HUAS 6318

Wednesdays 9:30am to 12:15pm

ROOM: JO 4.708
The Metropolitan Museum and MoMA
Richard R. Brettell (972-883-2475; brettell@utdallas.edu)
Assistant: Pierrette Lacour: Pierret@utdallas.edu

The critical and historical study of the art museum is in its infancy, particularly in the
United States. This course will introduce graduate students and advanced undergraduates
to the art museums of America’s cultural capital, New York City, focusing first on the
nature and history of institutions themselves (assiduous students may wish to attend Dr.
Brettell’s lectures for AHST 3320, T-Th, 11:30-12:45, McDermott Hall, The McDermott
Library). The students will then be divided into five teams, which will guide discussion
and present research reports in the last five sessions. These teams will be completely
responsible for the running of those sessions in collaboration with Professor Brettell.

Reading: Bettina Messias Carbonell, MUSEUM STUDIES: AN ANTHOLOGY OF

CONTEXTS, Blackwell Publishing, Oxford, 2004. ALL Students will be assigned
specific readings for class discussion for weeks 2-9.

Philippe de Montebello: The Metropolitan Museum of Art Guide Revised Edition

YALE
ISBN # 0-87099-711-4 (paperback)

MoMA Highlights: 325 works from the MoMA

ISBN#6-87070-098-7

Final Exam or Research Paper: 60% of the student’s grade will be based on a 15-20 page
research paper on a topic to be selected with the professor or a comprehensive final exam
(the choice is the student’s).

40% of the student’s grade will be based on attendance and class presentation. Students
who miss more than 2 classes will have their grades lowered significantly (1 letter lower
for each 3 classes missed). All absences must be excused by the professor via email.

At the end of the class, students are expected to be familiar with

1. the general history and theory of the art museum.
2. the history of art museums in New York
3. deeper knowledge of one subject of individual scholarly investigation.
SYLLABUS

1. Januray 10: The Art Museum: The Last Frontier in Art Historical
Scholarship: A review of the Literature and “The State of the Question.”

2. January 17: The Arts in a Particular Urban Context: The Example of New
York.

3. January 24: The Metropolitan Museum: Arts of the West

4. January 31: The Metropolitan Museum: “Other” Civilizations as The

Saddle Bags on the Horse of Western Art: Museums as Aesthetic Colonizers

5. February 7: The Museum of Modern Art: The Private Museum and the
Prestige of Elite Modernism

6. February 14: The Enemies of the Modern: The Whitney, The

Guggenheim, the Studio Museum, The New Museum, etc.,

7. February 21: Art And Private Luxury: The Morgan and the Frick

8. February 28: The West Side: The Hispanic Society and the Cloisters

SPRING BREAK March 5 through 10

9. March 14: Brooklyn and New York Art outside Manhattan

10. March 21: Reports: Directors and Donors

11. March 28: Reports: Curators and Keepers: Forming and Guarding
Collections

12. April 4: Reports: Exhibitions and their Creators

13. April 11: Reports: Museum Mapping and Concepts of History; The
Organization of Museums: Departments and Territories

14. April 18: Museums as Collectors: Relations with the Commerical Art
World in New York

April 25: EXAM

Suggested Topics:

1. The Exhibition Design of Stuart Silver at the Metropolitan Museum

2. The Origins of the Cloisters
3. The Huntingtons and the Ideology of the Hispanic Society
4. J.P. Morgan as an art patron and institution builder
5. Hulda Rebay and the Guggenheim Museum
6. The Early Exhibitions of the Whitney Museum
7. The Hopper Bequest: Why the Met turned it down
8. The Havemeyers versus the Annenbergs at the MET
9. The exhibitions of the Department of Architecture and Design at
MOMA in the 1940’s and 1950’s
10. Photography Collecting: The Met versus the Modern
11. The Architecture of Modern Art: The Buildings of MOMA, the
Guggenheim, and the Whitney
12. Theodore Rousseau and the Department of European Paintings at the
MET
13. Bill Rubin and the Paintings and Sculpture Department at MOMA
14. J. Hyatt Mayer and the Department of Prints and Drawings at the
Metropolitan Museum.
15. Newark versus Brooklyn: Museums Flanking Manhattan