face mask (Gunye Ge). Côte d’Ivoire, Dan peoples, 19th – 20th century.
tury. Wood, H. 17 in. (43.2 cm). Purchase, Lila Acheson Wallace, Anony- Wood, pigment, and kaolin, H. 9 1/4 in. (23.5 cm). Gift of Lillian and Sidney
mous, Dr. and Mrs. Sidney G. Clyman, The Katcher Family Foundation Inc., Lichter, 1985 (1985.420.2)
Steven Kossak, and Holly and David Ross Gifts, 2016 (2016.106)

on varied functions, from entertainment to becoming lamented the poignant beauty and mute stillness of such
sites where prayers and sacrificial offerings for ancestral disembodied sculptural elements in his poem “Masque
intervention were directed. Nègre,” which he dedicated to his contemporary Pablo
Over successive generations, Dan, Mano, and Gio Picasso: “Face of mask, closed to the ephemeral, without
masks accrued potency, sometimes becoming emblematic eyes, without matter.” 6 As his ode makes evident, these
for a sector of the community. Given the multiplicity of dormant masks endure as the physical relics of their past
successive or overlapping roles for such works and their performative lives.
changing usage over time, in the absence of documenta-
tion of a mask’s “life history” it is often impossible to
1. OED Online, s.v. “mask,” Oxford University Press, July 2020;
determine which of these it formerly enacted, rendering
http://www.oed.com.
the mask ineffectual or even potentially dangerous. 2. The Complete Poems of Paul Laurence Dunbar (New York: Dodd,
Medical missionary and anthropologist George Harley Mead and Company, 1913), p. 71.
3. Léopold Sédar Senghor, “Prayer to Masks,” in Modern Poetry from
recorded the complex biographies of specific masks, Africa, ed. Gerald Moore and Ulli Beier (Harmondsworth, Middlesex,
including one belonging to Nya, the supreme judge of England: Penguin Books, 1963), pp. 49 – 50.
4. These include the pioneering 1913 display at Galerie Levesque, Paris,
his clan. As high priest, Nya was the keeper of a Go ge, or
which presented it as fine art in relation to Asian, Egyptian, and
god spirit mask, produced for his father in 1870.5 The Precolumbian antiquities and Western works. Appreciation of this work
mask figured centrally in the deliberations of a council entirely in terms of its formal qualities is also evident in the 1915
African art survey Negerplastik by Carl Einstein.
of elders, over which Nya presided, as the group sought 5. George W. Harley, Masks as Agents of Social Control in Northeast
ancestral approval. With his appointment as the secular Liberia (Cambridge, Mass.: Peabody Museum of Archaeology and
Ethnology, 1950), pp. 14 – 15.
chief for the Liberian state government, Nya retired his
6. Léopold Sédar Senghor and Jean-Paul Sartre, Anthologie de la nouvelle
mask. Following his death, his son, who was unequipped poésie nègre et malgache de langue française (Paris: Presses Universitaires
to care for it and concerned about its potency, elected de France, 1948).

to deposit it in a museum. Senghor both extolled and

24
ONE LAST LOOK
ADAM EAKER Assistant Curator, Department of European Paintings

A picture held in the hand is different from one hanging Commissioned by the princes’ aunt, these portraits were
on a wall. Physical contact with an image makes it an meant to awaken sympathy for their plight in distant
extension of the body and layers touch with sight. In the beholders. Miniature portraits soon became fashionable
early sixteenth century, European painters began to pro- gifts among monarchs and between aristocratic lovers.
duce portraits so small they could fit in the palm or hang Elizabethan courtiers wore miniatures on their bodies,
in a locket around the neck. In one such portrait, Hans discreetly tucked under a shirt or hanging from a belt
Holbein the Younger depicted Margaret Roper, daughter for others to see. Another miniature in The Met collec-
of the humanist and martyr Sir Thomas More (fig. 19). tion, by the English artist Nicholas Hilliard, conveys
Praised across Europe for her learning, Roper appears the function of miniatures as love tokens, depicting a
with her thumb tucked inside a book, her shoulders beautiful young man, his head haloed in curls (fig. 21).
hunched, and her gaze lost in the distance. The inscrip- Most scholars identify Hilliard’s sitter as Robert Devereux,
tion, giving her age as thirty, reveals that Holbein painted second Earl of Essex, the ill-fated favorite of Elizabeth I,
Roper in the same year that her father was beheaded. who kept her miniatures in a small cabinet in the most
A treasure of The Met collection of European paint- private room of her palace.
ings, Holbein’s miniature is almost never on view.
Few works of art resist display in the museum as deter-
minedly as portrait miniatures. Painted with thin strokes 19. Hans Holbein the Younger (German, Augsburg 1497/98 – 1543 Lon-
don). Margaret Roper (Margaret More, 1505 – 1544), 1535 – 36. Vellum laid
of watercolor on ivory wafers or sheets of vellum, min-
on playing card, Diam. 1 3/4 in. (4.5 cm). Rogers Fund, 1950 (50.69.2)
iatures will fade into invisibility if exposed to light for too
long. Their scale precludes simultaneous viewing by
more than one person. When exhibited in a vitrine, the
crystal covering the painted surface flickers with glares
and reflections. Often the lockets that have housed
them for centuries are too fragile to be prised apart for
photography or scientific analysis.
As the curator at The Met responsible for our collec-
tion of European portrait miniatures, I have the privi-
lege of unusual intimacy with these objects. Until very
recently, whenever I wanted, I could request the key to
the storage cabinet that houses them, where they rest
in archival boxes, individually wrapped in non-acidic
paper (fig. 20). I could hold the miniatures in my
gloved hand, feeling their heft in the same way their
intended viewers would have in the sixteenth century.
As objects invented to address geographic distance
and physical separation, miniatures resonate particu-
larly during this period of quarantine. In fact, historians
believe that some of the very first miniatures, dating to
the late 1520s, depicted two sons of François I, King of
France, who were then being held hostage in Madrid.

