Best of
Museums

2016

Morbid Curiosities: Collections of the Uncommon and the Bizarre (Skulls, Mummified Body Parts, Taxidermy and more, remarkable, curious, macabre collections)


Paul Gambino - 2016
    Centred on 15 collections, with extensive interviews with each collector and specially shot imagery detailing their objects, this is a fascinating showcase of bizarre and intriguing objects.Included are collections of skulls, mummified body parts, occultic objects, and various carnival, side-show and criminal ephemera. Detailed captions tell the curious stories behind each object, many of which are being shown outside the private world of their collections for the first time.

The Art of Relevance


Nina Simon - 2016
    The Art of Relevance is your guide to mattering more to more people. You'll find inspiring examples, rags-to-relevance case studies, research-based frameworks, and practical advice on how your work can be more vital to your community. Whether you work in museums or libraries, parks or theaters, churches or afterschool programs, relevance can work for you. Break through shallow connection. Unlock meaning for yourself and others. Find true relevance and shine.

Matisse/Diebenkorn


Janet Bishop - 2016
    Featuring stunning pairings of more than 80 paintings and drawings, this book charts the evolution of Matisse's impact on Diebenkorn over the course of Diebenkorn's career. Though they never met, Matisse was an enduring source of inspiration for the Californian artist, and their works share surprising similarities in subject, composition, palette, and technique. Essays by Janet Bishop and Katherine Rothkopf explore how this influence evolved over time, connecting the work of the two painters and highlighting the ways Diebenkorn drew from Matisse's example to forge a style entirely his own. The volume is rounded out by an introduction by John Elderfield, who knew Diebenkorn personally and has curated exhibitions of both artists' work; an essay by Jodi Roberts on parallels between the artists' drawings; and a bibliography documenting Diebenkorn's collection of books about the French artist. The first in-depth examination of the relationship between the work of Diebenkorn and Matisse, this publication offers new ways of understanding both artists.

How to Build a Museum: Smithsonian's National Museum of African American History and Culture


Tonya Bolden - 2016
    The campaign to set up a museum honoring black citizens is nearly 100 years old; building the museum itelf and assembling its incredibly far-reaching collections is a modern story that involves all kinds of people, from educators and activists, to politicians, architects, curators, construction workers, and ordinary Americans who donated cherished belongings to be included in NMAAHC's thematically-organized exhibits. Award-winning author Tonya Bolden has written a fascinating chronicle of how all of these ideas, ambitions, and actual objects came together in one incredible museum. Includes behind-the-scenes photos of literally "how to build a museum" that holds everything from an entire segregated railroad car to a tiny West African amulet worn to ward off slave traders.

Managing Previously Unmanaged Collections: A Practical Guide for Museums


Angela Kipp - 2016
    The process of securing the collection and making it accessible needs the mindset of a collections manager as well as the one of a project manager. The target audience are museum professionals with a basic training in collections care that are confronted with collections that are either large in numbers (1000+ artifacts) or stored confusingly, or both. The book is a step-by-step guide how to approach this situation, assuming that there's nothing to start with but a collection that has to be accessioned and the person who is assigned to do it. It is about how to bring order into the chaos, to define what is needed in terms of time, money, staff and material, to spot facility issues and potential dangers, and to use the power of networking to solve an otherwise unsolvable task. Many chapters conclude with "logical exits," the points at which the collection in a condition that allows you to leave it for the next curator to take over. A common issue is that time frames are often so tight that the target of having the collection in good shape at the end of a contract or at a fixed date can't be met. Another common scenario may be that other projects become more important and you have to stop working on the collection, which might sound familiar to many directors of small museums. "Logical exits" are the points you can do this without risking that everything you've done so far or since the last "logical exit" was a waste of time. For contractors those "logical exits" might serve as orientation points when negotiating the work that has to be done on the collection.

Dangerous Passion


Lisa B. Kamps - 2016
    Josh Nichols is a no-nonsense vice cop used to the seedier side of Baltimore. When he's picked up in a bar by Shelby, he realizes the move is out of character for her—and is immediately surprised at the instant chemistry between them. He doesn't count on her disappearing after one hot night—before he gets her full name or even a phone number. Neither of them had expected to see the other again—or to have their worlds turned upside down when they're thrown together as a result of a crime at Shelby's museum. Can two people from completely different worlds look beyond suspicion and build a relationship from one night of unprecedented passion? Or will those differences pull them apart…especially when there's someone else who wants nothing more than to see Shelby fail?

