Customer Reviews

Rogues' Gallery The Secret History of the Moguls and the Money that Made the Metropolitan Museum

5 star:		(10)
4 star:		(8)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

Any wealthy, social-climbing, self-important, status-seeking individual even sensing that Michael Gross is taking an interest in their doings would be well advised to donate every penny of their riches to charity and flee to South Dakota, pronto. At least, that's my advice after reading Rogues' Gallery, a peek behind the scenes at the shenanigans of the donors, trustees, curators and directors at the Metropolitan Museum of Art over the nearly 140-year life of that institution. Indeed, given all the dysfunction that Gross chronicles, I'm amazed that the museum manages to open its doors at all, much less function more or less smoothly as a superb collection of the world's greatest art.

This is an intriguing book to appear at what may be a major turning point in the Met's history. Some of today's mega-collectors (hedge fund tycoon Steve Cohen, retailer Eli Broad and casino king Steve Wynn)have shown little interest in getting involved with the Met; others have favored their regional museums or contemporary art collections. Meanwhile, its core function -- offering visitors a collection of the 'best of the best' -- is challenged by what former director Philippe de Montebello has referred to dispargingly as ultra-nationalists bent on destroying the universal cultural mission of the great museums. (Translated: countries like Greece and Turkey would like their pilfered art back, please.) It's not surprising that Gross didn't win the cooperation of Met authorities for his work on this book, and almost certainly it's being scoured (as I type) by various attorneys for people who would love to sue Gross for libel. (They probably won't succeed; his most outrageous insights into the characters of folks like Oscar and Annette de la Renta seem to be well-documented.)

Gross's specialty is taking readers behind the scenes at high-profile yet secretive Manhattan institutions just like the Met -- the world of modeling or the white-glove co-op apartments like that of 740 Park Avenue, for instance. At first, the museum world strikes the reader as a bit of a departure for him, until you realize that for centuries, the patrons and purchasers of art (if not the artists themselves) have always treated it as a means to an end. For the Medicis, for instance, hiring great Florentine artists up to and including Michelangelo was a way to placate the church (frescoes and altarpieces helped ease the pain of having to deal with usurious bankers) and boost their public image (how wonderful to have a saint who looked just like young Piero...) So when it came time for Gilded Age New York to try and match -- and preferably exceed -- the Europeans at the collecting game, what would be more natural than the fact that they would want to create a showcase institution? And so was born the Met.

Gross is at his strongest and (to me, at least) his most interesting when he chronicles the interminable tugs of war between the trustees, donors and curators and the city authorities over the institution's core mission. Was the museum's goal simply to make insiders feel self-important or was it also to create in the public a sense of what great art was and could be? The Met, which has always relied on public funding, has also always wrestled with the degree to which it is willing to bow to a more populist approach, as Gross deftly shows, starting with his survey of the furious debate over whether or not to open the institution's doors on a Sunday -- the only day the hoi polloi had free and on which they could realistically be expected to visit. Gross shows how a similar struggle between serving the public and catering to wealthy donors and trustees has continued to this day, in everything from its admissions policies to the way it displays its works. Frequent (ordinary) Met-goers are likely to finish this feeling somewhat irritated and patronized by the elite who govern the institution.

Gross tackles the Met's larger than life personalities with a pen dipped in vitriol and a degree of enthusiasm that has probably caused several coronaries among his targets and set skeletons rattling in closets as enthusiastically as former Met director Thomas Hoving once made the mummies dance. Alas, some of the scandalous details he brings to light pique his curiosity to such a great extent that he gets carried away by them, sometimes at the expense of more thought-provoking material about the museum itself. After a while, the titillating gossip was entertaining, but took up pages that I would have preferred to see filled with equally chatty and gossipy recounting of how these collectors approached their roles as trustees. Sometimes, alas, the personalities overwhelmed the bigger picture, and while Gross's gossip is guaranteed to have le tout Manhattan buzzing, it doesn't always shed enough light on museum governance to justify its inclusion.

This is tied to a more significant shortcoming. While Gross gives the reader tantalizing glimpses of the ways in which the museum fills (or fails to deliver on) its core artistic mission, it is the personalities and not the institution that are at the heart of the book. That's not surprising -- people are always livelier subjects than buildings or impersonal entities -- the moments when Gross does address some of these issues, such as the Met's reluctance to display works of living artists, the problematic pedigrees of many antiquities in its collection and the debate over deaccessioning objects (museum-speak for selling), are among the strongest but are also usually cut short. Too often the question of what makes a great collection -- personal or museum -- is pushed to the back burner in favor of more gossip about the people doing the collecting and curating. I'd have loved to know, for instance, whether Diana Vreeland ever outlined a curatorial philosophy for the Costume Institute she helped to create in its current form, and could gladly have done without some of the details of the society matrons banding together to pay her salary, one small example among many.