25
26
 Miniature portraits may seem a quaint relic, but in
the twenty-first century we are all again compulsively
familiar with the handheld image. In my Brooklyn apart-
ment, I rely on my phone to look at photos of my distant
loved ones in their separate quarantines. Elizabethan
poets fantasized that their lovers’ portraits might speak
back to them; now FaceTime allows images to do just
that. The turned ivory boxes that housed some portrait
miniatures would have warmed to the touch. For our
part, we swipe across screens and feel the heat of over-
worked batteries.
As an art historian of early modern Europe, I have
felt an uncanny recognition during these pandemic
months. The events of earlier plagues have repeated
themselves, with the theaters closing, the rich fleeing
town, and the most vulnerable in society treated as
scapegoats. Holbein himself died of the plague in his
mid-forties. Those of us who until recently felt insulated
by modern medicine from the experience of pandemic
illness are now learning the grim lessons of plague-
time. As I have kept track of friends and colleagues in
the hospital, the fear of being unable to say good-bye,
to take one last look at those dear to me, has been as
constant as the sirens outside my window. Such fear
connects us across the centuries, perennial.
In the same year she sat for her portrait by Holbein,
Margaret Roper’s need to see her father one last time 20. Portrait miniatures in the Department of European Paintings
before his execution spurred her to an act of defiance. As
21. Nicholas Hilliard (English, Exeter ca. 1547 – 1619 London). Portrait of
her husband, William, recorded, “desirous to see her a Young Man, Probably Robert Devereux (1566 – 1601), Second Earl of Essex,
father, whom she thought she should never see in this 1588. Vellum laid on card, 1 5/8 × 1 3/8 in. (4 × 3.3 cm). Fletcher Fund,
world after,” Margaret waited by “the Tower Wharf, 1935 (35.89.4)
where she knew he should pass by.” As “soon as she saw
him . . . she . . . hastily ran to him, and there openly in
the sight of them all, embraced him, took him about
the neck, and kissed him.” Having received his blessing
and said good-bye, Margaret, “not satisfied . . . and like
one that had forgotten herself . . . having respect neither
to herself, nor to the press of the people and multitude
that were about him, suddenly turned back again, ran
to him as before, took him about the neck, and divers
times together most lovingly kissed him.”1 With touch
proscribed and travel perilous, we are all learning some- 1. George Sampson, ed., The Utopia of Sir Thomas More: Ralph Robin-
son’s Translation with Roper’s Life of More, and Some of His Letters (Lon-
thing Margaret Roper knew perfectly well: images are don: G. Bell and Sons, 1910), pp. 267 – 68 (spelling modernized by
not enough. the author).

27
ARMOR, THE
ORIGINAL PPE
DONALD J. LA ROCCA Curator,
Department of Arms and Armor

28
Our bodies present a fascinating and dichotomous mix However, in the early twentieth century the condi-
of strength and weakness. The human spirit is famously tions of large-scale mechanized warfare made steel
indomitable, but our physical state leaves us susceptible helmets a vital necessity once again. In 1915, during
to all manner of harm. For thousands of years, body World War I, for the first time in nearly three hundred
armor was one of the principal ways that people sought years steel helmets became standard equipment — 
to overcome the relative frailty of flesh and bone in initially for French troops, and soon for all participants
conflict situations; it is in a certain sense the original in that conflict. They remained the norm in every signif-
personal protective equipment (PPE). As early as the fifth icant military conflagration in the following fifty years
century b.c., armor was fashioned in bronze not only (fig. 23). From the 1950s onward, progressive develop-
to protect a warrior’s body but also to enhance and adorn ments in lightweight, bullet-resistant alternatives to
it (fig. 22). Many cultures developed their own distinc- steel, such as ballistic fabrics, ceramics, and plastics,
tive forms, typically utilizing the best materials and most have again made body armor a practical, effective, and
advanced craftsmanship available in a given place and widespread form of personal protection.
time. In Europe, for example, armor made of steel In many preindustrial societies it was also believed
achieved technical and aesthetic perfection in the fif- that armor could protect against other factors in addi-
teenth and sixteenth centuries. Ironically, it was during tion to the usual perils of physical assault, such as moral
the same period that firearms technology began to spread and spiritual danger or accidental death. This type of
around the globe. While armor was an effective defense defense is invoked through images, symbols, and words
against earlier weapons, it could not withstand gunfire incorporated into the decoration of armor. On an Islamic
without being made of plates that were too thick and example there might be a phrase from the Qur’an ren-
heavy for practical wear. As a result, wherever and when- dered in ornate calligraphy; on a European armor a bibli-
ever firearms became prevalent, armor subsequently cal quotation or the image of a saint. One extraordinary
became obsolete, in the case of Europe by about the mid- Mongolian helmet, made for a follower of Tibetan Bud-
seventeenth century. dhism, is completely covered with images of guardian
deities, sacred symbols, and a series of phrases request-
22. Helmet and Cuirass. Etruscan, probably Vulci, late 5th – 4th century b.c. ing specific protection against ghosts, demons, and
Bronze and silver; H. of helmet 13 in. (33 cm), H. of cuirass 20 1/2 in.
weapons (fig. 24). Some of the same imagery, stem-
(52.1 cm). Purchase, Louis V. Bell, Harris Brisbane Dick, Fletcher, and Rog-
ers Funds and Joseph Pulitzer Bequest and Arthur Ochs Sulzberger, Mr. ming from the same concepts and beliefs, can be seen
and Mrs. Ronald S. Lauder, Friends of Arms and Armor and Malcolm on distinctive amulet boxes called ga’u, an ancient type
Hewitt Wiener Foundation Gifts, 2017 (2017.228a – c) of PPE still worn by some travelers, pilgrims, and oth-
ers in areas that are culturally Tibetan to guard against
23. American Helmet Model No. 5. Designed at The Metropolitan Museum
of Art by Bashford Dean (American, 1867 – 1928). Hale and Kilburn Com- injury, illness, or misfortune of any kind.
pany, Philadelphia, 1918. Steel, paint, leather, textile, and string, H. 6 1/2 in. As these few examples suggest, although the concept
(16.5 cm). Purchase, Gift of Bashford Dean, by exchange, 2013 (2013.582) of what constitutes PPE continues to change and
24. Helmet (rmog). Mongolian, 15th – 17th century. Iron, gold, silver, and
evolve in different cultures at different times, our need
copper, H. 7 5/8 in. (19.5 cm). Purchase, Gift of William H. Riggs, by for it remains.
exchange, 1999 (1999.120)

