1989
First Published
4.00
Average Rating
383
Number of Pages
Unlike the treasures of European museums, accumulated during centuries of royal patronage and plunder, the Metropolitan's vast collection reflects the tastes and resources of only a handful of remarkable nineteenth- and twentieth-century individuals, including J.P. Morgan, John D. Rockefeller, Jr., and Philip and Robert Lehman, who developed, along with their millions, a taste for immortality through art. Blending anecdote with lively social history, Calvin Tomkins reveals the ideas, personalities, and financial power behind the Metropolitan's dramatic climb to greatness. His story is nothing less than the story of art in America.
Avg Rating
4.00
Number of Ratings
62
5 STARS
31%
4 STARS
44%
3 STARS
23%
2 STARS
2%
1 STARS
2%
goodreads
Author
Calvin Tomkins
Author · 10 books
Calvin Tomkins has been a staff writer for The New Yorker since 1960. He wrote his first fiction piece for the magazine in 1958, and his first fact piece in 1962. His many Profile subjects have included Marcel Duchamp, John Cage, Robert Rauschenberg, Merce Cunningham, Buckminster Fuller, Philip Johnson, Julia Child, Georgia O’Keeffe, Leo Castelli, Frank Stella, Carmel Snow, Christo and Jeanne-Claude, Frank Gehry, Damien Hirst, Richard Serra, Matthew Barney, and Jasper Johns. He wrote the Art World column from 1980 to 1988. Before joining The New Yorker, he was a general editor of Newsweek, a post he held from 1957 through 1959. In 1955, he joined Newsweek as an associate editor. He is the author of more than a dozen books, including “The Bride and the Bachelors,” “Merchants and Masterpieces,” “Living Well Is the Best Revenge,” “Off the Wall,” “Duchamp: A Biography,” and “Lives of the Artists.” A revised edition of his Duchamp biography came out in 2014.
