Since it opened on Feb. 25, the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s new exhibition “The Harlem Renaissance and Transatlantic Modernism” has received universal praise.

In a New York Times’ critic pick, co-chief art critic Holland Cotter wrote “It’s the start — or could be — in moving a still-neglected art history out of the wings and onto the main stage.” Time Out New York called it “groundbreaking,” and that the exhibition hopes to be “part of rectifying the erasure and celebrating Black artists and intellectuals.” New York Magazine’s art critic Jerry Saltz wrote that the show “redefines modernism” as we know it.

Through the course of the exhibition’s roughly 160 paintings, sculptures, photographs and other works, Met curator Denise Murrell proves her thesis that the Harlem Renaissance directly participated in the development of international modern art as we know it today.

The secret weapon behind this exhibition that highlights the African American cultural, artistic and political movement of a century ago? Historically Black colleges and universities, including Virginia’s Hampton University.

Calling the Met a “P.W.I.” — an acronym for “predominantly white institutions” — Murrell told the New York Times that the museum has a “spotty collection in terms of African American painting and sculpture.” Only 21 of the works in the show are from the Met’s collection. To create the exhibition, Murrell borrowed pieces from Fisk University, Howard University, Clark Atlanta University and Hampton.

Opened in 1868, the year the school was founded, the Hampton University Museum lays claim to being the oldest African American museum in the United States, as well as being one of the oldest in Virginia.

Vanessa Thaxton-Ward, director of the Hampton University Museum, says her collection includes “everything from agricultural tools to milk cans from our dairy to beautiful furniture made by students in our trade school.”

Standouts of the museum’s collection of more than 9,000 objects include Henry Ossawa Tanner’s renowned painting “The Banjo Lesson” and the Pen of Freedom, one of three pens that Abraham Lincoln used to sign proclamations that emancipated enslaved African Americans. The museum closed for renovations in January and plans to reopen in about a year.

Of the museum’s roughly 100 Harlem Renaissance pieces, four paintings were chosen for the Met exhibition.

One is “Black Belt” by Archibald Motley Jr. Painted in 1934, this Jazz Age work captures the dynamism of Black urban life. The work has been part of the Hampton University Museum collection since the 1960s.

“Motley really portrayed the feel of a city, of a downtown, and so it’s called the ‘Black Belt’ because, particularly during that period, there were [these] areas where Black people hung out. That’s where they lived, so he’s showing the nightlife scenes in that piece,” says Thaxton-Ward, who has been with the Hampton University Museum since 1991. “It’s very joyful, very colorful, and usually hangs up on our Renaissance gallery.”

In an image that should be familiar to every Virginian, Suzanna Ogunjami’s painting “Full Blown Magnolia” depicts a magnolia flower in full bloom. A visual artist of Igbo ancestry, Ogunjami emigrated from West Africa to Jamaica, then New York City where she became the first African woman to have a solo exhibition at an American commercial art gallery. Painted circa 1935, this work was gifted to the Hampton University Museum by William E. Harmon Foundation in the 1960s.

The Met exhibit also features two of Hampton’s pieces by William Henry Johnson. A native of South Carolina, Johnson moved to New York City at the age of 17 before living in France where he learned about modernism. After 13 years of living abroad, Johnson returned to the United States in 1938 to document Black lives in a folk art style.

“William Johnson was quite an artist,” Thaxton-Ward says. “He, like many artists in that period, left the United States in order to paint and study, so you see some of that reflected in his art.”

One of his works is “Triple Self Portrait,” featuring the artist in triplicate. The middle self wears a white shirt; he’s flanked by doppelgangers in striped shirts. While the figures on the left and in the middle gaze back at the viewer, the figure on the right looks away.

The other work is Johnson’s “Jitterbugs V,” which is part of a series of paintings and screenprints he made while teaching at the Works Progress Administration’s Harlem Community Art Center. In the painting, a couple dances wildly at a Harlem nightspot, reflecting the jitterbug dance of the era.

Thaxton-Ward says the museum is “extremely proud” to be part of a high-profile exhibition that aims to rehabilitate the standing of the Harlem Renaissance and its impact on culture at large.

“We were very pleased that we were able to help tell that story and to help get the message out there,” she says. “It also helps bring notoriety to our collection and our museum. We are here on a college campus. Many people don’t think that they can come, or they’re not familiar with us, so this will help promote the rest of our collection.”

“The Harlem Renaissance and Transatlantic Modernism” is on display through July 28 at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1000 Fifth Ave., New York, 10028. For more information, visit metmuseum.org.

The Hampton University Museum is currently closed for renovations. For more information, visit home.hamptonu.edu/msm/.