29
STICKIES ART SCHOOL
MIA FINEMAN Curator, Department of Photographs

Nina Katchadourian (American, b. 1968) is an interdis- close at hand: books and magazines, in-flight snacks,
ciplinary artist with a disarming ability to make some- items of clothing, and bathroom paper products, which
thing out of nothing. She works in a wide variety of she used to create a suite of Lavatory Self-Portraits in the
media, approaching each project with curiosity, humor, Flemish Style. Represented in The Met’s collection by
and a rigorous kind of playfulness. In recent years, she five photographs and a print portfolio, Seat Assignment is
has created concrete poetry from the spines of stacked a powerful demonstration of Katchadourian’s belief
books, recorded a museum audio guide about dust, that art can happen anywhere, even within the
and constructed a miniature theater for the observation cramped confines of a commercial airline seat.
of eye floaters. She is perhaps best known for Seat For the past year, Katchadourian has been using the
Assignment, an ongoing series of photographs and videos app My Talking Pet to animate still photographs of her
created on airplanes using only an iPhone and materials black-and-white tuxedo cat Stickies (fig. 25). She posts
the brief videos on Facebook and Instagram. Although
the animation is crude — only the cat’s head and mouth
move — Stickies is a vivid character: grouchy and disaf-
fected, endearingly vulnerable, and often very funny. In
one photograph, he lounges like a centerfold on vibrantly
colored cushions in front of a groovy-looking blue-striped
background. “The Burt Reynolds of cats” is how one
Facebook friend described him.
When the COVID-19 crisis struck, Katchadourian
quickly enlisted Stickies to help school-aged children and
their parents, including myself, endure the boredom
and confinement of quarantine. On March 16, 2020, the
day New York City’s massive public-school system shut
down, Katchadourian posted a video of Stickies on
Facebook, inviting kids around the world to enroll in
the tuition-free Stickies Art School. Every few weeks,
there would be a new assignment, and students could
post their work in the comments section below the
video. Stickies promised to critique each submission
but warned, “This is just for kids. No grown-ups, okay?
Stay away!”
For the first assignment, Stickies asked for a draw-
ing of himself “in a special transportation vehicle.”
About thirty kids, ranging in age from four to thirteen,
responded with drawings of Stickies in race cars, trains,
boats, submarines, and spaceships of various shapes

25. Still from Stickies Art School video animation on Facebook

30
and sizes, including one with yellow wings submitted by an emotionally arduous ritual notorious for reducing
my six-year-old daughter (fig. 26). Subsequent assign- students to tears. In spite of his grumpiness, Stickies’s
ments asked students to design a costume for Stickies comments were consistently warm and appreciative. At
(fig. 27), to envision various elements of the school the end of each critique, he invited kids to mail him
(buildings, uniforms, lunchroom, playground, etc.), and their drawings, in care of Katchadourian, who has been
to compose a Stickies Art School anthem. waiting out the pandemic with her husband in Berlin.
Several weeks after each assignment was completed, In exchange for each work received, Stickies sent back a
Stickies would respond with a lengthy video critiquing tiny hand-sewn pillowcase printed with the SAS logo
the students’ work, in age order from youngest to oldest. (fig. 28). My daughter’s, tucked into her doll’s bed by
Katchadourian, who teaches art at New York University’s the window, serves as a small reminder that boredom
Gallatin School for Individualized Study, has an abiding can be a catalyst for creativity and that art is a gift that
interest in the pedagogical dynamics of the “group crit,” keeps on giving.

26. Stickies in His Flying Saucer, by Sylvie Smith, age 6

27. Stickies as Big Foot, by Sasha Marks, age 7

28. Stickies Art School Pillowcase, by Nina Katchadourian, age 52

31
32
THEMIRROR OF HISTORY:
BLACK ARTISTS AS ANTIRACIST
ACTIVISTS
DENISE MURRELL Associate Curator, Nineteenth- and Twentieth-Century Art

When I joined The Met in January, I was elated in antic- present awareness of the risk of infection, seemingly
ipation of an initial period of reflection, a time to get to every time I opened my door.
know my new colleagues while pursuing research for In that context, getting reacquainted with the ideas
my first Met exhibition. I was especially eager to continue and artistic practices of the Harlem Renaissance, and
my career-long exploration of the trans-Atlantic axis of of early modern Europe — like my regular walks through
modernist art in which African American and African Central Park — became a balm, an escape into other
diasporan artists and culture gained international acclaim realms. My disrupted schedule of travel to visit collec-
in the late nineteenth century and then in the Harlem tions and archives morphed into flights of curiosity and
Renaissance of the 1920s to 1940s. This was the first exploration, transported by books and, increasingly, via
African American-led modern art movement, and it The Met’s online collections. Thanks to the Museum web-
was rooted in the eponymous historic neighborhood site’s system of cross-indexing, I was constantly intrigued
just thirty blocks north of The Met. to see, while researching the artists I knew well, the
I could not have known in January the extent to
which my reimmersion in the art of the Harlem Renais-
sance would evolve into a meditation on aspects of its
legacy during the pandemic-driven quarantine, which for
me began with The Met’s temporary closure in mid-
March. As the city settled into a quietude unlike anything
I’ve ever experienced, I spent my days staring alternately
at the completely deserted streets outside my windows,
at the TV news reports of the horrific COVID-19 mortality
rates that cast a pall over the city, and at the various
devices I now relied on for Zoom meetings during office
hours and for virtual visits with family and friends into
the evening. I felt simultaneously fortunate that my
loved ones were safe and well, and that we were able to
work comfortably from home, yet anxious with an ever-

29. Samuel Joseph Brown, Jr. (American, 1907 – 1994). Self-Portrait,

ca. 1941. Watercolor, charcoal, and graphite on paper, 20 1/4 × 15 3/8 in.
(51.4 × 39.1 cm). Gift of Pennsylvania Work Projects Administration, 1943
(43.46.4)

30. Elizabeth Catlett (American and Mexican, 1915 – 2012). Head of a

Woman, 1942 – 44. Oil on canvas, 12 × 10 in. (30.5 × 25.4 cm). Purchase,
Bequest of Gioconda King, by exchange, 2018 (2018.157)

33
31. Jacob Lawrence (American, 1917 – 2000). The Photographer, 1942. Brown’s self-portrait is one of very few works by a
Watercolor, gouache, and graphite on paper, 22 1/8 × 30 1/2 in.
Black early modern artist that The Met acquired, as a
(56.2 × 77.5 cm). Purchase, Lila Acheson Wallace Gift, 2001 (2001.205)
gift, the year after it was made. Brown, who received an
MFA from the University of Pennsylvania, was the first
names of many others who were new to me, their works African American to be accepted into the Depression-era
parked in storage, often for decades. I could never resist WPA relief program for artists, and his work gained
going down those rabbit holes and stepping into small international prominence when paintings by him
wonderlands of (re)discovery. These ventures ultimately appeared in a 1939 group show at the Museum of
became acts of the retrieval of lost histories, forgotten Modern Art.1 Despite this acclaim, his self-portrait has
artists, and centuries-old social and aesthetic philoso- been exhibited only three times (while on loan in 1976
phies that proved to have compelling relevance for the and 1988 and in 2003).
unfolding events of the current day. Catlett’s small but compelling Head of a Woman
I was riveted when Samuel Joseph Brown’s Self- (fig. 30), a rare panel painting from her work of this
Portrait (fig. 29) popped onto my screen unsummoned, a period, imbues her sitter with a similarly reflective mood,
byproduct of my intended review of the Museum’s hold- if with a palpable sense of exhaustion. Catlett deploys the
ings by Elizabeth Catlett, an artist of the same period. sharp strokes of a palette knife to eschew the seeming
While Catlett is venerated today for her portraits bestow- effortlessness of a smoother surface, making manifest
ing dignity to the maids, cooks, and union organizers she her own careful work.
encountered while teaching at a Harlem community Despite the differing compositional styles of these
school, I had never heard of Samuel Brown. But the mood two artists, one famous, the other now obscure, I was
he set of pensive self-contemplation as he gazed into a struck by the resonances between their work and the
mirror, enclosed by the deep blue tonalities of an indis- artistic tenets of the Harlem Renaissance. Both used
tinct interior, resonated with my own sense of confine- portraiture, for example, to convey dignity to ordinary
ment in an uncertain new world. African American subjects, as seen in a handful of small

