Art lovers, put away your wallets: In a surprise statement today, the Met said that it’s never tried to paint over rules requiring it to let anyone in for free.
Lots of art connoisseurs know that the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s $25 admission charge is just a suggestion, and that you can get in by paying what you want, or nothing at all.
But a lawsuit filed in state Supreme Court last November says the Met hides that policy from visitors.
And two weeks ago, a former supervisor at the museum told The Post that he’d arranged for security officers to remove people who demanded entry without paying.
The Met’s director, Thomas Campbell, today responded to the controversy with a statement on the museum’s Web site:
“The recommended admission policy is clearly posted at all entry points … Should a visitor ask a cashier about the admission policy, the message is always equally clear: the amount is voluntary; please pay what you wish.”
In the statement, Campbell said that since the 1970s, the Met has had city permission to seek a “recommended” admission fee — and added that it costs the museum more than $40 to accommodate each visitor, no matter what they pay.
Lawyer Michael Hiller, who is fighting to make the museum emphasize the free admission policy, says the museum’s practice of seeking $25 from visitors is “unlawful and deceptive.”
The museum building is owned by the city, and sits on city property in Central Park. City and state law requires the museum to admit visitors for free, Hiller says.
“The Museum baldly asserts that ‘no current state legislation requires the Museum to be free to the public,’” Hiller said.
“Well, we have identified the statute and it clearly and unmistakably requires free admission,” he says.
He notes that Campbell has never produced any proof that city, which owns the museum building and the Central Park land on which it sits, approves of asking visitors for admission fees.
Museum spokesman Harold Holzer said the Met will respond to Hiller’s specific allegations in court.
“More than two dozen institutions in this city operate under the same terms — ‘pay what you wish’ – under the same agreements with New York City,” Holzer said.
bsanderson@nypost.com