The Robert Goldwater Library in the department of the Arts of Africa, Oceania, and the Americas , of The Metropolitan Museum of Art is a noncirculating research library dedicated to the documentation of visual arts of sub-Saharan Africa , the Pacific Islands , and Native and Precolumbian America . The library is open to adult researchers, including college and graduate students.
Collections The Library collection comprises over 20,000 books published worldwide, with an additional 10,000 volumes of periodicals, including current subscriptions to 200 journals. Subject strengths include the art and material culture of West Africa , Papua New Guinea and Irian Jaya (Indonesia ), and Precolumbian Mexico and Peru , with extensive holdings in related disciplines such as anthropology, ethnology, and archaeology. The library routinely collects exhibition and auction sales catalogs, as well as academic theses and dissertations.
WATSONLINE, the Museum's online library catalog, provides access to the Goldwater Library's holdings, with searching available by author, title, subject, keyword, or call number.
History The library of the Museum of Primitive Art , located on West 54th Street in Manhattan, opened to the public in 1957. The Museum, founded by Nelson Rockefeller , was devoted entirely to the arts of the indigenous cultures of Africa, Oceania, and the Americas and to those art objects related to the early civilizations of Asia and Europe. The museum closed in 1975. The library's holdings were transferred, with other holdings of that institution, to The Metropolitan Museum of Art in 1978. In January 1982 the library reopened to the public as the Robert Goldwater Library. Robert Goldwater (1907–1973) was the first director of the Museum of Primitive Art and a renowned scholar in both modern and African art. His Primitivism in Modern Art , initially published in 1938, was the pioneering study of the subject.
Hours and Access The Goldwater Library's collections are available to researchers by request in the Watson Library. Materials will be paged from the Goldwater Library twice a day, Monday through Friday, for use in Watson during Watson Library hours. Museum visitors intending only to use the libraries do not pay Museum admission.
Located on the mezzanine level of the Michael C. Rockefeller Wing, the library is accessible by advance appointment on Tuesdays and Thursday, from 1:00 p.m. to 4:00 p.m.
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Places
Directors Miscellaneous Antiquities Paintings 1476 Altarpiece A Cavalryman A Vase of Flowers (1716) The Abduction of Rebecca The Accommodations of Desire The Actor (painting) Adoration of the Magi (Bosch, New York) Adoration of the Shepherds (Mantegna) The Aegean Sea The Afternoon Meal (Luis Meléndez) Alexander Hamilton (Trumbull) The Allegory of Faith Allegory of the Planets and Continents Alpine Pool Altman Madonna America Today Ancient Rome (painting) Annunciation (Memling) Annunziata Polyptych Anthony van Dyck self portrait Approaching Thunder Storm Arab Woman (watercolor) Arcadia (painting) Ariadne (Giorgio de Chirico) Aristotle with a Bust of Homer Artillery (Roger de la Fresnaye) The Artist's Wife and His Setter Dog At the Seaside Au Lapin Agile Autumn Ivy (Ogata Kenzan) Autumn Rhythm (Number 30) Bamboo in the Four Seasons Bache Madonna Bain à la Grenouillère The Baker's Cart The Banks of the Bièvre near Bicêtre Banquet in Silence (Marsden Hartley) Bashi-Bazouk (Jean-Léon Gérôme) A Basket of Clams (Winslow Homer) Beauty Revealed Black Iris (painting) Black Stork in a Landscape Boating (Édouard Manet) Annunciation (Botticelli, New York) Bouquet of Small Chrysanthemums (Léon Bonvin) Boy Carrying a Sword The Bridge at Villeneuve-la-Garenne Brigand and His Wife in Prayer Bringing Down Marble from the Quarries to Carrara The Brioche Broadway and 42nd Street Broken Eggs Burg Weiler Altarpiece Butler Madonna By the Seashore Ca' Dolfin Tiepolos The Calm Sea (painting) Camouflage Self-Portrait Cannon Rock (painting) The Card Players Catania and Mount Etna Cemetery, New Mexico (Marsden Hartley) Cervara Altarpiece The Chess Players (Eakins painting) Children Playing with a Goat Christ Carrying the Cross (El Greco, New York) Christ Presented to the People (Il Sodoma) Christ with a Staff Claes Duyst van Voorhout Cloudy Mountains Coast Guard Station, Two Lights, Maine Coast Scene, Isles of Shoals The Collector of Prints (Edgar Degas) Comtesse de la Châtre Captain George K. H. Coussmaker Cow's Skull: Red, White, and Blue A Cowherd at Valhermeil, Auvers-sur-Oise Cows Crossing a Ford Crucifixion (Corpus Hypercubus) Crucifixion and Last Judgement diptych Crucifixion with the Virgin and St John The Cup of Tea Cypresses (Metropolitan Museum of Art) The Dance Class (Degas, Metropolitan Museum of Art) The Dancing Class The Dead Christ with Angels The Death of Harmonia The Death of Socrates The Defense of Champigny Delirious Hem The Denial of Saint Peter (Caravaggio) Diana and Cupid The Dream of Aeneas (Salvator Rosa) Dressing for the Carnival Madonna and Child (Duccio) Egyptian Woman with Earrings Egyptians Raising Water from the Nile The Empress Elizabeth of Russia on Horseback, Attended by a Page Entrance to a Dutch Port Equestrian Portrait of Cornelis and Michiel Pompe van Meerdervoort with Their Tutor and Coachman Esther before Ahasuerus (Artemisia Gentileschi) Ethel Scull 36 Times The Experts (painting) The Falls of Niagara The Farm at Les Collettes, Cagnes Femme Lisant Ferry near Gorinchem The Fingernail Test Fish Market (Joachim Beuckelaer) The Fishing Boat Fishing Boats, Key West The Five Points (Metropolitan Museum of Art) Florinda (painting) The Forest in Winter at Sunset (painting) The Fortune Teller (de La Tour) Fruit Dish and Glass The Funeral (painting) Fur Traders Descending the Missouri Garden at Sainte-Adresse George Washington (Trumbull) Gilbert Stuart (Goodridge) A Girl Asleep Girl with a Cat (Gwen John) Glass Blowers of Murano Golden Cock and Hen A Goldsmith in His Shop, Possibly Saint Eligius The Great Sirens The Gulf Stream (painting) Harlequin with a Guitar The Harvest, Pontoise The Harvesters (painting) Haystacks:Autumn Head of Christ (Rembrandt, New York) The Heart of the Andes The Hermit (Il solitario) The Horse Fair Houses on the Achterzaan I Saw the Figure 5 in Gold In a Courtyard, Tangier The Interior of an Atelier of a Woman Painter (Lemoine) Interior with a Young Couple and a Dog Irises screen Isaac Blessing Jacob (Gerbrand van den Eeckhout) Isle of the Dead (painting) Italian Hill Town (Arthur B. Davies) Jingo-ji Tripiṭaka Jo, the Beautiful Irishwoman Joy of Life (Valadon) Juan Legua July Fourteenth, Rue Daunou, 1910 The Kearsarge at Boulogne The Lacemaker (Maes) Lachrymae (Frederic Leighton) Lady at the Tea Table Lady with the Rose (Charlotte Louise Burckhardt) Lake George (John Frederick Kensett) Landscape with Sky The Last Communion of Saint Jerome (Botticelli) Lehman Madonna Lilacs in a Window Lobster Fishermen (Marsden Hartley) The Lovesick Maiden Lukas Spielhausen Lydia Crocheting in the Garden at Marly (Mary Cassatt) Madame Élisabeth de France Madame Grand (Louise Élisabeth Vigée Le Brun) Madonna and Child (Bellini, New York, 1485–1490) Madonna and Child Enthroned with Saints (Raphael) Magdalene with Two Flames The Maidservant Maine Coast Majas on a Balcony Manuel Osorio Manrique de Zúñiga The Marriage of the Virgin (Michelino da Besozzo) The Martyrdom of Saint Barbara (Lucas Cranach the Elder) The Masquerade Dress The Matador Saluting Max Schmitt in a Single Scull Mérode Altarpiece Merry company with two men and two women Mezzetino (painting) The Midnight Ride of Paul Revere (painting) Miss V Dressed as a Bullfighter Model by the Wicker Chair Mont Sainte-Victoire and the Viaduct of the Arc River Valley Moonlight, Wood Island Light Morning, An Overcast Day, Rouen Moses Striking the Rock Mother and Child (Cassatt) Mountain Stream (John Singer Sargent) Mountain with Red House Movement No. 5, Provincetown Houses Mr. and Mrs. I. N. Phelps Stokes Mrs. Atkinson (Gwen John) Mrs. Beckington (Alice Beckington) Mrs. Hugh Hammersley The Musician (Bartholomeus van der Helst painting) A Musician and His Daughter The Musicians (Caravaggio) Mystic Marriage of St. Catherine (Memling) Nativity scenes attributed to Zanobi Strozzi Night-Shining White Northeaster (painting) Nude Before a Mirror Oedipus and the Sphinx Old Trees, Level Distance Pity (William Blake) Portrait of Madame Jacques-Louis Leblanc Exhibitions
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