34
prints by each artist still held by The Met, and both artic-
ulated an artistic vision based on a commitment to
issues of social justice. This informed their repeated
choices to portray mainly working-class subjects with the
ennobling aesthetics usually reserved for elites. They
saw no contradiction in building overt activism into their
artistic endeavors.
In their socially conscious practice, Catlett and
Brown were not unique among African American artists
of their generation. Jacob Lawrence, like Catlett, chose
to portray everyday life in Harlem but did so in a more
panoramic vein with works such as The Photographer
(fig. 31), in which he populated a busy Harlem street
scene with sharply angular figures from all walks of
life — from two suited businessmen to a manhole
worker — while denoting the rapidly modernizing city
by juxtaposing a horse-drawn furniture wagon and a
green truck with shiny red wheels. The theme of
modernity likewise informed Harlem artists’
wide-ranging methodologies, from Sargent Johnson’s
schematic thinking head in Lenox Avenue (fig. 32) to
James Van Der Zee’s photographic portraits, including
Twin Sisters (fig. 33), which depicts the cosmopolitan ele-
gance of the expanding Black middle class.
This shared commitment to portraying modern
Black city life, despite divergent visual styles, was central 32. Sargent Claude Johnson (American, 1888 – 1967). Lenox Avenue, 1938.
Lithograph, 12 1/2 × 8 1/2 in. (31.8 × 21.6 cm); sheet: 15 × 10 1/2 in.
to the vision of the New Negro artist, as articulated by (38.1 × 26.7 cm). Gift of the Work Projects Administration, Allocation
Alain Locke, the founding philosopher of the Harlem Unit, Chicago, 1943 (43.47.174)
Renaissance, in opposition to prevalent stereotypes. He
urged African American artists to formulate a modern
mode of portraying the urbane, stylish residents of the with the protestors’ demands for a new national agenda
new Black cities taking shape in Harlem, South Side of social justice, distributed a list of antiracist literature,
Chicago, and elsewhere nationwide during the Great which supplemented my own library, and announced an
Migration, as African Americans were driven out of the open day for introspection so that we could individually
rural South by racism, poverty, and the Jim Crow system consider the role each of us might play in the Museum’s
of legal segregation that denied them basic human rights. publicly stated commitment to a policy of antiracism.
My contemplation of this activist artistic philosophy As I dived into the recent literature of antiracism, I
intensified a few months into quarantine, when, owing was struck by the continuity of the ideas of some of the
to a searing turn in national events, the streets outside defining African American writers and philosophers of
my windows were suddenly the opposite of empty. In the the Harlem Renaissance. This is manifest in the very
aftermath of the police murder of George Floyd, a definition of antiracism, the idea that, as expressed by
present-day enactment of the thousands of lynchings the historian and scholar Ibram X. Kendi, “you cannot
that were a direct cause of the Great Migration, thou- be neutral about racism — if you are not racist, then you
sands of New Yorkers emerged from pandemic confine- must be actively antiracist by choosing to dismantle
ment in citywide protest marches that now often passed racism at individual and structural levels.”2 In 1925, Alain
my building. The Met, in an expression of solidarity Locke wrote that “Art must discover and reveal the

35
beauty which prejudice and caricature have overlaid. renewing my determination to help reshape the broad
And all vital art discovers beauty and opens our eyes to narratives of art history to include the forgotten, mar-
that which previously we could not see.”3 ginalized, and obliterated communities rendered invisi-
While contemplating Samuel Brown’s Self-Portrait, ble even while in plain view. Working collaboratively
I recalled W. E. B. Du Bois’s comments, two decades with willing colleagues of disparate perspectives, I
before Locke, about the African American psyche: “It is believe that we can give voice to a new, more inclusive
a peculiar sensation, this double-consciousness, this art history that reflects the many facets of the societies it
sense of always looking at one’s self through the eyes of represents. By setting aside the hierarchies and exclu-
others.”4 Might Brown have chosen to depict himself sions of the past, we can re-present the Museum as,
as an embodiment of Du Bois’s widely read observa- in perception and fact, a space that is for all of us.
tions? As Kendi wrote more than a century later, “What
Du Bois termed double-consciousness may be more
1. Lisa Mintz Messinger, Lisa Gail Collins, and Rachel Mustalish,
precisely defined dueling consciousness . . . These dueling
African-American Artists, 1929 – 1945: Prints, Drawings, and Paintings
ideas . . . [remain] today . . . between antiracist ideas in The Metropolitan Museum of Art, exh. cat. (New York: The Metro-
and assimilationist ideas.”5 politan Museum of Art, 2003), p. 33.
2. Ibram X. Kendi, How to Be an Antiracist (New York: One World,
What does this still-evolving discourse, among Random House, 2019), p. 13.
others, mean for me? How do I relate antiracist principles 3. Alain Locke, “The Legacy of the Ancestral Arts,” in The New Negro:
An Interpretation, ed. Alain Locke (New York: Albert and Charles
to my curatorial practice? How do I become a proactive
Boni, 1925), p. 264.
factor for some of the change that will enable The Met 4. W. E .B. Du Bois, The Souls of Black Folk (Chicago: A. C. McClurg
to fulfill its stated commitment to antiracism? The self-​ and Co., 1903), p. 3.
5. Kendi, How to Be an Antiracist, p. 29.
reflection imposed by quarantine became a frame for

33. James Van Der Zee (American, 1886 – 1983). Identical Twins, 1924.
Gelatin silver print, 7 3/8 × 9 3/8 in. (18.7 × 23.8 cm). Gift of James Van
DerZee Institute, 1970 (1970.539.2)