More broadly, readers who aren't familiar with art and the art market, reeling off the lists of objects various trustees and donors handed over to the Met (or, in some cases, that the Met sought and didn't get) becomes wearing; there's little there to explain why certain objects were sought after, how museums approach their curatorial role, etc. It's a bit like wandering into the Met itself without one of Philippe de Montebello's tape-recorded guides to the collection and trying to make sense of the whole thing. When Gross does tackle this, he does so with a wonderful eye for the telling anecdote and the hilarious detail, as in the vivid and hilarious saga of how one wealthy Jewish widow, once snubbed by the museum establishment, later had the same curators literally tripping over each other to woo her as a donor once they realized what a magnificent collection she and her late husband had accumulated over the years.

It's that kind of material that makes this book another truly great yarn in his series of books devoted to the doings (and misdeeds) of Manhattan's self-anointed elite. This one just happens to be set against the backdrop of the social climbing that goes on as the city's nouveau riche set their sights on joining one of the Met's acquisition committees or other boards. While I can understand the Met's reluctance to put themselves at Gross's mercy -- imagine what scandals he could have unearthed with unrestricted access?? -- their failure to do so, together with the examples Gross lists of the ways in which the Met still acts as if it were a private club, raises once again the very serious issue of just how accountable they are to the non-elite: those of us who aren't millionaire or billionaire art collectors.

This isn't the definitive warts-and-all book on the Met, for the reasons given above. (Which are also the reasons that I've rated it four stars, rather than five stars.) But with summer fast-approaching, it's a wonderful book to tote to Central Park and read sitting on the Great Lawn while gazing at the vast bulk of the Met on the horizon. Alternatively, take it to the beach and read while sipping a daiquiri and marveling, yet again, at the follies of those who believe that great wealth or pedigree confers upon them great wisdom and judgment. If you're looking for a historic view of the link between art and commerce, try the marvelous Medici Money: Banking, Metaphysics, and Art in Fifteenth-Century Florence (Enterprise), an immensely readable history. For insight into the perennial debate over who owns art, try Loot: The Battle over the Stolen Treasures of the Ancient World, a book that is just as lively and a bit more focused on the art and less on the gossip of the art world. The Ephemeral Museum: Old Master Paintings and the Rise of the Art Exhibition is a scholarly look at what makes a museum; while excellent, it's a far more ponderous read. Another glimpse of the Met is given by Calvin Tomkins in Merchants and Masterpieces: The Story of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, whose credentials as a surveyor of the art scene are far more solid than Gross's but who, as Gross points out, subjected his own book about the Met to review by the museum's honchos -- a journalistic no-no that would/should lead readers to question its objectivity about the institution itself.

This is an extraordinary book from an extraordinary writer. I grew up ten blocks from the Met and spent my childhood being dragged there against my will, but I was still in awe of the building, the collection, and the many countries and cultures I was exposed to through art.

The solid exterior of Hunt's main building gives the appearance of order, quiet, perfection and harmony, yet inside there is a fascinating world of great egos, money, power, and hundreds of ghosts, not all of them nice ones.

Gross takes us through the ages, from the post civil war moguls who founded the museum, to the new tycoons of the present age. It is a vast tale, but one which Gross weaves with his usual clipped style, throwing in colorful tidbits along the way.

This is a scholarly book which does not read like one. That is its greatest asset. I now know a great deal about this mysterious institution, and I'm happy to have learned so much in so short a time, and in such a pleasant way.


Charles Avery Fisher
New York, NY

This is a fascinating glimpse into an amazing museum and into a life that most of us would have no chance to ever be a part of. What strikes me most is not the incredible amount of money and privilege but the owning of paintings that I know and have seen at The Met- the stories behind many of them having once been hung in someone's apartment. It's just hard to take in. The fact that someone needs generations of connections to be part of this world. The politicking makes politics look like nothing.

The details and stories are so rich. I can't imagine how long it took to research this book. Having just finished reading it last night I am dying to take a trip to NYC now.

Now, the Kindle version is very disappointing. There are countless typos and information left out. A painting sold for "%&@"... what does that mean?? How much did it sell for? Or someone is worth "si^*%^^" million dollars. Huh? Or a name will appear as characters I can't even find here on my keyboard. Or the new wing cost "-*^^" million dollars. It was incredibly frustrating.

