The American Wing at the Met

After being closed for four years, the New American Wing at the Metropolitan Museum of Art reopened to the public on Jan. 16, 2012, with 3,300 feet of additional space and a total of 26 enlarged and renovated galleries.

The wing is impressive in both magnitude and breadth of pieces. Great American painters like John Singleton Copely, Gilbert Stuart, Thomas Cole, Thomas Eakins, Winslow Homer, and John Singer Sargent are well represented in the collection, which was curated by a team led by Morrison H. Heckscher, chairman of the American Wing. Famed paintings like “The Heart of the Andes” and “Madame X” are on display and complemented by just as skilled, though not as celebrated, works.

Mimicking the coiled-snakelike design of the wing, the works are arranged roughly by subject chronologically—the 19th-century portraits gallery leads to a gallery of Hudson River School landscapes. The architect firm Kevin Roche, John Dinkeloo, and Associates combined the original two-floor space to create a wing on a single floor, with large galleries wrapping around smaller ones.

The American Wing certainly uses these architecture and structural changes to enhance the message and meaning of this collection of art. When entering the wing from the 18th- and 19th-century European galleries, viewers are greeted by a dazzling display of crystal vases, silver tea sets, and sparkling jewelry. The collection, which features houseware and decorative items from colonial America to the Jazz Age, uses the light from the large windows at the top of and on the ceiling of the atrium to create different effects on the shiny and shimmering surfaces. On the floor below, patrons wander past sculptures neatly arranged to replicate a park or a town square, complete with large copper street lamps. Once one enters through the large glass doors to the painting galleries, a small set of stairs leads down to a series of recreated rooms, with furniture and architectural features recalling colonial homes.

Themes of freedom, expansion, exploration, utopia, perseverance, and success ring through the works in the wing. Celebrated paintings guide viewers through a history of America and its art. In a time of political and social changes, it is both engaging and reassuring to see the changing representation of America’s people, land, and events through the lens of artists as America itself changed.

Wandering through the galleries, patrons can see that story told through genre paintings: farmers toiling in the fields, children playing in a snowy Central Park circa 1905, men on horseback charging into battle, a crowded city with smoke rising up into the sky. The American frontier is glorified in the scores of landscape paintings, and the hero is seen in monumental yet human portraits.

At 21 feet by 21 feet, the iconic and dignified George Washington stands tall above the men pushing the boat along the icy waters of the Delaware River contained in a gilded frame with a sculpted eagle atop it in Emanuel Leutze’s 1851 “Washington Crossing the Delaware.” He is the undisputed centerpiece, capturing the eyes of viewers and drawing them in, silhouetted by the rectangular doorways of the other galleries. Anyone passing by could not resist stopping and sitting on one of the benches nearby to take the painting in—the magnificent piece dominates the entire wall and embodies the strength and patriotism of the entire exhibit.

The Metropolitan Museum of Art is open 9:30 a.m.-5:30 p.m. (Tues.–Thurs., Sun.) and 9:30 a.m.-9 p.m. (Fri.-Sat.). It is located at 100 Fifth Avenue between East 80th and 84th streets. Admission is free with a valid CUID.