36
MISSING THE MET
KEITH CHRISTIANSEN John Pope-Hennessy Chairman, Department of European Paintings

I often work at home in the evenings, after dinner, as however privileged my morning, before-opening expe-
well as on weekends when I have a project in hand. rience seems, it is shared in some form by thousands
Perhaps it is an acquisition. Or the rehanging of a gallery. of visitors. I know this from the intense looking and
Or an exhibition project. Or perhaps an article. Never, engaged conversations among those I see in the galleries
however, have I sat at my makeshift desk at home seven of this sprawling complex. The Met provides an enrich-
days a week, over a period of so many months. Gone ing experience for countless people: a place that offers
are my morning walks to the Museum through Central the potential to each of us, regardless of our background,
Park (I live on the Upper West Side): a walk that, under to set out on a journey of the imagination beyond the
normal circumstances and weather permitting, I look contingencies of our individual lives. It offers the possi-
forward to each weekday morning, especially with the bility of connecting in some way with the vast and often
arrival of fall and the quiet that descends on the route I turbulent river of human history extending back more
take, giving me the occasion to resolve in my mind than five thousand years. One of the privileges of living
what I will try to accomplish that day. I exit the park on in New York, under normal circumstances, is the daily
Eighty-Fourth Street and make my way to the stairs of access we have to this extraordinary Palace of Memory.
the Museum on Fifth Avenue, then pass through the It is this daily activity of renewed engagement that
main door and into Richard Morris Hunt’s Great Hall. lingers in my mind as I work from home, without the
On sunny days the morning light streams through daily contact with the great works of art that have been
the Roman-inspired thermal windows, enhancing the at the center of my life for over forty years. So let me
sense of awe engendered by the vast emptiness. I glance make three imaginary stops as I attempt to recapture
left and right — south, toward the sunlit corridor of the the pleasures of my morning arrival.
Greek and Roman galleries, and north, toward the con- Passing through the Tiepolo gallery and turning to
trasting darkness of the Mastaba Tomb of Perneb. Then my left, I have often found myself pausing in spellbound
I mount the grand staircase, its marble-faced walls wonder before Berlinghiero’s icon of the Madonna
inset with plaques commemorating those who, through and Child (fig. 34). Painted in Tuscany in the 1230s, it
their contributions, have made this the extraordinary is an image in which the Virgin Mary’s foreknowledge of
institution that it is. My eyes are invariably directed the future suffering and death of her son as well as her
toward the summit, where, viewed through Hunt’s arch, awe at his divinity — life’s tragedies and its exaltations —
which was reopened in 1995, Tiepolo’s monumental have been distilled into a system of gestures and for-
canvas depicting the Triumph of Marius comes into malized facial expressions as mesmerizing as an ancient
view. As I look up at it, I can see the young Tiepolo, who incantation and as hauntingly otherworldly as the har-
inserted his self-portrait midway up on the left, returning monics of Olivier Messiaen’s O sacrum conviviuum. One
my admiring gaze. does not have to be religious to sense that we have been
En route to my office, I pass through an enfilade of given a window into a world of ritualized belief that
galleries and have the extraordinary privilege of seeing, brought consolation to thousands.
in quick succession, one painting after another that, On other mornings, I feel the need for a different
cumulatively and over the years, have embedded them- kind of picture — something from the other end of the
selves in my imagination and now form part of my spectrum. What I desire is a painting evocative of every-
emotional as well as intellectual world — that life of the day life as experienced four or five hundred years ago —
spirit that provides a centering of sorts as we face the an affirmation of the lived-in experience we all share. One
unpredictability of everyday life. I am confident that possible destination would be the entrancing painting

37
34. Berlinghiero (Italian, Lucca, active by 1228 – died by 1236). Madonna trips in the Strait of Juan de Fuca? Or simply the beauty
and Child, possibly 1230s. Tempera on wood, gold ground, 31 5/8 × 21 1/8 in.
of freshly caught fish displayed at open markets, their
(80.3 × 53.7 cm). Gift of Irma N. Straus, 1960 (60.173)
colored scales glinting in the light? Beuckelaer — an
innovator in what was a newly established genre in Euro-
of harvesters taking their lunch break that Pieter Bruegel pean art — takes us into the gossipy, working-class world
the Elder made in 1565 as part of a series celebrating of a market in Antwerp, on the edge of town, with an
the cycles of nature by evoking the labors of Everyman: open arch in the city wall giving a view of the busy harbor.
a Netherlandish, populist version of Virgil’s Georgics While one woman on the far right of the composition
created for the suburban home of a leading Antwerp concentrates on her examination of the carp and pike
merchant, Niclaes Jongelinck. still wriggling in a water-filled tub, an older woman
But this morning I want something even earthier, silently rebuffs what contemporaries would have recog-
and for that there is a painting of special resonance for nized as the amorous advances of the bearded fishmon-
me: Joachim Beuckelaer’s 1568 depiction of a fish mar- ger by resolutely crossing her hands over the opening of
ket (fig. 35). I love fish markets. When I travel, I take a terracotta pot. Perhaps she has been eyeing those
enormous pleasure visiting open-air markets (I find the richly colored Atlantic salmon steaks or a piece of freshly
fish market in Venice as visually exciting and full of cut cod, but she will have nothing to do with the fish-
surprises as the interior of a Baroque church). In New monger’s shenanigans. Why give those two women
York, I make a point of frequenting a vendor at the local approaching the stand something further to gossip about?
farmers’ markets on the Upper West Side. Where does The story — with its eternally comedic character of a
this fascination with fish come from? Was it from my person of advanced age making unsolicited and inap-
childhood in Seattle, accompanying my father on salmon propriate advances, possibly employing salty language —

38
is told by means of a charade of gesture and expression pher? Sitting on his bed, his torso bared, his lyre set
that is utterly different from the ritualized ones employed aside, unfettered by his chains, Socrates holds one hand
by Berlinghiero, but no less informed by local conven- hovering eternally above the fatal cup of hemlock
tions. It still seems to me amazing that this brilliant offered him by his weeping follower — a moment held
smile of a picture — the perfect complement to Bruegel’s in timeless and mesmerizing suspension — while with
virtually contemporary Harvesters — should have become the other he resolutely points upward, affirming his
available in 2015 and that The Met was able to acquire belief in the immortality of the soul. The five disciples
it. It is one of my daily markers. at the far right form a Greek chorus of lament, while in
And then, a few galleries on and after numerous the background, viewed down a long, vaulted corridor,
glances around at changes in the hanging and the con- the darkness of which is relieved by a shaft of light, the
sequentially different conversations among the pictures, family of Socrates casts sorrowful, farewell glances
I find myself stopping — in this mental walk to my backwards.
office — before one of the greatest masterpieces in the The bearded figure seated silently at the foot of the
collection and, indeed, in America: Jacques Louis David’s bed, his head bent, lost in thought, his hands solemnly
sublime Death of Socrates (fig. 36). What is it about folded on his lap, his scroll and writing implements
this extraordinary picture that is so compelling? Is it lying discarded on the stone pavement, is Plato, who was
the incomparable finality of the choreography of the fig- not present at Socrates’s death but whose writings are
ures and the way — once again — a highly evolved sys-
tem of gesture is used both to characterize the individual
35. Joachim Beuckelaer (Netherlandish, Antwerp 1533 – 1575 Antwerp).
disciples of Socrates and to link one to the other in a
Fish Market, 1568. Oil on Baltic oak, 50 5/8 × 68 7/8 in. (128.6 × 174.9 cm).
pantomime of anguished grief, with a space left open Purchase, Lila Acheson Wallace Gift and Bequest of George Blumenthal,
so as to give prominence to the condemned philoso- by exchange, 2015 (2015.146)

