HOUSTON, TEXAS.- Because of the overwhelming public response to The Heroic Century exhibition, the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston is extending its hours on January 2, 3, and 4 to accommodate those who want to see the show for the first time or to make a repeat visit. After the show closes in Houston on January 4, it travels to Berlin, its only other venue.

The museum will be open for its regular hours on New Year´s Day, from 10 a.m. to 9 p.m. Hours on Friday, January 2, and Saturday, January 3, also will be 10 a.m. to 9 p.m., two hours later than usual. On Sunday, January 4, the museum will be open an hour earlier, at 11 a.m., and close at 7 p.m.

The museum is a stop on the new METRO light rail system, which will begin accepting passengers on January 1. From January 1-4, the light rail will be free. Light rail hours on New Year´s Day are 9 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. The train runs from 9 a.m. to 9 p.m. on January 2, 3, and 4.

The Heroic Century: The Museum of Modern Art Masterpieces, 200 Paintings and Sculptures is an exhibition of unsurpassed examples of modern and contemporary art drawn from the renowned collection of the New York museum. The exhibition, which is making its only U.S. stop at the MFAH, chronicles the history of 20th-century art, starting in the late 19th century with Vincent van Gogh´s The Starry Night (1889) to a 1998 60-foot wood boat sculpture by Cai Guo-Qiang called Borrowing Your Enemy´s Arrows. The works selected represent the best examples by artists in MoMA´s unrivaled collection. A number of artists are represented in depth. There are 15 works by Henri Matisse, 12 by Pablo Picasso, and multiple works by Alberto Giacometti, Vasily Kandinsky, Willem de Kooning, and Jackson Pollock. Individual highlights include Constantin Brancusi´s 1928 bronze, Bird in Space (1928), Edward Hopper´s Gas (1940), Jasper Johns´s Map (1961), and Joan Miró´s Hirondelle D´Amour (1933-34). The exhibition is on view at the MFAH Audrey Jones Beck Building, 5601 Main Street.