Long Road to Hard Truth: The 100 Year Mission to Create the National Museum of African American History and Culture


Robert L. Wilkins - 2016
    Wilkins tells the story of how his curiosity about why there wasn't a national museum dedicated to African American history and culture became an obsession-eventually leading him to quit his job as an attorney when his wife was seven months pregnant with their second child, and make it his mission to help the museum become a reality. Long Road to Hard Truth chronicles the early history, when staunch advocates sought to create a monument for Black soldiers fifty years after the end of the Civil War and in response to the pervasive indignities of the time, including lynching, Jim Crow segregation, and the slander of the racist film Birth of a Nation. The movement soon evolved to envision creating a national museum, and Wilkins follows the endless obstacles through the decades, culminating in his honor of becoming a member of the Presidential Commission that wrote the plan for creating the museum and how, with support of both Black and White Democrats and Republicans, Congress finally authorized the museum. In September 2016, exactly 100 years after the movement to create it began, the Smithsonian will open the National Museum of African American History and Culture. The book's title is inspired in part by James Baldwin, who testified in Congress in 1968 that My history... contains the truth about America. It is going to be hard to teach it. Long Road to Hard Truth concludes that this journey took 100 years because many in America are unwilling to confront the history of America's legacy of slavery and discrimination, and that the only reason this museum finally became a reality is that an unlikely, bipartisan coalition of political leaders had the courage and wisdom to declare that America could not, and should not, continue to evade the hard truth.

18th Century Fashion in Detail


Susan North - 2016
    With an authoritative text, exquisite color photography of garment details, and line drawings showing the complete construction of each piece, the reader has the unique opportunity to examine up close historical clothing that is often too fragile to be on display.It is an inspirational resource for students, collectors, designers, and anyone who is fascinated by fashion and clothing.This new edition features an updated design, improved navigation, a comprehensive index, and an introduction that sets the examples in full historical context.

House of Lost Worlds: Dinosaurs, Dynasties, and the Story of Life on Earth


Richard Conniff - 2016
    The Yale Peabody Museum of Natural History, now celebrating its 150th anniversary, has remade the way we see the world. Delving into the museum’s storied and colorful past, award-winning author Richard Conniff introduces a cast of bold explorers, roughneck bone hunters, and visionary scientists. Some became famous for wresting Brontosaurus, Triceratops, and other dinosaurs from the earth, others pioneered the introduction of science education in North America, and still others rediscovered the long-buried glory of Machu Picchu.   In this lively tale of events, achievements, and scandals from throughout the museum’s history. Readers will encounter renowned paleontologist O. C. Marsh who engaged in ferocious combat with his “Bone Wars” rival Edward Drinker Cope, as well as dozens of other intriguing characters. Nearly 100 color images portray important figures in the Peabody’s history and special objects from the museum’s 13-million-item collections. For anyone with an interest in exploring, understanding, and protecting the natural world, this book will deliver abundant delights.

Mounting Frustration: The Art Museum in the Age of Black Power


Susan E. Cahan - 2016
    And by the time the civil rights movement reached the American art museum, it had already crested: the first public demonstrations to integrate museums occurred in late 1968, twenty years after the desegregation of the military and fourteen years after the Brown vs. Board of Education decision. In Mounting Frustration Susan E. Cahan investigates the strategies African American artists and museum professionals employed as they wrangled over access to and the direction of New York City's elite museums. Drawing on numerous interviews with artists and analyses of internal museum documents, Cahan gives a detailed and at times surprising picture of the institutional and social forces that both drove and inhibited racial justice in New York's museums. Cahan focuses on high-profile and wildly contested exhibitions that attempted to integrate African American culture and art into museums, each of which ignited debate, dissension, and protest. The Metropolitan Museum's 1969 exhibition Harlem on My Mind was supposed to represent the neighborhood, but it failed to include the work of the black artists living and working there. While the Whitney's 1971 exhibition Contemporary Black Artists in America featured black artists, it was heavily criticized for being haphazard and not representative. The Whitney show revealed the consequences of museums' failure to hire African American curators, or even white curators who possessed knowledge of black art. Cahan also recounts the long history of the Museum of Modern Art's institutional ambivalence toward contemporary artists of color, which reached its zenith in its 1984 exhibition "Primitivism" in Twentieth Century Art. Representing modern art as a white European and American creation that was influenced by the "primitive" art of people of color, the show only served to further devalue and cordon off African American art. In addressing the racial politics of New York's art world, Cahan shows how aesthetic ideas reflected the underlying structural racism and inequalities that African American artists faced. These inequalities are still felt in America's museums, as many fundamental racial hierarchies remain intact: art by people of color is still often shown in marginal spaces; one-person exhibitions are the preferred method of showing the work of minority artists, as they provide curators a way to avoid engaging with the problems of complicated, interlocking histories; and whiteness is still often viewed as the norm. The ongoing process of integrating museums, Cahan demonstrates, is far broader than overcoming past exclusions.