39
36. Jacques Louis David (French, Paris 1748 – 1825 Brussels). The Death of
Socrates, 1787. Oil on canvas, 51 × 77 1/4 in. (129.5 × 196.2 cm). Catharine
Lorillard Wolfe Collection, Wolfe Fund, 1931 (31.45)

our primary source for knowledge of Socrates’s ideas as and brutal crises of his time. This disconnect is itself a
well as the scene David evokes with the sort of psycho- reminder of our inherent weakness as well.
logical tension we expect from a director such as Fritz As for so many visitors, The Met has become my
Lang. Not surprisingly, it has been suggested that David memory palace. Its collection of great works of European
took inspiration from contemporary theater practice. I painting ranging from Berlinghiero and Duccio to Van
like very much the idea that David has re-created the Gogh and Monet and beyond are a constant source of
scene as though reconstructed in the mind of Plato writ- pleasure and nourishment. There are days when I have
ing at a later stage of his life. As such, the picture begs been reading or thinking about a particular work or have
comparison between the re-creative power of Plato’s returned from a vacation or perhaps a visit to another
writing and the genius of the artist’s brush to give those museum and find that an idea or latent interest has
words visual presence. been sparked. I walk through the galleries in search of
The scene David chose to depict is one of high moral a work of art that will help me to bring these disparate
as well as ethical conviction, and it reminds us of what I thoughts into focus. The day may be interrupted by the
like to think of as the moral imperative that is so central practical issues of everyday life, but there remains a
to Western art and that we so often find lacking in our sense of the possibility of discovery or of deepening my
everyday lives. David certainly did not live up to in the understanding of the world I live in and that I — like
high ideals his art aspired to embrace. As is the case everyone — share with past as well as future generations.
with so many of us, his life was one of compromises as I doubt I realized just how privileged I was until my
he responded in a self-interested fashion to the defining daily routine at The Met was denied me.

40
THE ART OF THE CURE
BARBARA DRAKE BOEHM Paul and Jill Ruddock Senior Curator for The Met Cloisters

As I write, scientists around the globe are racing to wise be forgotten: the curative capacity of the garden and
develop a vaccine against the novel coronavirus that the art of the pharmacy that championed it.
causes COVID-19. In televised interviews, they speak with Quarantined at home, I found myself aching for the
authority and conviction of their prospects for success, simple beauty of the gardens at the Cloisters. The bed
while images of their sleek, sterile labs reinforce the mes- of medicinal plants cultivated there since 1938 serves
sage. The trappings of the pharmaceutical industry — as a reminder that horticulture was and still is both an
the test tubes, the lab coats, the hard metal surfaces and art and a science (fig. 37). More than seventy thousand
clinical whiteness of that universe — are all part of the plants worldwide are thought to be of medicinal value.1
brand, convincing us to believe in their work. In time, Even at the dawn of this century, 11 percent of the 252
it says, science will prevail, health will return, and soci- drugs considered basic and essential by the World
ety will be free of this mortal threat. Yet amid such sur- Health Organization derive exclusively from flowering
rounds and the cold chemistry of this pandemic, I believe plants. Moreover, some 80 percent of plant-derived
it bears remembering something essential from human- drugs serve the same time-honored purpose historically
ity’s long history of battling disease that might other- ascribed to them by a given culture.

37. Medicinal plants grown in the garden of Bonnefont Cloister

41
38. Fresco of a medieval apothecary, Castello di Issogne, Italy

The late medieval Grete Herball spoke of “green herbs drugs,4 and by at least the fourteenth century the utili-
of the garden and weeds of the fields” intended to “Heal tarian pharmacy jar had become a vessel for artistic
and cure all manner of diseases and sicknesses . . . .”2 expression. Medicines in the pharmacy of the hospital
By the time of Charlemagne, a medicinal garden was of Santa Maria della Scala, Siena, were kept in jars
already recognized as an essential feature of monasteries. marked with their simple, si­gnature badge in the form
Women of the Church such as Trota of Salerno and of a ladder. The distinctive badge of Santa Maria Nuova,
Hildegard of Bingen spelled out the medicinal uses of Florence, was a crutch, painted on the jar’s handle, leav-
plants; their writings and others’ were embraced by ing the swelling surface of the pot to be embellished with
monks and nuns laboring in gardens across Europe. lively beasts. The hospital pharmacy obtained nearly a
Over time, these conventual efforts reached beyond the thousand such containers from a local ceramist, Giunta
walls and grew into a profitable ministry. The Dominican di Tugio, in 1431. When the pharmacy was inspected by
friars of Santa Maria Novella, Florence, for example, Florentine authorities a century later, in 1562, it was
were selling medications by 1381.3 Nuns, too, actively found to be well supplied “with a rare orderliness and
engaged as pharmacists serving the public, offering ministration.” Theirs was a thriving industry. The monks
specialty soaps among their other wares. even sold surplus plant stock, including rhubarb, to
Like the garden, the late medieval and Renaissance apothecaries in town.5
pharmacy became a beautifully curated space, chock- By the late twelfth century, townspeople from Lon-
full of curing powders and elixirs (fig. 38). In the seventh don to Montpellier were serving as apothecaries, but
century, the drug cabinet of Isidore, archbishop of Seville, those in Italy left the strongest record. Among the
contained “little jars fashioned from fragile clay” to hold most celebrated merchant-owned pharmacies was the

42
39. Apothecary jar (orciuolo). Italian (Castelli), ca. 1520. Maiolica (tin-glazed
earthenware), H. 10 1/4 in. (25.9 cm). Robert Lehman Collection, 1975
(1975.1.1047)

