The Ripening of ‘The American Wing at 100’ at the Metropolitan Museum of Art: A Reflection on One Hundred Years of Collections

Highlighting the history and diversity of North America, The American Wing at The Metropolitan Museum of Art celebrated its centennial this past November 2024. In honor of this date, the museum has revamped the wing, striving to create a fuller picture of the cultures within America. 

The American Wing at the Metropolitan Museum of Art (The Met) stands as a testament to the richness and diversity of America’s long history of art. Nestled within one of the world’s most iconic cultural institutions, the American Wing is a treasure trove of artistic expression, showcasing everything from colonial portraits to contemporary installations. Time has allowed the wing to expand to include many more perspectives, each getting a chance to shine. Expansive and coalescing, the wing takes up four floors and requires several days to fully survey the collection. 

The uniquely diverse environment of the American Wing is as much due to presentation as it is to the exhibits themselves. Moving through multifaceted ecosystems — whether traversing the sunny, saharan-esque courtyard or wading through the flowing rivers of records in open storage — each facet of the wing brings a more complete understanding of the country’s history.

The Charles Engelhard Court brings the outdoors into the historic building. Once an actual courtyard garden, the large area has been enclosed to further display pieces and provide ample room for traversing while also eliminating the possibility of being rained on. Entering from the dimmed medieval wing, the sky-lit arena is even more appealing and pleasant. The court’s sculptures invite a range of observations and interpretations. 

Despite mainly presenting white American sculptors, the statuary tells stories from many cultures. Indigenous stories are crafted by western-set artists; however, the museum acknowledges the skewed nature of the representations. 

Statues such as The Sun Vow by Herman Atkins MacNeil and Hiawatha by Augustus Saint-Gaudens were inspired by indigenous cultures. However, they do not represent true histories but rather fictitious narratives. Augustus Saint-Gaudens is further given center stage in the court with his centered and shining sun, Diana (cast 1894 or after), who aims her bow and arrow towards an angelic, decorated church pulpit. Diana has been housed in The Met since 1928, almost as old as the American Wing itself. 

Nonetheless, celebrating the centennial of the wing means celebrating both the old and the new. Compared to Diana, there are many newly acquired pieces that made up the celebration of the 100 year anniversary. For instance, the 3-part Garden landscape window for Linden Hall (1912), designed by Agnes Northrop and executed by Tiffany Studios, takes up the alcove in the courtyard. Calling back to earlier days when the court wasn’t walled-in, the stained glass depicts a beautifully eternal lush garden. 

Stepping down into the pulpit of the Charles Engelhard Court, visitors have the opportunity to repose in built-in benches that line the walls surrounding another garden of sculptures. The focus of these pieces is of women in ancient settings, depicting both real stories such as Cleopatra (1869) as well as  fables like Medea (1868). 

At the end of the courtyard, the facade of a house impresses on viewers, with worn stairs and pillars to the sky, however a diversion to the left leads to a pleasant surprise: Art of Native America: The Charles and Valerie Diker Collection. Composed of works from over fifty different Indigenous nations and communities, this collection walks through different ethnographic regions to reflect cultural worldviews, religion and community values. 

Opened in 2018, this exhibit was the first to bring Native American works into the American Wing, which had previously focused on mainly Euro-American influences. Despite being the original inhabitants of the Americas, indigenous work isn’t often acknowledged for its influence on American culture. This exhibit aims to bring objects of value under the same umbrella of importance as is given to other areas of the wing. 

The museum acknowledges that they are situated in Lenapehoking — the home of the Lenape peoples, which spans Western Connecticut to Eastern Pennsylvania — and that their influence continues to shape the city; creating a modern thread in the exhibit which otherwise displays antique pieces. Despite this, the exhibit has fallacy in its appreciation, with several problems arising over ownership, authenticity, and perspective. 

A ProPublica review of the ownership records of objects in the Charles and Valerie Diker Collection show that over eighty-five percent of the pieces lack a clear history of ownership. This could indicate that some pieces were stolen or fake, seriously harming the legitimacy of the exhibit. 

