{"id":677162,"date":"2026-05-17T18:14:17","date_gmt":"2026-05-17T18:14:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/677162\/"},"modified":"2026-05-17T18:14:17","modified_gmt":"2026-05-17T18:14:17","slug":"a-major-shake-up-is-coming-to-museum-mile","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/677162\/","title":{"rendered":"A Major Shake-Up Is Coming to Museum Mile"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Ajay Suresh<\/a> via Wikimedia Commons<\/p>\n

It\u2019s the end of an era \u2014 and the start of a new one \u2014 for one of the Upper East Side\u2019s most beloved cultural fixtures. A long-anticipated arrangement, unveiled this week, will rewrite the future of Museum Mile.<\/p>\n

The Neue Galerie \u2014 Ronald S. Lauder\u2019s private museum devoted to early-20th-century German and Austrian art \u2014 will merge with the Metropolitan Museum of Art in 2028, the two institutions confirmed Thursday in a joint announcement<\/a>. The combined institution will be renamed the Met Ronald S. Lauder Neue Galerie, or simply the Met Neue Galerie, joining the Met Fifth Avenue and the Met Cloisters as the third location under the Met\u2019s umbrella.<\/p>\n

In an interview with The New York Times<\/a>, the 82-year-old Lauder framed the deal in candid succession-planning terms. \u201cSomehow I don\u2019t think I\u2019m going to live to 120,\u201d he told the paper, adding that he was reassured by the way the Met has stewarded the Cloisters \u2014 its medieval branch in upper Manhattan \u2014 while letting that institution retain its distinct identity.<\/p>\n

Under the agreement, the Neue\u2019s historic home \u2014 the William Starr Miller House, a 1914 Beaux-Arts mansion at 1048 Fifth Avenue and 86th Street \u2014 will be folded into the Met along with the museum\u2019s endowment and broader assets, subject to regulatory approvals. The Neue\u2019s exhibitions, staff, design and book shops, and the famed Caf\u00e9 Sabarsky will all continue under the new arrangement, with a Special Advisory Board chaired by Lauder overseeing the transition. Klimt\u2019s gilded Portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer I \u2014 the museum\u2019s most iconic work, which Lauder bought privately in 2006 for $135 million \u2014 will stay in the townhouse, and the Met is barred from moving it to its flagship Fifth Avenue galleries.<\/p>\n

The deal also brings a substantial expansion of the collection. Lauder and his daughter, Aerin Lauder Zinterhofer<\/a> \u2014 herself a Met trustee \u2014 plan to donate 13 paintings from their personal collection, among them a large-scale Klimt portrait of a dancer, an Ernst Ludwig Kirchner Expressionist canvas, and Max Beckmann\u2019s \u201cGalleria Umberto.\u201d Promised future gifts include a second Klimt and works by Otto Dix, George Grosz, and Franz Marc. An endowment estimated at $200 million is being assembled to steward the museum into its next chapter, with a lead gift from Met trustee and longtime Neue supporter Marina Kellen French and additional contributions from trustees including Candace K. Beinecke, Daniel Brodsky, and Blair Effron.<\/p>\n

Met director and CEO Max Hollein, a Vienna native who has sat on the Neue\u2019s board for two decades, told the Times the merger fills a longstanding gap in the Met\u2019s holdings, pointing to Vienna around 1900 and Berlin in the 1920s as periods where the encyclopedic museum\u2019s collection has been comparatively thin. He has known Lauder since his own teenage years \u2014 Lauder served as U.S. ambassador to Austria in the 1980s and became friendly with Hollein\u2019s parents, the postmodern architect Hans Hollein and fashion designer Helene Hollein.<\/p>\n

The operational picture beyond the merger is still being worked out, including the role of Ren\u00e9e Price, the Neue\u2019s founding director, who has led the museum since its opening. Price told the Times she envisions the partnership as a collaboration, likening the Neue to chamber music and the Met to a powerful orchestra and choir.<\/p>\n

The Neue was already scheduled to close for the summer beginning May 27 for a renovation of its 1914 building, which was designed by Carr\u00e8re & Hastings and later renovated by architect Annabelle Selldorf. It will reopen in the fall with a 25th anniversary exhibition. Caf\u00e9 Sabarsky \u2014 whose marble-topped tables were imported from Vienna \u2014 will remain intact, in keeping with co-founder Serge Sabarsky\u2019s old maxim that a museum can\u2019t be a good museum without good coffee.<\/p>\n

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