The Metropolitan Museum of Art first opened to the public in rented quarters at 681 Fifth Avenue in New York. Its founding circle combined financiers, publishers, artists, and civic reformers who wanted the city to have an encyclopedic museum devoted to art education and public access. John Taylor Johnston, whose own collection helped seed the institution, served as its first president; George Palmer Putnam became founding superintendent; and artists including Eastman Johnson and Frederic Edwin Church were among the co-founders. The early collection was small, but it quickly outgrew its first home, moved again in 1873, and entered its Central Park building in 1880.
The opening launched what became the largest art museum in the Americas.
Artists involved
