Rogues' Gallery: The Secret History of the Moguls and the Money that Made the Metropolitan Museum (Mobipocket) ebook download Michael Gross

Rogues' Gallery: The Secret History of the Moguls and the Money that Made the Metropolitan Museum

“Behind almost every painting is a fortune and behind that a sin or a crime.”
With these words as a starting point, Michael Gross, leading chronicler of the American rich, begins the first independent, unauthorized look at the saga of the nation’s greatest museum, the Metropolitan Museum of Art. In this endlessly entertaining follow-up to his bestselling social history 740 Park, Gross pulls back the shades of secrecy that have long shrouded the upper class’s cultural and philanthropic ambitions and maneuvers. And he paints a revealing portrait of a previously hidden face of American wealth and power.

The Metropolitan, Gross writes, “is a huge alchemical experiment, turning the worst of man’s attributes—extravagance, lust, gluttony, acquisitiveness, envy, avarice, greed, egotism, and pride—into the very best, transmuting deadly sins into priceless treasure.” The book covers the entire 138-year history of the Met, focusing on the museum’s most colorful characters. Opening with the lame-duck director Philippe de Montebello, the museum’s longest-serving leader who finally stepped down in 2008, Rogues’ Gallery then goes back to the very beginning, highlighting, among many others: the first director, Luigi Palma di Cesnola, an Italian-born epic phony, whose legacy is a trove of plundered ancient relics, some of which remain on display today; John Pierpont Morgan, the greatest capitalist and art collector of his day, who turned the museum from the plaything of a handful of rich amateurs into a professional operation dedicated, sort of, to the public good; John D. Rockefeller Jr., who never served the Met in any official capacity but who, during the Great Depression, proved the only man willing and rich enough to be its benefactor, which made him its behind-the-scenes puppeteer; the controversial Thomas Hoving, whose tenure as director during the sixties and seventies revolutionized museums around the world but left the Met in chaos; and Jane Engelhard and Annette de la Renta, a mother-daughter trustee tag team whose stories will astonish you (think Casablanca rewritten by Edith Wharton).

With a supporting cast that includes artists, forgers, and looters, financial geniuses and scoundrels, museum officers (like its chairman Arthur Amory Houghton, head of Corning Glass, who once ripped apart a priceless and ancient Islamic book in order to sell it off piecemeal), trustees (like Jayne Wrightsman, the Hollywood party girl turned society grand dame), curators (like the aging Dietrich von Bothmer, a refugee from Nazi Germany with a Bronze Star for heroism whose greatest acquisitions turned out to be looted), and donors (like Irwin Untermyer, whose collecting obsession drove his wife and children to suicide), and with cameo appearances by everyone from Vogue editors Anna Wintour and Diana Vreeland to Sex Pistols front man Johnny Rotten, Rogues’ Gallery is a rich, satisfying, alternately hilarious and horrifying look at America’s upper class, and what is perhaps its greatest creation.

Share your thoughts on the Rogues' Gallery: The Secret History of the Moguls and the Money that Made the Metropolitan Museum ebook with other internet viewers!

Title of ebook: Rogues' Gallery: The Secret History of the Moguls and the Money that Made the Metropolitan Museum
ISBN: 9780767931458
parent-ISBN: 9780767924887
Publisher: Broadway
Internet download file size: 1127 kb
Released online for download: 05-05-2009

Format

Encrypted

Sku

ISBN

File size

Security

Printing

Copying

Read aloud

Devices

Mobipocket

Yes

9780767931458

1127 KB

n/a

Not allowed

No

Sys Requirements

Download reader

Other Gross, Michael ebooks:

receive alert on new Gross, Michael ebooks

Rogues' Gallery

Provocative cultural journalist and New York Times bestselling author Michael Gross is currently a ...

Best price: $26.29

740 Park

740 Park ...

Best price: $14.88

Other Art & Music eBooks Categories

Architecture (242)

Art (877)

Comics & Graphic Novels (71)

Film & Video (267)

Mass Media (34)

Music (978)

Performing Arts (181)

Photography (180)

Television (118)

Theater (154)

Top eBooks in Art

Acrylic Painting For Dummies
by Pitcher, Colette

Create gorgeous paintings with this fun and easy guide to acrylics! Always wanted to paint with acrylics? This easy-to-follow, full color guide gives you ...more

Best price: $22.06

An Introduction to the Philosophy of Art
by Eldridge, Richard

In this book Richard eldridge presents a clear and compact survey of philosophical theories of the nature and significance of art. Drawing on materials from ...more

Best price: $23.71

Deeply Hidden Desires
by Richardson, Patricia

Deeply Hidden Desires...more

Best price: $5.75

Caffeine for the Creative Team: 200 Exercises to Inspire Group Innovation
by Murnaw, Stefan / Oldfield, Wendy

With over 200 exercises as well as interviews with working designers, Caffeine for the Creative Team is your key to adding some innovation to your next team ...more

Best price: $16.25

Augustus and Hadrian: Classical and Classicizing Modes
by Brilliant, Richard

essay on Augustus and Hadrian: Classical and Classicizing Modes...more

Best price: $6.11