The Metropolitan Museum of Art Announces Landmark Promised Gift of Photographs from World-Renowned Collection of Artur Walther and the Walther Family Foundation
The Walther Collection is pleased to share that The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York announced today a major promised gift from Artur Walther and the Walther Family Foundation. This transformative contribution marks an exciting milestone for The Walther Collection and represents the Foundation’s ongoing commitment to encourage an active collaboration between artists, curators, scholars, and general audiences.
The Metropolitan Museum of Art announced today a major promised gift from Artur Walther, who has assembled one of the most distinguished private collections of photography in the world, and from the Walther Family Foundation, an art foundation dedicated to the critical understanding of historical and contemporary photography. Comprised of some 6,500 photographs, albums, and works of time-based media, the promised gift features modern and contemporary art from Africa, China, Japan, and Germany, among other places. Also included are 19th- and 20th-century vernacular photographs from the United States, Europe, Colombia, and Mexico. Selections from the collection will be prominently featured in several upcoming museum presentations. In the first of these, photographs by such renowned African artists as Seydou Keïta and Samuel Fosso will accompany the inauguration of the Michael C. Rockefeller Wing when it reopens in May 2025. A focused exhibition of international selections from the promised gift will then be presented in fall 2025, followed by a comprehensive show of the collection in 2028. Photographs and time-based media will also be incorporated into future displays in the Tang Wing, The Met’s new galleries for modern and contemporary art set to open in 2030.
“This vast trove of photographs from Artur Walther and his foundation is nothing short of extraordinary. It demonstrates Artur’s passion as a trailblazing collector and visionary explorer, and brings his sustained scholarly engagement with living artists and photographic practice to a new level,” said Max Hollein, The Met’s Marina Kellen French Director and Chief Executive Officer. “With its impressive scope, depth, and quality, the generous promised gift expands our ability to tell a global history of photography—one that reflects the diversity, complexity, and artistry of the medium across centuries and continents. In addition to the upcoming display in the Michael C. Rockefeller Wing, these works will also come to the fore and play an important role in our future collection displays of global 20th- and 21st- century art in the Tang Wing.”
“It has been the Collection’s mission to break away from traditional frameworks and to juxtapose works from African and Asian artists with those from Europe and America, creating a dialogue across time and place, across temporalities, and across geographies,” said Artur Walther. “The Metropolitan Museum of Art’s commitment to modern and contemporary art, and the arts of Africa and Asia, will continue this approach and will make the artworks available to its diverse constituency of visitors from all over the world.”
