Making The Met, 1870–2020

A timed-entry exhibition ticket is required for entry to Making The Met  and capacity is limited. For more information, please see our FAQ page.

The signature exhibition of The Met's 150th-anniversary year takes visitors on an immersive, thought-provoking journey through the history of one of the world's preeminent cultural institutions. Making The Met, 1870–2020 features more than 250 superlative works of art of nearly every type, from visitor favorites to fragile treasures that can only be displayed from time to time. Organized around transformational moments in the evolution of the Museum's collection, buildings, and ambitions, the exhibition reveals the visionary figures and cultural forces that propelled The Met in new directions since its founding. Rarely seen archival photographs, engaging digital features, and stories of both behind-the-scenes work and the Museum's community outreach enhance this unique experience.

To access the booklet of all in-gallery labels, click here.

Accompanied by a catalogue and an Audio Guide. 

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Entry to Making The Met: 1870-2020 is by exhibition ticket only and capacity is limited.

• If you are buying your General Admission tickets online, you can select a time slot when you buy tickets here.
• If you are not buying tickets online, same-day time slots are available to reserve in person at the Museum.
• Members can reserve timed exhibition tickets in person at the Member desk on the ground floor or in the Great Hall.

Please note, due to health and safety guidelines, exhibition tickets are limited to comply with capacity restraints.
There is no additional charge for exhibition tickets.

"Making the Met is all about the ambitions and blind spots of an institution—and the changing schemes of meaning, value and interpretation that form an invisible frame around all the world’s beauty." — The New York Times (Critic’s Pick)

"By arranging some two hundred and fifty art works and artifacts roughly in the order of their acquisition, the show’s organizers, Andrea Bayer and Laura D. Corey (working with a large, cross-departmental team), have achieved an exquisite grab-bag effect, full of unexpected juxtapositions across epochs and continents." — The New Yorker

"...one cannot but be overwhelmed by the past and continuing achievements of this great institution, which we are so happy to welcome back into our lives." — The Burlington Magazine

"After months of being closed to visitors, the museum will reopen with ‘Making the Met,’ exploring 10 historical moments that changed its DNA." —Wall Street Journal

"'This has made us reflect on who we are': The Met celebrates its anniversary with a sweeping exhibition surveying 150 years of its history.”" —Artnet News

"This important exhibition dramatises both the continuities of great art and the disruptions essential to presenting and understanding it."—Financial Times

The exhibition is made possible by the Iris & B. Gerald Cantor Foundation.

Lead corporate sponsorship is provided by Bank of America.

The catalogue is made possible by the Diane W. and James E. Burke Fund, The Peter Jay Sharp Foundation, and the Doris Duke Fund for Publications.