43
Florentine “apothecary at the Lily,” whose 1504 inven- edly bathed in bleach or ingested fish food. Far better
tory included forty-six meters of shelving, fine furnish- for us to appreciate “the common plants that grow in our
ings, an image of the Virgin Mary, and more than two meadows,” as our forebears who survived plague and
hundred pharmacy (or apothecary) jars, vessels so pestilence once did,8 and turn our gaze to the art of the
exquisite that they were sometimes adapted as flower pharmacy. As we wait for an elusive cure, these elegant
vases for the home.6 Why were such utilitarian objects works provide a tonic all their own.
invested with such attention to beauty? Quite simply,
their exuberant decoration helped proclaim the pre-
1. For the use of plants in modern medicine, see Shiyou Li et al., “Phar-
ciousness of their contents, taking the lush color and
maceutical Crops: An Overview,” Pharmaceutical Crops 1, no. 1 (August
beauty of the garden as a point of departure (fig. 39). 2010), p. 8; Niharika Sahoo, Padmavati Manchikanti, and Satyahari
More than mere “branding,” this ostentation reflected Dey, “Herbal Drugs: Standards and Regulation,” Fitoterapia 81, no. 6
(February 2010), pp. 462 – 71; Daniel S. Fabricant and Norman R.
the apothecary’s professional pride and, perhaps more Farnsworth, “The Value of Plants Used in Traditional Medicine for Drug
significant, conveyed the financial success derived from Discovery,” Environmental Health Perspectives 109, suppl. 1 (March
2001), pp. 69 – 75; and Ciddi Veeresham, “Natural Products Derived
such expertise and trustworthiness. Even so, skeptics
from Plants as a Source of Drugs,” Journal of Advanced Pharmaceutical
sometimes criticized “those jugs, those jars and boxes Technology & Research 3, no. 4 (October – December 2012), pp. 200 – 201.
with large capital letters, which tell of a thousand Li et al., “Pharmaceutical Crops,” p. 10, analyzes opium, including its
molecular structure. On violets in particular, see Alice Furlaud, “Can-
unguents or confections or precious aromatics — but died Violets: How Very French,” The New York Times, April 30, 1986,
they are empty inside, carrying these ridiculous sec. C, p. 3; as a practice in the Renaissance, see Diane Julien-David and
Christophe Marcic, “Food, Nutrition and Health in France,” in Nutri-
inscriptions outside.”7
tional and Health Aspects of Food in Western Europe, by Susanne Braun
The labels carefully inscribed in the bodies of ceramic et al. (London: Elsevier/Academic Press, 2020), p. 111.
pharmacy jars in The Met collection reveal an astonish- 2. The Grete Herball (London: Peter Treveris, 1526), sig *2r.
3. Sharon T. Strocchia, “The Nun Apothecaries of Renaissance Florence:
ing array of common plants — including basil, crocus, Marketing Medicines in the Convent,” Renaissance Studies 25, no. 5
hops, lettuce, poppy, and violets — many of which grace (November 2011), p. 629. For pharmacies in medieval Europe, see
also Nicholas Everett, “The Manuscript Evidence for Pharmacy in the
present-day home gardens and the Cloisters garden
Early Middle Ages,” in Writing the Early Medieval West: Studies in
alike. Although the presence of poppies should come as Honour of Rosamond McKitterick, by Elina Screen et al. (Cambridge and
no surprise — their benefits and risks having been rec- New York: Cambridge University Press, 2018), pp. 115­ – 30; James
Shaw and Evelyn Welch, Making and Marketing Medicine in Renais-
ognized for millennia — items such as violet honey and sance Florence, The Wellcome Series in the History of Medicine
violet syrup may be less familiar. And yet violets have (Amsterdam and New York: Editions Rodopi, 2011), p. 65; Evelyn
Welch, Shopping in the Renaissance: Consumer Cultures in Italy,
long been believed to serve a multitude of healthful
1400 – 1600 (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 2005);
purposes, from relieving headaches (an inebriated per- and a blog, “Fugitive Leaves,” by Chrissie Perella, about Macer
son was instructed to smell violets or place them over Floridus’s De virtutibus herbarum on the website of the Historical
Medical Library of the College of Physicians of Philadelphia;
the head) to bathing or treating acne. The pharmacy histmed.collegeofphysicians.org/medieval-Monday-13/.
nuns at Santa Caterina, Florence, needed such massive 4. Everett, “Manuscript Evidence for Pharmacy,” p. 124.
5. Strocchia, “Nun Apothecaries of Renaissance Florence,” p. 644; Shaw
quantities of violets that they turned to outside vendors,
and Welch, Making and Marketing Medicine in Renaissance Florence,
including the brothers at San Marco, home to Fra pp.  65 – 66.
Angelico. Even today, candied violets are said to be ben- 6. Shaw and Welch, Making and Marketing Medicine in Renaissance
Florence, p. 58. Examples of The Met’s important collection of pharmacy
eficial for chest disorders. jars are available at metmuseum.org, including 16.154.4 and
The benefits ascribed to the violet are a good exam- 1975.1.1061. One jar also appears in the Cloisters’ Annunciation Trip-
tych (Merode Altarpiece) (56.70), where it holds a Madonna lily.
ple of beliefs that today we may find naive — probably
7. Shaw and Welch, Making and Marketing Medicine in Renaissance
benign, but also a bit silly. After all, in the modern med- Florence, p. 68.
ical establishment, measures are standardized, distri- 8. Everett, “Manuscript Evidence for Pharmacy,” p. 124.

bution is monitored, and quality is controlled. In a better

world, charlatans promoting bogus cures would surely
be a thing of the past. But the reality is that in recent
weeks in the United States, grown men and women seek-
ing cures or a protection against infection have report-

