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An exterior view of the Met Museum with a fountain out front.
Photograph: Courtesy of The Met

A major exhibit at The Met will explore the friendship and rivalry of artists Manet and Degas

It's one of a dozen spectacular exhibitions coming to The Met this year.

Rossilynne Skena Culgan
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Rossilynne Skena Culgan
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Famed artists Édouard Manet and Edgar Degas were born just two years apart in the 1830s, hailed from similar French upbringings and ran in the same circles. At times, they were friends but at other times, frenemies. 

A new exhibit coming to The Metropolitan Museum of Art this fall will explore the friendship and rivalry of these two masters of 19th-century French art. The Met announced the exhibition this week, along with 11 other shows to look forward to in the rest of 2023. Here's more about the show and what else is coming up:

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"Manet/Degas"

September 24-January 7, 2024

Expect to see 160 paintings and works on paper, including rarely loaned masterpieces, that explore the relationship between Manet and Degas. It's the first exhibition to dig into this significant dialogue in modern art; The Met worked with the Musées d’Orsay et de l’Orangerie in Paris to create the show.

"Friends, rivals and at times antagonists, these two artists worked in conversation throughout their careers," the exhibition's co-curator Ashley Dunn said during a preview event.

The two met at the Louvre, where Degas was working on an etching after a painting attributed to Velázquez, a work that Manet also copied.

"The two painters shared profound respect for the work of the old masters which they honed in their copying practices, absorbing these models in the development of their own visual languages," Dunn said. 

Visitors will get a chance to see the contrasts in their work and learn about their differences in temperament, style, politics and career strategies.

In one of their more noteworthy tiffs, Manet slashed a painting of himself and his wife that Degas had painted for them. “For reasons still unclear, Manet slashed off the right side of the canvas, cutting off his wife’s profile,” exhibition co-curator Stephan Wolohojian, explained. This work—“Monsieur and Madame Édouard Manet”—will be on view at the show. 

Tree & Serpent: Early Buddhist Art in India, 200 BCE–400 CE

July 21-November 13

This exhibit focuses on the years 200 BCE-400 CE will feature never before publicly exhibited masterpieces that trace the aesthetic impact of the religion on Indian art. Visitors will get to see recently excavated objects for the first time.

Grounded in Clay: The Spirit of Pueblo Pottery

July 14-June 4, 2024

This presentation of Pueblo Indian pottery is the first community-curated Native American exhibition in the history of The Met. The exhibition showcases more than 100 historical and modern clay works dating from the 11th century to the present day. 

"It offers a critical understanding of Pueblo pottery," Met Director Max Hollein said.

Art for the Millions: American Culture and Politics in the 1930s

September 7-December 10

Amid an era of political and social upheaval in the United States, artists responded with powerful works. More than 100 pieces will show art expressing political messages and ideologies through a range of media, including paintings, sculptures, prints, photographs, film, dance, decorative arts, fashion and ephemera.

The Facade Commission: Nairy Baghramian, Scratching the Back

September 7-May 21, 2024

For her first public installation in NYC, artist Nairy Baghramian will fill The Met's facade niches with four abstract polychrome sculptures.

Picasso: A Cubist Commission in Brooklyn

September 14-January 14, 2024

When Brooklyn art collector Hamilton Easter Field asked Pablo Picasso in 1910 to create a commission for her home, it helped the artist move beyond easel painting to apply his radical Cubist style to decorative painting formats of challenging size and proportion.

This show will capture this lesser-known chapter of Picasso's life, bringing together six paintings linked to Picasso’s unrealized residential commission. 

The Great Hall Commission: Jacolby Satterwhite, A Metta Prayer

October 2-November 26

Brooklyn-based artist Jacolby Satterwhite will transform The Met's iconic Great Hall with an immersive multi-channel video installation and performance series. The installation incorporates music, lighting and a series of live performances by Satterwhite and his frequent collaborators.

The artist is known for creating kaleidoscopic media installations that reference art history, popular culture, queer theory and Afrofuturist aesthetics.

Vertigo of Color: Matisse, Derain, and the Origins of Fauvism

October 13-January 21, 2024

See how another artistic duo worked together "reinventing the idea of how color can be applied," Hollein explained. In the early 1900s, Henri Matisse and Andre Derain embarked on a partnership that led to a wholly new, radical artistic language that became known as Fauvism.

Proof: Maxime Du Camp’s Photographs of the Eastern Mediterranean

October 23-January 21, 2024

Maxime Du Camp was "arguably the first to establish the aesthetic standard of documentary photography," Hollein explained. The Met will mount the first exhibition to focus on his rare collection of photographs made in the 1800s for his book Egypte, Nubie, Palestine et Syrie.

Lineages: Korean Art at The Met

November 7-October 20, 2024

To celebrate the 25th anniversary of the museum’s Arts of Korea gallery, the Met will showcase a collection of works tracing the history of Korean art. Expect to see historic artworks from the 12th century next to futuristic cyborg sculptures made in the 2000s.

Africa & Byzantium

November 19-March 3, 2024

This major exhibition of nearly 200 works will spotlight the tradition of Byzantine art and culture in Africa from the 4th through the 15th century and beyond.

European Paintings, 1300–1800

Opening November 20

After an extensive skylight renovation spanning several years, 45 galleries dedicated to European paintings from the 1300s to the 1800s will reopen. These galleries highlight more than 700 works of art from Jan van Eyck to Caravaggio to Poussin.

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