Despite this painful situation, The Met has tried to attribute as many pieces as possible to their maker. When this is not possible, they credit pieces to the adjective ‘artist’ and the tribe the work originated from. Artists that are known are proudly rendered in the informative signs attached. 

In particular, Mary Sully — a Dakota Sioux artist active between the 1920s to 1940s — has many of her triptychs on display in the exhibit. Triptychs are a form of art that divides a painting or panel into three sections; Sully captured the “personality” or essence of ideas and people popular in American culture at the time. The museum displays of Sully’s work ranges from Fred Astaire and Babe Ruth to life on reservations. Sully closes off the Charles and Valerie Diker Collection positively. 

Now stepping into the entombed house within the wing, one is immersed in the full range of the past. Historically reconstructed interiors, or ‘period rooms,’ have been a part of the composition of the American Wing since its opening in 1924. Fifteen rooms ranging in time period from the late seventeenth to the early nineteenth-century were originally displayed, with several rooms through to the twentieth century having been added. 

Each room, dubbed a “period room,” captures a unique aspect of life in their respective geographical and time periods. Representing all areas of a home, the immersive experience transports viewers to each of their individual time periods. Every level of the American Wing contains at least one period room, and interactive tablets further educate viewers on the history of the room, its inhabitants, and curatorial interpretations. 

Visitors traverse winding, maze-like corridors between some period rooms, adding to the time-travelling effect. Through these journeys, visitors also learn and feel the different experiences of the people who once lived there. Organized semi-chronologically from the top floor down, the American Wing brings a lived-in experience to learning that can, at times, be more reflective than simply displaying works from the epoch. 

Rooms range from the practices of 1600s English immigrants demonstrated in the Hart Room, the opulence of the Gilded Age Worsham-Rockefeller Dressing Room, and even the visionary Frank Lloyd Wright Room in 1914. Each room was chosen for its cultural heritage and important role in fully capturing the American experience. 

The relatively new ‘Before Yesterday We Could Fly: An Afrofuturist Period Room’ explores Seneca Village, a predominantly-black neighborhood that once stood where Central Park is today until it was taken through eminent domain in 1857. Once representing the freedom and prosperity of African Americans in 19th century America, the period room explores the concept of the past, present, and future being interconnected and draws from historic objects as well as recent commissions. 

While some objects are presented in meticulously curated exhibits, it is a sad truth that the bulk of the American wing collection would not be able to be displayed. Due to factors such as a lack of composition (having enough pieces to make an exhibit), not enough information known about a piece, and that there are often too many of the “same” object from the same time period, most works would be forced into storage, away from the eyes of the public. 

The Met, however, understands the value of these pieces in fully capturing history and shines a light on them in The Henry R. Luce Center for the Study of American Art. Located on the second floor of the American Wing, open storage cases surround visitors and entrusts the cultural weight of this recording through meticulous arrangement. Shelves of painting, sculpture, furniture, architectural fragments, ceramics, glass, silver, and pewter represent a dizzying array of America’s amalgamated history. These categories are further divided into date, style, geography, and artist in order to give sense to the sheer force of having so many pieces in one area. 

The showroom is a quiet nook in the second-floor mezzanine, giving time to reflect and digest the importance of it all. The glass separating the time capsules from the visitors is slightly reflective, in cases allowing them to ‘pose’ in an armchair or compare the antiquity of a portrait with the modernity of themselves. The area smells reminiscent of aging and of its contents, not trying to be anything other than itself. Without space for placards, a digital library is accessible on tablets where a display case can be selected to gain more information on a piece. 

The American Wing at The Met, offering endless amounts of knowledge at visitors’ fingertips. The American Wing strives to create the most well-rounded review of American art and is truly a labor of love. It is clear that The American Wing is not antiquated in self-righteousness; rather, it has opportunities for all to learn and experience. 

As the American Wing evolves and expands, the museum has seized the opportunity to create more inclusive, representative exhibits of America. The museum has ripened over the years — growing for the better — and holds steady to the promise of revision and improvement. 
As the American Wing evolves and expands, the museum has seized the opportunity to create more inclusive, representative exhibits of America. The museum has ripened over the years — growing for the better — and holds steady to the promise of revision and improvement.