Milestones of Flight: The Epic of Aviation with the National Air and Space Museum


F. Robert Van Der Linden - 2016
    From the moment the Wright Brothers first took flight in 1903 to the modern-day reliance on stealth aircraft and drones, there have been significant advances made in aviation. Milestones of Flight celebrates each era of advancements by showcasing the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum's world-class aircraft collection. Authored by Dr. Robert van der Linden, a leading expert on aviation and Chairman of the Aeronautics Department at the NASM, this book is a stunning profile of the advancements in flight from decade to decade, illustrated with beautiful, large-scale photography and enhanced with little-known facts, anecdotes, and insights from major players in the aviation industry.Climb inside the cockpit of the Spirit of St. Louis that Charles Lindbergh piloted solo across the Atlantic Ocean, making history. Contrast that with a Boeing B-29 Superfortress, the first aircraft to drop an atomic bomb. The full-page photos of each milestone-making aircraft are accompanied by timelines to showcase related aircraft as well as sidebars with interesting and little-known facts, stories, and related research.Milestone categories include:- Era of Early Flight- World War I First Fighters- Long-Range Record-Setting Flight- Popular Flight- First Commercial Airliners- World War II Aircraft- Experimental Flight- Cold War Military/Korean Conflict Aircraft- Commercial Jets- Modern Military AircraftWhat will the next milestone be?

Juxtapositions: Images from the Newseum Ted Polumbaum Photo Collection


Ted Polumbaum - 2016
    draws attention to human connections across time, culture, and geography that all generations can appreciate. As a photojournalist, Ted Polumbaum documented some of the most important news events and social movements of the second half of the twentieth century. On assignment for the era’s great picture magazines as well as through independent projects, he photographed athletes, artists, parades,protests,and more. Above all, traveling throughout the Americas and around the world, he chronicled the lives and aspirations of ordinary people. Along with cameos of political and cultural icons, the book offers a clear and generous vision of the human condition in all its commonality and variety.

Fostering Family History Services: A Guide for Librarians, Archivists, and Volunteers


Rhonda L. Clark - 2016
    Your library can tap into the popularity of the do-it-yourself genealogy movement by promoting your role as both a preserver of local community history as well as a source for helping your patrons archive what's important to their family. This professional guide will teach you how to integrate family history programming into your educational outreach tools and services to the community.The book is divided into three sections: the first introduces methods for creating a program to help your clients trace their roots; the second provides library science instruction in reference and planning for local collections; and the third part focuses on the use of specific types of resources in local collections. Additional information features methods for preserving photographs, letters, diaries, documents, memorabilia, and ephemera. The text also includes bibliographies, appendices, checklists, and links to online aids to further assist with valuating and organizing important family mementos.

Vitamin P2: New Perspectives in Painting


Barry Schwabsky Barry - 2016
    Since its publication, a whole new generation of painters has emerged, some inspired by the artists who appeared in that book, others taking cues from new sources. Vitamin P2 introduces this new wave of painters to the world.The vast medium of painting continues to be a central pillar of artistic practice, and Vitamin P2 presents the outstanding artists who are currently engaging with and pushing the boundaries of the medium. Over 80 international critics, artists and curators have nominated the 115 artists who have made a fresh, unique or innovative contribution to recent painting. All of the artists in Vitamin P2 have recently emerged onto the international scene, and none appeared in the first Vitamin P.An introduction by Barry Schwabsky, who also wrote the introduction for Vitamin P, provides a broad overview of recent developments in the medium while also looking towards its future.

