The Evolution of Taste in American Collecting
René Brimo author Kenneth Haltman editor
Format:Paperback
Publisher:Pennsylvania State University Press
Published:7th Dec '17
Currently unavailable, and unfortunately no date known when it will be back
This paperback is available in another edition too:
- Hardback£86.95(9780271073248)
The Evolution of Taste in American Collecting is a new critical translation of René Brimo’s classic study of eighteenth- and nineteenth-century patronage and art collecting in the United States. Originally published in French in 1938, Brimo’s foundational text is a detailed examination of collecting in America from colonial times to the end of World War I, when American collectors came to dominate the European art market. This work helped shape the then-fledgling field of American art history by explaining larger cultural transformations as manifested in the collecting habits of American elites. It remains the most substantive account of the history of collecting in the United States.
In his introduction, Kenneth Haltman provides a biographical study of the author and his social and intellectual milieu in France and the United States. He also explores how Brimo’s work formed a turning point and initiated a new area of academic study: the history of art collecting.
Making accessible a text that has until now only been available in French, Haltman’s elegant translation of The Evolution of Taste in American Collecting sheds new critical light on the essential work of this extraordinary but overlooked scholar.
“Kenneth Haltman’s edition makes the book available in English and also provides a rich biographical and intellectual context for Brimo’s work, a most timely contribution to an emerging discipline of art market studies.”
—Julie Codell Journal of the History of Collections
“The judicious reader will find much to admire and much of scholarly value in Kenneth Haltman’s translation of René Brimo’s The Evolution of Taste in American Collecting. Brimo’s encyclopedic knowledge of his subject results in a host of penetrating observations about artists, critics, collectors, dealers, and institutions. Haltman’s introduction is a research tour de force that brings to light an extraordinary if mainly forgotten scholar and his opus magnum, hitherto virtually unknown to students of American art and history.”
—Alan Wallach, Ralph H. Wark Professor of Art and Art History and Professor of American Studies Emeritus, The College of William and Mary
“Brimo’s book is a remarkable, groundbreaking investigation of America’s evolving artistic tastes, a compendium of collectors—individual and institutional—and the cultural backdrops for their interests, an early history of museums in America, and a comprehensive overview of the literature of American art up to his time. Haltman’s translation makes this significant scholarly achievement more widely available and, thanks to his judicious editorial interventions, more reliable. His introduction brings to light—and to life—an intriguing personality.”
—Carol Troyen caa.reviews
ISBN: 9780271073255
Dimensions: 254mm x 178mm x 30mm
Weight: 1021g
424 pages