I recently visited the Metropolitan Museum of Art, one of the world’s finest museums, to see a memorable exhibition. It’s called “The Harlem Renaissance and Transatlantic Modernism.”

It is a spectacular collection of works by and about African-American artists. The art is drawn from museums around the country. You may never see these artworks in one space again.

The quality of the art is breath-taking. I know that many of you don’t live in or near New York City, but this is a good reason to plan a trip. The show runs through the end of July.

Here are a few of the photos I took with my cell phone. I wish I had taken more. Some of the pictures are off-center because the crowds were large, and I didn’t have a clear path.

Painted by William H. Johnson (1901-1970), “Mom and Dad, 1944.” This folk-art painting of the artist’s mother and a portrait of his late father was borrowed from the Smithsonian American Art Museum.

Painted by Allan Rohan Crite (1910-2007). It is titled “School’s Out” and was painted in 1936. It depicts children emerging from Everett Elementary School in Boston. It was lent to the exhibition by the Smithsonian American Art Museum.

Painted by Aaron Douglas (1879-1979). Titled “Building More Stately Mansions, 1944.” It is owned by the Fisk University Galleries in Nashville. According to the artist, “his objective was to spotlight the contributions of exploited Black labor to great civilizations worldwide. He thus resituated African American history in a global context, in which the sphinx of Egypt appears together with the spire of a Western cathedral, the tiers of an Asian Buddhist pagoda, and a building crane extending over American skyscrapers, emblems of modernity meant to connote growth.”

Painted by Winold Reiss (1886-1953), who emigrated from Germany to America. It is a painting of Fred Fripp, a graduate of the Penn School and a teacher, with his daughters Carol and Evelyn. The painting is owned by the Fisk University Galleries in Nashville.

The caption of the portrait says:

“The sitter looks away in introspection while his young daughters gaze outward, settled into the security of their father’s steadying embrace.

“Reiss met Fred Fripp when he traveled to South Carolina to portray the Gullah-speaking Black residents of St. Helena Island, whose ancestors were among the last enslaved West African people forcibly brought to the United States. The luminous triple portrait, its triangular composition and gold leaf background reminiscent of Renaissance madonnas, celebrates Fripp as a teacher, scholar, and parent.”

As I viewed this magnificent exhibit, I kept wondering about the African-American artists. In their wildest dreams, did they ever imagine that their paintings and sculptures would one day be shown in the nation’s premiere museum?

The exhibition is a large and rich portrayal of the artists and intellectuals of the Harlem Renaissance. If you can’t get to New York by July 28, the last day, you might consider buying the catalogue from the Met.