NEW YORK.- The Metropolitan Museum of Art has announced the election of two new Honorary Trustees: Samuel Lindenbaum and Janet Ruttenberg. Both were formally elected at today's meeting of the Board.

"We are delighted to add these prominent and philanthropic New Yorkers to our family of Trustees," said James R. Houghton, Chairman of the Museum's Board. "Sandy Lindenbaum and Janet Ruttenberg are both actively devoted to the city and its institutions, and we know that their wisdom and energy will be wonderful additions to our Board. We look forward to their active participation over many years to come."

Attorney Samuel (Sandy) Lindenbaum is one of New York's most respected legal experts in the fields of land use and zoning. He is of Counsel to the firm of Kramer Levin Naftalis & Frankel LLP, and serves as a member of the Land Use Department, as a member of the executive committee of the board of governors of the Real Estate Board of New York, and as a founder, director, and vice president of the Association for a Better New York.

A graduate of Harvard College and Harvard Law School, and a former Fulbright Fellow, Mr. Lindenbaum has long been an active supporter of the arts and arts institutions. Twice a member of the New York State Council on the Arts (1976-1986 and 1994-1999), Mr. Lindenbaum currently serves as chairman of the executive committee of the board of directors of the American Friends of the Israel Museum, and a member of the advisory board of the Peggy Guggenheim Collection in New York. He is also a member of the board of overseers of the Albert Einstein College of Medicine, the real estate committee board of UJA-Federation, and chairs the executive committee of the Jewish Association for Services for the Aged.

Mr. Lindenbaum is a member of the Metropolitan Museum's Chairman's Council and Real Estate Council, and serves on both the Visiting Committee and Friends group for the Department of the Arts of Africa, Oceania, and the Americas. He lives in New York City.

Mrs. Janet Ruttenberg is a longtime, generous contributor to The Metropolitan Museum of Art and several of its curatorial departments. She and her late husband, Derald H. Ruttenberg, became members of the Museum's Chairman's Council in 1995, and made major contributions to the acquisitions funds of the Department of Drawings and Prints and the Department of Nineteenth-Century, Modern, and Contemporary Art.

Together with Mr. Ruttenberg, she has also been a donor to the Central Park Conservancy, the Jewish Museum, the National Gallery of Art, the New Museum of Contemporary Art, the New York Botanical Garden, Mount Sinai Hospital, and the Yale University School of Law.

Mrs. Ruttenberg, who is a Fellow for Life at the Metropolitan, is also co-chair of the Department of Drawings and Prints Visiting Committee, and since 1998 a member of the Museum's William Society. Mrs. Ruttenberg is a resident of New York City.