Met to absorb Neue Galerie, preserving Lauder’s art collection in perpetuity

The Metropolitan Museum of Art is set to absorb one of New York’s most potent cultural prizes: the Neue Galerie’s Fifth Avenue home and the collection of 20th-century Austrian and German art assembled by Ronald S. Lauder. Under the agreement announced by both museums on May 14, the Neue Galerie will become a branch of The Met in 2028, while keeping its museum identity, its staff and its café in place.

The deal gives The Met control of an Upper East Side institution that opened in 2001 at Fifth Avenue and 86th Street and has long been described as holding the most important collection of its kind outside Europe. The museum is expected to be renamed the Met Ronald S. Lauder Neue Galerie, or the Met Neue Galerie for short, a signal that the Lauder name will remain tied to the building, the collection and the institution’s public identity even as governance shifts to The Met.

Lauder cast the merger as a way to lock in the Neue Galerie’s future, saying it would preserve and strengthen the museum in perpetuity. Max Hollein, The Met’s director and chief executive, has had a long relationship with the museum, having served on the Neue Galerie board since 2006, and the agreement deepens ties that have already shaped The Met’s holdings. In 2020, Lauder donated 91 objects of European arms and armor to The Met, a gift the museum said was the most important of its kind in nearly 80 years.

The financial structure underscores how much The Met is gaining. The Neue Galerie’s current endowment is expected to transfer to The Met, along with additional gifts from Lauder and his daughter, Aerin Lauder Zinterhofer, including 13 works from their personal collection. The arrangement also gives The Met a stronger strategic position in modern and contemporary art, as the institution presses ahead with the Oscar L. and H.M. Agnes Hsu-Tang Wing project, led by architect Frida Escobedo, to reshape its modern-art galleries.

For the Neue Galerie, the merger comes ahead of its 25th anniversary and follows a planned renovation closure from May 27 through August 2026. It is expected to reopen in autumn 2026 with a 25th Anniversary Exhibition, then move toward the 2028 transition with its collection still on view and its legacy folded into The Met’s expanding institutional reach.