The New Orleans Museum of Art: The First Seventy-Five Years - Hardcover

Dunbar, a trustee of the New Orleans Museum of Art, presents a thorough and reasonably objective history of the museum. His exhaustive research results in a blow-by-blow account of the people, gifts, scandals, and exhibitions that built the museum to its current stature. From Isaac Delgado's initial funding, the early gifts and emphasis on regional artists, and the hiring and firing of the first professional museum director to subsequent directors and the impact of the King Tut exhibition, Dunbar's history of a single museum shows the financial struggles and personality clashes that seem to dog the development of most such institutions. His research points out the importance of institutional archives in capturing history. Still, although the book is very interesting, it will probably only find readers within the profession and in the New Orleans area.
- Lynell A. Morr, John & Mable Ringling Museum of Art Lib., Sarasota, Fla.
Copyright 1990 Reed Business Information, Inc.