The Art Museum from Boullée to Bilbao [Paperback]

Art museums have emerged in recent decades as the most vibrant and popular of all cultural institutions. Though art museums have never been more popular, their direction and values are now being contested as never beforeboth in the media and in the art world itself. This engaging thematic history of the art museum from its inception in the eighteenth century to the present offers an essential framework for understanding contemporary debates as they have evolved in Europe and the United States. From the visionary museums of Boull?e in the eighteenth century to the new Guggenheim in Bilbao and beyond, it explores key aspects of museum theory and practice: ideals and mission; architecture; collecting, classification, and display; the public; commercialism; and restitution and repatriation. The only single volume to give a comprehensive account of the issues critical to museums, the book also highlights the challenges they will face in the future.

Andrew McClellan, Dean of Academic Affairs and Professor of Art History at Tufts University, is the author ofInventing the Louvre: Art, Politics, and the Origins of the Museum in Eighteenth-Century Paris(UC Press) and the editor ofArt and Its Publics: Museum Studies at the Millenium.

Acknowledgments

Introduction
Ideals and Mission
Architecture
Collecting, Classification, and Display
The Public
Commercialism
Restitution and Repatriation
Conclusion

Appendix
Notes
List of Illustrations
Index

Andrew McClellan's well-conceived, thoughtfully argued book provides a much-needed history of the art museum as well as an astute assessment of critical issues facing museums today. There has been a pressing need for a synthetic, even-handed overview like this one. It will find a large readership among those concerned with museums, art history, and cultural policy, and I predict it will be widely used in courses inlƒ½