Updated at 3:51 p.m., Tuesday, November 6, 2007
Metropolitan Museum curator speaks tonight
Advertiser Staff
Dr. Julien Chapuis, curator in the Department of Medieval Art at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, The Cloisters in New York, will talk about German art historian Wilhelm von Bode and his influence in America at 7:30 p.m. tonight at The Doris Duke Theatre. In January, Chapuis will become the new director of the Sculpture Collection at the Bode-Museum, Berlin.The lecture is free.
The reopening of Berlin's Bode-Museum last year marked not only the completed renovation of this famed building at the tip of Berlin's Museum Island, but also the reunification of world-class collections that had remained separated since 1939. At the Bode-Museum, visitors can now discover the rich holdings of the Sculpture Collection and Museum for Byzantine Art, as well as an ample selection from the Paintings Gallery.
Wilhelm von Bode (1845-1929) worked for nearly 50 years for the Royal Prussian Museums. He joined the sculpture department as an assistant in 1872 and rose through the ranks to become general director in 1905, a position he held until 1920. He was internationally known for his work with the Berlin museums: he worked relentlessly to enhance them by acquiring works of art, opening new areas of collecting, and developing a novel presentation concept that combined objects in various media. He added two buildings to the Museum Island: the Kaiser-Friedrich-Museum, now the Bode-Museum, which opened in 1904, and the Pergamon-Museum, completed in 1930, one year after his death.
The art historian Friedrich Winkler wrote of Bode that "outside Germany his achievements influenced first and foremost American museums."
Chapuis' will talk about Bode's contact with American collectors in the early 20th century; his contribution to the cultural and foreign policies of Kaiser Wilhelm II as illustrated in an exhibition of contemporary German art held in New York, Boston, and Chicago in 1909; the gradual adoption of Bode's method of presentation in American museums; and the realization of Bode's vision of an integration of all forms of art at The Cloisters, the medieval branch of The Metropolitan Museum of Art in northern Manhattan.
