Qatar Museums Unveils Cooperation Program with Metropolitan Museum of Art

Doha, September 21 (QNA) - Qatar Museums unveiled on Wednesday a cooperation program with the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City that will include exchanges of exhibitions, programs and academic collaboration.
In a statement released today, Qatar Museums announced it provided a generous gift to the Met on the occasion of the reopening of a thoroughly reimagined Museum of Islamic Art, and in celebration of the 10th anniversary of the inauguration of The Met's renovated galleries of arts from Arab countries, Iran and Turkey, Central Asia and later southern Asia.
The statement added that the Met named a gallery presenting art from the Umayyad and Abbasid Periods (7th13th centuries) as "Qatar Gallery" in recognition of Qatar's support.
As part of the collaboration between the institutions, Qatar Museums has lent works from its renowned collections to The Met for exhibitions including Jerusalem in the Middle Ages (2016), Sultans of Deccan India, 1500-1700: Opulence and Fantasy (2015), The Great Age of the Seljuks (2016) and Monumental Journey: The Daguerreotypes of Girault de Prangey (2019). Similarly, works from The Mets collection will go on view in Doha on Oct. 26 in the inaugural special exhibition at the renovated Museum of Islamic Art. The exhibition, Baghdad: Eyes Delight, focuses on the art of the Abbasid period one of the two classical periods featured in the Qatar Gallery at The Met.
HE Chairperson of the Board of Trustees of Qatar Museums Sheikha Al Mayassa bint Hamad Al-Thani said that the Qatar Gallery at the Met highlights the spirit of collaboration between our two institutions, and our shared desire to achieve the very important goal of promoting the appreciation that art deserves everywhere in the Islamic world.
"We are proud to meet with the Metropolitan Museum of Art to honor the beauty, depth and diversity of the global traditions of Islamic art, spanning fourteen centuries", Her Excellency added.
Marina Kellen French Director of The Met Max Hollein expressed his deep gratefulness to Qatar Museums for the unprecedented act of generosity. He hailed the gift as the latest instance of the longstanding relationship between the two institutions and the start of a broad partnership encompassing the exchange of exhibitions, programs, and scholarly cooperation. (QNA)