The Metropolitan Museum of Art announced the appointment of CODART member Stefan Krause to the position of Arthur Ochs Sulzberger Curator in Charge of the Department of Arms and Armor. Krause currently serves as the Ronald S. Lauder Director at the Imperial Armory, Kunsthistorisches Museum, in Vienna.

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 (29 March – 26 June 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). In 2017 Stefan Krause wrote the article Armor – Fashion in Steel and Sink for the CODART eZine.

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. In his new role, Krause will be responsible for a collection that 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. 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 (7 October 2019 – 5 January 2020) and the current focused installation, Samurai Splendor: Sword Fittings from Edo Japan. The Arms and Armor galleries will undergo critical gallery enhancements. Stefan Krause will begin at The Met in September.