Professor Emily Braun Brings the Leonard A. Lauder Collection to the Metropolitan Museum of Art

Distinguished Professor Emily Braun, leading art historian and curator of the extraordinary Leonard A. Lauder Collection of Cubist art, has organized the collection's first exhibition at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Braun worked with Met Co-Curator Rebecca Rabinow on the exhibition, which will run from October 20, 2014 to February 16, 2015.

The billion-dollar assemblage of works by Picasso, Braque, Léger and Gris—amassed by Lauder over four decades and now a promised gift to the Museum—is described by The New York Times as "one of the world's greatest collections of Cubist art."

Braun, deputy chair of the Department of Art and Art History, has been Lauder's art advisor for 27 years. In an interview published last spring in At Hunter magazine, she noted that Lauder encouraged her to use the collection in her teaching. As a result, she said, Hunter's art history students "get to see the works first-hand as they become experts in the field of provenance." Braun also noted that Lauder has hired Hunter students and graduates to work on the collection.

Leonard Lauder was married to devoted Hunter alumna Evelyn H. Lauder '58, who died in 2011.