The Bite Magazine - Autmn/Winter 2020 - Issue 28

biteexhibition alking through the Great Hall of the Metropolitan Muse- um of Art in New York City is like exploring the majestic space of a grand palace. This gigantic architectural building, known colloquially as ‘The Met’ is the largest art museum in the United States. It was incorporated in 1870, following discussions by a group of Americans in Paris, France four years prior, who wanted to create a “national institution and gallery of art” to bring art and art education to the American people. A few months after opening to the public in the Dodworth Building at 681 Fifth Avenue, the museum acquired its first object, a Roman sar- cophagus, in November 1870. The following year saw 174 European paintings, including works by Anthony van Dyck, Nicolas Poussin, and Giovanni Battista Tiepolo, enter the collection. Ten years later, after a brief move to the Douglas Mansion on 128 West 14th Street, the muse- um reopened to the public at its current site on Fifth Avenue and 82nd Street. The Met’s Beaux-Arts Fifth Avenue facade and Great Hall was designed by architect and founding museum trustee Richard Morris Hunt which opened to the public in December 1902. The Evening Post reported that at last New York had a neoclassical palace of art, “One of the finest in the world, and the only public building in recent years which approaches in dignity and grandeur the museums of the old world.” Today, The Met Fifth Avenue is one of the world’s greatest art centres with a massive art collection. Formerly known as the Museum of Costume Art, an independent entity formed in 1937 and led by Neighbourhood Playhouse founder Irene Lewisohn, the Costume Institute merged with the Metropolitan Mu- seum of Art in 1946. Legendary fashion arbiter and editor-in-chief of Vogue , Diana Vreeland served as a special consultant from 1972 until her death in 1989 and created a memorable suite of exhibitions includ-