Start Your Engines: Nonprofit Management Made Simple


Rachel Brookhart - 2016
    In it, the work of managing a 501(c)(3) is reframed through stories that make each of the four management functions and their components easy to understand. This book is meant to be fun, informative, and quick. Each chapter starts off with a short story that illustrates a point in a way anyone can understand, whether they have set foot in a nonprofit organization or not.

The Building of the National Museum of African American History and Culture


Mabel O. Wilson - 2016
    Founding director Lonnie G. Bunch III described it as "ten years in the making, and 100 years in the making," and Mabel O. Wilson explores that effort in her narrative. As she discovers, initial calls for a permanent place to collect, study, and present African American history and culture in the early twentieth century never got off the ground. In the late 1990s, the notion began to gain momentum from increasing public interest and Congressional support. In 2003 the museum was officially established. Yet the work of the museum was only just beginning. Wilson takes an in-depth look at the selection of the director, site, and architects in the years that followed. Rising on the National Mall next to the Washington Monument, the museum is a tiered bronze beacon inviting us to understand our past and embrace our future. Wilson explores how the "four pillars" of the museum's mission shaped its powerful structure, and she teases out the rich cultural symbols and homages layered into the design of the building and its surrounding landscape. This book is an important inside look at the making of a monument.

Harvey Girl Turned Cattle Thief


Julie McDonald - 2016
    She ran away from home at age 14 after her mothers death. Upon arriving in Winslow, Arizona a few years later, she became a Harvey Girl and changed her name to Juanita Gale. She would change her name one more time to Cecil after her marriage to George Creswell. You will never forget this story of a frontier woman!

Iron Bars And Bookshelves: A History of the Morrin Centre


Louisa Blair - 2016
    It once housed Quebec’s common jail, the Presbyterian-run Morrin College, and the scholarly activities of the Literary and Historical Society of Quebec. Today, it is home to the city’s main English-language cultural center and library. The colorful stories of each of these institutions reveal unknown aspects of the tumultuous history of Quebec’s capital city and bring some of its forgotten characters back to life. This book takes you from the dark prison cells on the building’s ground floor to the stately library and college classrooms above it. Did you know that Quebec’s first French-language novelist, Philippe Aubert de Gaspé, did time in the jail, that Morrin College admitted women on equal terms with men some sixty years before Université Laval, or that the Literary and Historical Society of Quebec helped establish Canada’s National Archives?

Household Gods: Private Devotion in Ancient Greece and Rome


Alexandra Sofroniew - 2016
    Besides official worship in rural sacred areas and at temples in towns, the ancients kept household shrines with statuettes of different deities that could have a deep personal and spiritual meaning. Roman houses were often filled with images of gods. Gods and goddesses were represented in mythological paintings on walls and in decorative mosaics on floors, in bronze and marble sculptures, on ornate silver dining vessels, and on lowly clay oil lamps that lit dark rooms. Even many modest homes had one or more religious objects that were privately venerated. Ranging from the humble to the magnificent, these small objects could be fashioned in any medium from terracotta to precious metal or stone.   Showcasing the collections in the Getty Villa, this book’s emphasis on the spiritual beliefs and practices of individuals promises to make the works of Greek and Roman art more accessible to readers. Compelling representations of private religious devotion, these small objects express personal ways of worshiping that are still familiar to us today. A chapter on contemporary domestic worship further enhances the relevance of these miniature sculptures for modern viewers.

Recruiting and Managing Volunteers in Museums: A Handbook for Volunteer Management


