The Met: A People's History of the Metropolitan Museum of Art
Jonathan Conlin
New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art is one of the greatest museums in the world, housing the artefacts whose images are instantly-recognizable ciphers of civilisation. But what about those who made and restored, bought and sold, catalogued, guarded and visited those artefacts?
The first scholarly, single-author survey of a 150-year old institution of global renown, "The Met" is the story of the people behind and in front of the familiar objects. The story of how a diverse set of communities in "the third great city of the civilized world" collected an astonishing wealth of remarkable objects, and made them their own — in the process creating a world-class institution displaying the very best of human creativity. With the Met under fire for allegedly failing to serve a diverse public, an account of the institution that puts the people's stories front and centre could not be more timely.
Book Details:
- Author: Jonathan Conlin
- On Submission
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Rights Sold
- UK: Columbia University Press
Jonathan Conlin
Jonathan Conlin is a historian of modern Britain with a particular interest in the history of museums and cultural institutions. Born in New York, he studied History and Modern Languages at Oxford, before moving to the Courtauld and then Cambridge for his doctorate. After a research fellowship at Sidney Sussex College, Cambridge and a brief stint at the BBC he moved to the University of Southampton, where he is Professor of Modern History.
In 2024 Jonathan published histories of the Metropolitan Museum of Art and London's National Gallery, the latter commissioned to mark the instit...
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Book Reviews
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"
As well researched and illustrated as it is written, Conlin’s ‘The Met’ offers a rich, incisive, original, and highly entertaining account of the evolution of America’s most famous museum."
Andrew McClellan -
"A tour de force of original research and critical insight, Jonathan Conlin’s The Met is a fascinating study, a must read for anyone interested in the multifaceted history of the United States’ premier art museum."
Alan Wallach