The Metropolitan Museum

History of the Museum The Metropolitan Museum of Art, which includes its Main Building on Fifth Avenue and The Cloisters museum and gardens in northern Manhattan, dates back to 1866. The Metropolitan Museum of Art's earliest roots date back to 1866 in Paris, France, when a group of Americans agreed to create a "national institution and gallery of art" to bring art and art education to the American people. The Cloisters museum and gardens, which opened to the public in 1938, is the branch of the Museum in northern Manhattan devoted to the art and architecture of medieval Europe.

Exhibitions Nine large and superb American landscape paintings from the Metropolitan Museum's collection are currently displayed in the newly renovated Robert Lehman Wing, enabling visitors to view selected highlights of American art during the major reordering and upgrading of the American Wing paintings galleries, scheduled for completion in early 2011.

The exhibition, organized by The Costume Institute, celebrates the late Alexander McQueen's extraordinary contributions to fashion. From his Central Saint Martins postgraduate collection of 1992 to his final runway presentation, which took place after his death in February 2010, Mr. McQueen challenged and expanded the understanding of fashion beyond utility to a conceptual expression of culture, politics, and identity. His iconic designs constitute the work of an artist whose medium of expression was fashion. The exhibition features approximately one hundred ensembles and seventy accessories from Mr. McQueen's prolific nineteen-year career. Drawn primarily from the Alexander McQueen Archive in London, with some pieces from the Givenchy Archive in Paris as well as private collections, signature designs including the "bumster" trouser, the kimono jacket, and the three-point "origami" frockcoat are on view. McQueen's fashions often referenced the exaggerated silhouettes of the 1860s, 1880s, 1890s, and 1950s, but his technical ingenuity always imbued his designs with an innovative sensibility that kept him at the vanguard.