Kristy Van Hoven - 2016
    Non-profit volunteers are looking for unique and satisfying ways to engage in their communities and museums are primed to offer just the experiences these volunteers are looking for. Here's a practical exploration of the differences between the "then" and "now" volunteers and solid advice on volunteer recruitment, communication, and retention strategies. Kristy Van Hoven and Loni Wellman will help you answer the questions: -What are new volunteers looking for? -What is their motivation? -How can you spot the hidden gems in your local community? -How can you develop a successful relationship with potential volunteers? -How do you keep the museum volunteer motivated and happy? -What can teens, adults and retiring professionals bring to your organization? -How can your museum support a robust and active volunteer program? -How do you reward volunteers and keep them for the long term? and, most importantly, -How can you meet volunteer's needs and still benefit from their work? The Guide highlights successful projects, incentives, and general museum culture which support volunteer activities and includes examples of Volunteer Job Descriptions, Calls for Volunteers, Evaluation forms, as well as volunteer project outlines. Written in a light hearted spirit, Recruiting and Managing Volunteers in Museums: A Handbook to Volunteer Management will engage and inform any professional tasked with developing and managing a volunteer program at their institution. Museums offer an amazing array of volunteer opportunities that help create a greater sense of belonging and purpose for the volunteer. With a growing number of retiring professionals and students looking for professional experiences, now is the time to embark on developing a volunteer program that will thrive in the years to come.

Art in the Making: Artists and their Materials from the Studio to Crowdsourcing


Glenn Adamson - 2016
    Yet, even as our means of making art become more extraordinary and diverse, they are almost never addressed in their specificity. While critics and viewers tend to focus on the finished products we see in museums and galleries, authors Glenn Adamson and Julia Bryan-Wilson argue that the materials and processes behind the scenes used to make artworks are also vital to current considerations of authorship and to understanding the economic and social contexts from which art emerges.This wide-ranging exploration of different methods and media in art since the 1950s includes nine chapters that focus on individual processes of making: Painting, Woodworking, Building, Performing, Tooling Up, Cashing In, Fabricating, Digitizing, and Crowdsourcing. Detailed examples are interwoven with the discussion, including visuals that reveal the intricacies of techniques and materials. Artists featured include Ai Weiwei, Alice Aycock, Isa Genzken, Los Carpinteros, Paul Pfeiffer, Doris Salcedo, Santiago Sierra, and Rachel Whiteread.

Ancient Terracottas from South Italy and Sicily in the J. Paul Getty Museum


Maria Lucia Ferruzza - 2016
    Readily available and economical—unlike stone suitable for carving—clay allowed artisans to craft figures of remarkable variety and expressiveness. Terracottas from South Italy and Sicily attest to the prolific coroplastic workshops that supplied sacred and decorative images for sanctuaries, settlements, and cemeteries. Sixty terracottas are investigated here by noted scholar Maria Lucia Ferruzza, comprising a selection of significant types from the Getty’s larger collection—life-size sculptures, statuettes, heads and busts, altars, and decorative appliqués. In addition to the comprehensive catalogue entries, the publication includes a guide to the full collection of over one thousand other figurines and molds from the region by Getty curator of antiquities Claire L. Lyons. Reflecting the Getty's commitment to open content, Ancient Terracottas from South Italy and Sicily in the J. Paul Getty Museum is available online at www.getty.edu/publications/terracottas and may be downloaded free of charge in multiple formats. For readers who wish to have a bound reference copy, this paperback edition has been made available for sale.

Country Boys and Redneck Women: New Essays in Gender and Country Music


Diane Pecknold - 2016
    In addition to shedding new light on such legends as Wells, Parton, Loretta Lynn, and Charley Pride, it traces more recent shifts in gender politics through the performances of such contemporary luminaries as Swift, Gretchen Wilson, and Blake Shelton. The book also explores the intersections of gender, race, class, and nationality in a host of less expected contexts, including the prisons of WWII-era Texas, where the members of the Goree All-Girl String Band became the unlikeliest of radio stars; the studios and offices of Plantation Records, where Jeannie C. Riley and Linda Martell challenged the social hierarchies of a changing South in the 1960s; and the burgeoning cities of present-day Brazil, where "college country" has become one way of negotiating masculinity in an age of economic and social instability.

Divine Pleasures: Painting from India's Rajput Courts: The Kronos Collections


Terence McInerney - 2016
    These remarkable works—most of them published and illustrated here for the first time—were painted between the 16th and 18th centuries for the Indian royal courts in Rajastan and the Punjab Hills. Many of the paintings are characterized by their brilliant colors and vivid depictions of scenes from Hindu epics, mystical legends, and courtly life. Along with an informative entry for every work and a personal essay by expert and collector Steven M. Kossak, the book contains an extensive essay by Terence McInerney that outlines the history of Indian painting, with a special emphasis on the Rajput courts, and provides an overview of the subject with fresh insights and interpretations.

