The Metropolitan Museum of Art celebrated its centennial with exhibitions, symposia, concerts, lectures, the reopening of refurbished galleries, special tours, social events, and other programming for eighteen months from October 1969 through the spring of 1971.
[2] Centennial special events at the Museum centered around five exhibitions celebrating the breadth of the Museum’s collecting over the previous one hundred years: "New York Painting and Sculpture: 1940–1970" (sponsored by Xerox[3]), "The Year 1200,"[4]"19th-Century America" (opened by First Lady Pat Nixon), "Before Cortés: Sculpture of Middle America," and "Masterpieces of Seven Centuries."
Many objects shown in "Before Cortés: Sculpture of Middle America" originated from Mexico's Instituto Nacional de Antropologia y Historia as part of a 25-year reciprocal loan and cultural program with the Metropolitan Museum.
The Centennial Ball that evening was hosted by Museum trustee Brooke Astor and featured reduced ticket prices for staff members and their families.
Chosen for their significance and contributions to the history of filmmaking, they included work from official film industries as well as current and early avant garde directors.
Television projects associated with the centennial included "Masterpieces of Fifty Centuries" narrated by noted art historian Sir Kenneth Clark, a one-hour NBC program prepared by Aline Saarinen, and a network television report each evening during the week of October 6, 1969 on one of the five centerpiece centennial exhibitions.
[6] Artist Frank Stella was commissioned to create a Centennial logo, and medals incorporating the design were struck to mark the occasion.