Collecting for the public : works that made a differenc

• Date de parution : 24/05/2016
• Editeur : Paul Holberton
• EAN : 9781911300045
• Série : (-)
• Support : Papier

• Nombre de pages : 240
• Collection : (-)
• Genre : Arts et spectacles
• Thème : Monographie / Histoire de l'art / Essais / Dictionnaires
• Prix littéraire(s) : (-)

No longer forbidding and austere centres of learning, high-profile museums today often rely on fast-changing menus of temporary exhibitions, with all manner of food, fun and family entertainment on offer, cleverly marketed to ever-growing numbers of visitors. The permanent collection must remain... Voir plus

No longer forbidding and austere centres of learning, high-profile museums today often rely on fast-changing menus of temporary exhibitions, with all manner of food, fun and family entertainment on offer, cleverly marketed to ever-growing numbers of visitors. The permanent collection must remain the heart and soul of any museum, however, as these essays by some of the biggest names in the museum world argue. A collection - if looked after, researched and displayed with knowledge and sensitivity - can be an endless source of surprise and delight as well as a focus of local and national pride. The museum in this view is a setting for sustained encounters with objects and works of art, somewhere to be visited and revisited over the course of a lifetime, a place that helps to bind communities, with collections that are cared for and shared as a reminder of the past and a source of inspiration for the present.
In Collecting for the Public a number of curators and other art historians shine their light on one or more acquisitions that have made a difference in the collections they entered, explaining why this is so and how these purchases or donations happened - from medieval to modern. The book is dedicated to the celebrated art historian Peter Hecht, the great champion of public art collections, who throughout his career has worked to show us why museums matter and how their collections, large or small, national or local, can make a profound difference to the lives of those who use them.
We hope that this book will bring people the world over to realise the importance of collecting for the public, locally, nationally and internationally, and to acknowledge and encourage the role of private individuals, associations and institutions, as well as public bodies, in this vital endeavour.