The Met Appoints Stefan Krause as Curator in Charge of the Museum’s Department of Arms and Armor

The Metropolitan Museum of Art announced the appointment of Stefan Krause to the position of Arthur Ochs Sulzberger Curator in Charge of the Department of Arms and Armor, following an extensive search conducted over several months. Krause currently serves as the Ronald S. Lauder Director at the Imperial Armoury, Kunsthistorisches Museum, in Vienna. He will begin at The Met in September.

“I am excited to welcome Stefan Krause after an international search for the Curator in Charge of the Department of Arms and Armor, which houses one of the most comprehensive collections of its kind in some of the Museum’s most beloved galleries, and which are about to undergo a significant refurbishment,” stated Max Hollein, The Met’s Marina Kellen French Director and Chief Executive Officer. “Stefan Krause is a proven leader and celebrated curator, bringing his expertise as a highly successful Director of the Imperial Armory Vienna, where he oversees an outstanding collection of arms and armor of extraordinary depth, here to New York. He is a deeply respected colleague, and we look forward to supporting him, along with his entire team, as they embark on a re-thinking of their current installation and interpretation of the collection.”

Krause commented, “I’m thrilled to be joining The Met and am especially looking forward to working alongside my new colleagues in the Department of Arms and Armor as we dive into the important work of preserving, presenting, and stewarding this remarkable collection for generations to come.” 

The Department of Arms and Armor has been collecting, conserving, researching, and exhibiting distinguished examples of arms and armor for over 125 years at The Met. The collection comprises approximately 14,000 objects from various cultures throughout history. There are more than 5,000 European works; 2,000 from the Near East; and 4,000 from Asia. Arms and armor have been a vital part of virtually all cultures for thousands of years, pivotal not only in conquest and defense but also in court pageantry and ceremonial events. The armor and weapons in The Met collection reflect the highest artistic and technical capabilities of the craftsmen who made them and were of significant value to those who commissioned them. This has been exemplified in special exhibitions such as The Last Knight: The Art, Armor, and Ambition of Maximilian I (October 7, 2019–January 5, 2020) and the current focused installation, Samurai Splendor: Sword Fittings from Edo Japan. The Arms and Armor galleries will undergo critical gallery enhancements.

About Stefan Krause

Since first joining the Kunsthistorisches Museum (KHM) in 2005, Krause has held positions in their Department of Education, as a Research Fellow, and as Curator and was appointed Ronald S. Lauder Director of the Imperial Armory in 2020. There, he has been at the forefront of collection-related activities and acquisitions, curated major exhibitions, authored several publications, and has led one of the most well-known collections in Europe. In his tenure at the KHM, he has organized several important exhibitions, such as Iron Men: Fashion in Steel (March 29–June 26, 2022). Krause’s recent publications inlcude Kunsthistorisches Museum Wien, Masterpieces of the Imperial Armoury (2023); Iron Men - Fashion in Steel (2022); Tournament, A Thousand Years of Chivalry (2022); and Freydal, Emperor Maximilian I’s Book of Tournaments (2018).
Krause earned a master’s degree in Art History and a PhD in Art History from the University of Vienna. He was a Research Fellow at Gerda Henkel Stiftung in Düsseldorf (2010–12), an Andrew W. Mellon Fellow at The Metropolitan Museum of Art in the Department of Arms and Armor (2010–11), and a Paul Mellon Visiting Senior Fellow at the National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C (2014).

About The Met

The Metropolitan Museum of Art was founded in 1870 by a group of American citizens—businessmen and financiers as well as leading artists and thinkers of the day—who wanted to create a museum to bring art and art education to the American people. Today, The Met displays tens of thousands of objects covering 5,000 years of art from around the world for everyone to experience and enjoy. The Museum lives in two iconic sites in New York City—The Met Fifth Avenue and The Met Cloisters. Millions of people also take part in The Met experience online. Since its founding, The Met has always aspired to be more than a treasury of rare and beautiful objects. Every day, art comes alive in the Museum’s galleries and through its exhibitions and events, revealing both new ideas and unexpected connections across time and across cultures.

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