Tab button

2013

Place madeNew York, New York, United States

Tin

Overall: 1 5/8 × 1in. (4.1 × 2.5 cm)

Gift of Harold Holzer

2014.14.13

The Metropolitan Museum of Art introduced metal admission buttons on January 1, 1971, replacing an envelope-sized, two-color ticket. As a form of souvenir, they became a key component of the MMA’s brand and visitor experience, influencing other U.S. museums to implement their own versions. A set of sixteen colors represents the last iteration of buttons and features the museum’s “M” logo, adapted from a woodcut letterform illustration (after a Leonardo da Vinci drawing) in Fra Luca Pacioli’s De divina proportione (1509). The colors, randomly selected for each day’s use, possessed evocative in-house names. By 2013, Kraus & Sons, Inc., a signage company in New York City, manufactured them in orders of 1.6 million, four times per year. Due to rising production costs and a six-fold increase in annual attendance since the buttons’ inception, museum administrators replaced them with less expensive paper stickers on Monday, July 1, 2013, to coincide with its move to a seven-day schedule.

DescriptionGreen ("Kea") colored admission button with Metropolitan Museum of Art "M" logo in white; one-inch diameter circle with fold-over tab.

ClassificationsLAPEL DEVICES (PIN-BACK BUTTONS & BADGES)