Seeing Texas History: The Bob Bullock Texas State History Museum


Victoria Ramirez - 2016
    The Bullock collaborates with more than seven hundred museums, libraries, archives, and individuals to display original historical artifacts and produce exhibitions that illuminate and celebrate Texas history and culture.Seeing Texas History: The Bob Bullock Texas State History Museum features seventy artifacts that have been on view at the Bullock Museum. Reflecting history, both individually and collectively, the artifacts represent all eras, regions of the state, and genres. The artifacts in the collection range from Texas’s quintessential founding documents to items from everyday life, works of art, and objects that show the state as a leader in science and technology. This book does what museums do best, presenting history as artifact, inviting readers to closely examine historical objects and consider how the past shapes the future.

Into the Mysterium


Michele Oka Doner - 2016
    With the oceans covering over 70 percent of the Earth’s surface, our planet can be called a marine planet. Beneath the waves are millions of remarkable creatures—beautiful big whales, dangerous jellyfish, legions of phytoplankton—but also, perhaps least known, are the marine invertebrates who make up an essential part of marine life. At the University of Miami, Florida, one museum is devoted to the study of Atlantic and Eastern Pacific marine invertebrates—over 93,000 specimens. Many of them were pulled from the Gulf of Panama, throughout the Caribbean, the Florida Keys, and the eastern Pacific over the last fifty years. They represent creatures that may never be seen again as the oceans grow ever more polluted and as global warming wreaks havoc on these ecosystems. Here, in lavishly beautifully photographs, nearly 100 of the rarest, most wondrous, mystifying, and entrancing specimens are brought into the light. From rare seahorses to now extinct corals, these invertebrates leave one gasping again at the extraordinary beauty and mystery of our world.

Yves Saint Laurent: The Perfection of Style


Florence Müller - 2016
    Modernizing haute couture. Pioneering high-end ready-to-wear. Bringing masculine ease to women’s clothing. Legendary fashion designer Yves Saint Laurent’s reputation precedes him—but what of the man behind the work Fashion historian and YSL expert Florence Müller traces Saint Laurent’s career, from aspiring designer to Christian Dior’s protégé to director of his own fashion house from 1961 until 2002. The book emphasizes the designer’s creative process—his inspirations, the conception and fabric selection, the various stages of fitting and production—and takes the reader behind the scenes of the atelier. Also featured are original sketches, runway shots, and never-before-published photographs of Saint Laurent at work, as well as new photography of iconic YSL designs from the exhibition, including the first Tuxedo pantsuit (1966), the Safari tunic (1968), the Mondrian dress (1965), and the Wesselmann dress (1966). The book also includes a 1991 interview from Le Figaro with the late designer. This focused exploration shows how Saint Laurent’s radical clothes for the modern woman—presented here in gorgeous detail—continue to inspire fashion lovers and fans of art and design for their innovation and perfection of style.

Spot the Mummy in the Museum: Packed with things to spot and facts to discover!


Sarah Khan - 2016
    From deadly dinosaurs to fearsome Pharaohs, there's so much to see in the museum! Wonderfully detailed illustrations create busy scenes which will keep children entertained. Not only this but your children will learn along the way, too! Fantastic spot book activities, combined with non-fiction settings, make for an informative and entertaining series. With interesting facts dotted on each page, further educational value is added to the books.

Shakespeare and the Stuff of Life: Treasures from the Shakespeare Birthplace Trust


Delia Garratt - 2016
    Just as modern audiences connect to the enduring and universal appeal of his plays, so we can connect to objects from his lifetime to illuminate our understanding of his work. This unique book brings together, for the first time, a selection of 50 objects from the Shakespeare Birthplace Trust in Stratford-upon-Avon.An accessible and lavishly illustrated object-based exploration of the role and significance of notable paintings, furniture, ceramics, textiles and metal wares in the everyday experience of people living in Shakespearean England, the book will appeal to anyone with a love of Shakespeare. Organised along a simple narrative based on the "Seven Ages of Man" speech from As You Like It, the book reveals how material objects can provide greater insight into such major themes as religious and social change, education, birth, marriage, death, family life, professional and community life.Published to mark the 400th anniversary of Shakespeare's death in 2016, the book brings Shakespeare's life and times engagingly to life for readers of all ages.