44
THE GLOBE IN A HANDSCROLL
ANDREW SOLOMON Trustee

The tragedy of my parents’ otherwise excellent marriage attention not because they were exotic but because they
was that my father had hawked librettos as a teenager were exquisitely loaded with pertinent meaning. The
so he could get standing room at the opera five nights a following summer, I was fortunate enough to travel with
week, but my mother was tone-deaf; and my mother my family to China. Although Western tourists were
had been a passionate art history major, but my father mostly sequestered from the local population at that
was color-blind. The result of this aesthetic mismatch time, Wen Fong had kindly placed a few calls from New
was that my father wanted company for performances York and arranged for us to break away from our tour
and first took me to the Metropolitan Opera when I group and visit Suzhou, then largely closed to foreign
was six, while my mother wanted to give us the joy of visitors. The following semester in college, I studied
visual art and started taking me to the Metropolitan Chinese painting with Richard Barnhart. I later worked
Museum when I was still in a stroller. Her great passions at, wrote about, and eventually became a trustee of the
were the Northern Renaissance, Impressionism, and Museum, and in 2013 I joined the visiting committee of
Post-Impressionism, and her gentle, eager voice helped the Department of Asian Art.
me imagine the rooms just out of view in a Pieter de In its monumentality, the Museum has always
Hooch painting or the luxuriance of Monet’s gardens. seemed both to contain and to transcend the works it
My grandmother, also deeply fond of the Museum, houses. All my life, whenever I encountered an unfor-
was left to show me through Arms and Armor, Egypt, giving world, there was The Met to revive me, comfort
Greece, Rome, and all of Asia. I had a precocious pen- and safety to be found in its multifarious riches. When
chant for the “exotic” — whether that meant, in my The Met’s great doors swung closed on March 12, we
juvenile experience, dinner at Trader Vic’s or a peculiar were all locked out of a place of escape and contempla-
appreciation for my great aunt’s pagoda-festooned china tion. But that place was hardly forgotten. Art was a
— and I engaged with the galleries of Chinese art most comfort even when I couldn’t go and visit it. I could view
of all. I cannot pretend that I then had much insight into representations of some paintings online and in my
the fine points of Song dynasty brushwork, but I liked collection of catalogues; other works inhabited my inward
how different what was portrayed seemed from anything eye, and I took comfort from it. As the reality of the
else I knew. I could readily imagine my way into Giverny, quarantine slowly set in, I began to ponder what would
but to place myself in these landscapes required a spirit reward months of solitary examination.
of adventure. Isolation, so novel to most of us now, was a regular
The two Mets seemed reassuringly permanent to feature of life in dynastic China, where literati painters
me. I never countenanced the idea that they would both were often banished from court or chose to avoid its
be shuttered (which they are as I am writing). I took scandals and dangers. At a remove from the fray, they
children’s classes at the Museum and had my first job produced albums, hanging scrolls, and handscrolls,
there — as the unicorn at the Medieval Festival at the forms of art intended not for permanent display but
Cloisters — when I was fifteen. In the summer of 1981, rather for perusal at appointed leisure. From The Met’s
when I was a high school intern in The Met’s Editorial spectacular collection I’d borrow Shen Zhou’s Joint Land-
Department, I was asked to proofread the galleys for scape (fig. 40), completed by his student Wen Zhengming,
Wen Fong and Maxwell K. Hearn’s Silent Poetry: Chinese which is more than fifty-six feet long. Shen lived in the
Paintings in the Douglas Dillon Galleries, an issue of the fifteenth century in Suzhou. Named by historians as
Bulletin. I was captured by the vivid prose and even more one of the “Four Masters of the Ming,” he is noted for
by the paintings themselves, to which I now turned my the distinctive mixture of restraint, mysticism, subtlety,

45
40. Shen Zhou (Chinese, 1427 – 1509) and Wen Zhengming (Chinese, and warmth that underlies his work. Shen chose to
1470 – 1559). Joint Landscape (detail), Ming dynasty (1368 – 1644), forego the life of a Ming official, living in retreat, as some
ca. 1509 and 1546. Handscroll; ink on paper, image 14 1/2 in. × 56 ft.
of us find ourselves doing now. His scroll explores
8 7/8 in. (36.8 × 1729.3 cm). Purchase, The Dillon Fund Gift, 1990
(1990.54) themes that preoccupied many Ming scholars: the pri-
vate pleasures of secluded dwellings tucked into moun-
tain valleys. It is dotted with tiny figures, pleasingly
dwarfed by the magnificent topography that surrounds
them. It is impossible to take in the totality of such a
scroll in a single viewing.
Shen’s handscroll is intended to be savored over
many days, like a leisurely sojourn in the mountains.
Looking at it is like reading a long-form poem or a

46
 chaos and conflict. Shen expressed in an outer landscape
much of what has unfolded in my inner landscape.
Nature is vast, and we are no more than a few brush-
strokes and a dot of ink. In professing Confucian inade-
quacies, Shen achieved a specific gorgeousness: hum-
ble, spectacular, at once simple (a gesture here, another
there) and infinitely complex.
As the days of quarantine wore on, we found our-
selves in a double trauma: of COVID-19 and an escala-
tion in the long-simmering crisis of police brutality
toward people of color. The cruel majesty with which
nature seems to have chastened us suddenly coincided
with the implacable smallness of humankind. If these
twin crises seem novel, look to Shen Zhou to find evi-
dence of how such truths have coexisted for civilization’s
portion of eternity. It becomes clear that this is an ever-
green juxtaposition: the scholar’s life of deliberate seclu-
sion acknowledges an antithetical pettiness and barbar-
ity that played out in the fifteenth-century imperial
court much as it does in the United States today. Racist
acts here against people of Asian ancestry have esca-
lated since the phrase “Chinese virus” began to prolif-
erate under the instruction of our president. Unleashed
into scapegoating, vicious elements in our society who
might reasonably profane the appalling Chinese leader-
ship have gone on the attack against innocent people,
trying to place blame on them for what they never could
or would have done. It is easy to see why one might flee
to Jiangsu province and take up the brush.
COVID-19 in New York has necessitated a closing
down of nonessential services, and cultural institutions
sit high on the official list of nonessentials. Yet art offers
a different redemption from that of medicine. The
urgency of social-distancing regulations cannot be
meditative work of fiction. Like a novel, it evinces a breached, but let us not suppose that museums are only
cogent monumentality yet is also sequential, meant to pleasing distractions. Objects are repositories of insight;
unfold as slowly as life does. Such a handscroll would learning their truths is a medicine of its own. Dostoevsky
originally have been viewed one arm’s span at a time, an said, “Beauty, though, will save the world.” If he was
impossible practice in a museum display case; our com- right, and on my better days I am sure he was, there is
promise for viewing such work is antithetical to the an armory’s worth of salvation locked up on Eighty-
intended intimacy and immediacy. Taking inspiration Second Street. Superb items such as this long hand-
from his forebears, Shen deliberately harked back to scroll speak to how others have understood, endured, and
Yuan and early Ming painters to create a body of work even subsumed privations and disruptions. They con-
that is of its time but also transcends time. I like finding stitute a beacon of hope that we will not only survive
myself small in his world, reading each vital, calligraphic our current punishments, but perhaps even be ennobled
indication like a promise that splendor endures despite by them.

47
The Met’s quarterly Bulletin program is supported in part by the Lila fig. 30. © 2020 The Jacob and Gwendolyn Knight Lawrence Foundation,
Acheson Wallace Fund for The Metropolitan Museum of Art, estab- Seattle / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York: fig. 31. © 1969 Van
lished by the cofounder of Reader’s Digest. Der Zee: fig. 33. Photo by Andrew Winslow: fig. 37. Science History
Images / Alamy Stock Photo: fig. 38. Photo by Pari Stave: p. 49.
The Metropolitan Museum of Art Bulletin, Fall 2020
The Metropolitan Museum of Art
Volume LXXVIII, Number 2
1000 Fifth Avenue
Copyright © 2020 by The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York New York, New York 10028
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