Does this book deliver the goods? Alas not. Let's face it, a biography of the Met could be, would be one of the most exciting biographies of an institution. However, in the hands of Michael Gross, the book reads like a series of gossip columns strung together. Some of the stories should be as exciting as anything...how Dietrich Bothmer was able to secure a priceless collection of Greek vases from the Hearst Corporation or how the Museum out-negotiated the Smithsonian in obtaining the ancient Dendur Temple from Egypt - while the 6 day war between Egypt and Israel was raging.

But what the book lacks is excitement for the art...why certain pieces meant "everything" to certain curators or industrialists. In so many instances, Michael Gross overlooks the critical issue - how owning and exhibiting certain masterpieces of mankind's most exhilarating artistic creations moves the soul, forces us to rethink the very meaning of human existence and importance. As an example, the book says almost nothing about the 'Unicorn in the Garden' tapestries in the Cloisters (The Medieval Branch of the Met in upper Manhattan), We get just a few words how John Rockefeller bought them for about a million dollars and then a sentence or two that suggests they were casually donated to the Museum. These are the same tapestries that are unmatched anywhere in the world but for Paris in the Cluny Museum - the "Lady and the Unicorn" set. People will travel from all corners of the globe to the Cloisters to get a glimpse of these, to be awed by these, to try to comprehend the symbolism of these. But that story seems unimportant to the author of this book.

I much preferred Thomas Hoving's "Making the Mummies Dance." Sure, this ex-Director of the Met is a controversial figure. I suppose he would beg, borrow or steal for the art. It means that much...to him...to offer art treasures to the public at large rather than have such wonderful pieces hidden away in private collections. Mr. Hoving's book makes us curious to go to the Museum, indeed compelled to go there, to complete our education in the humanities.

In contrast, Michael Gross seems more interested in the back-door deals and the ego driven curators and donors rather than the art itself.

For the facts...the book has a lot to say. For the passion...the book is empty.

I found this well-researched book an interesting look into the history and workings of the Metropolitan Museum, so I'm grateful I read this book and therefore learned a lot about the world of art and art museums.

And yet I'm disappointed with ROGUES' GALLERY. Here's why: So many characters come and go I couldn't bond with any of them, even though Mr. Gross fills his book with many short, interesting biographies; so I suspect I didn't bond partly because the characters are, for the most part, depicted coldly and unfavorably. I got the strong feeling that Mr. Gross is biased against the wealthy and wrote his book - though certainly not a hatchet-job - with a clear agenda.

(I've worked as a chauffeur so I've had a lot of first-hand experience with the wealthy of New York.)

I'm sure many of the people who helped make the Metropolitan Museum what it is today were decent people with a strong love of art, some of whom donated their collections so the public - the non-rich - could enjoy them. I would have liked to have met those generous people. If I had this book would be a fairer, more-accurate history, and therefore a better one.

The author has done much digging and come up with a lot of interesting information. Unfortunately, the great bulk of it concerns not substantive material about art, art history, the labors of the Met's curators, details of the museum's acquisitions, and the like. Rather, what you have here is essentially a compilation of trivia and gossip about the ambitions and maneuverings of the rich arrivistes and vulgar social climbers who populate the Met's board or seek to get on it. If you are the sort who enjoys People magazine or Vanity Fair, you will likely enjoy this tiresome book.

As an avid museum goer, I found the history of America's most important museum fascinating. I live in New York, and I go the Met on a semi-frequent basis. The trustees generally do not sound like the most likable people. Especially the most recent ones. While the original founders like J.P Morgan were inspired, at least partially, by national pride and patriotism, the more recent trustees are much more interested in social climbing. However, I, as Jane Q museum goer, still appreciate the results of their efforts.

Two quibbles. First, the author clearly has an opinion on the restitution issue, and he presents his opinion as fact. For a more balanced treatment of the issue try Loot by Sharon Waxman. She presents both sides of the debate in a much more balanced manner. Definitely, there have been major injustices in the history of art acquisition. The Elgin marbles, for example, clearly mean a lot more to the Greeks than they do to the British. And modern looting destroys archeological sites, which is a permanent loss for humanity as a whole.

But some of the source countries are more than a bit ingenuous when it comes to restitution. Turkey and Egypt, for instance, are far more interested in tourism dollars and the revenue from traveling exhibits than they are in the objects themselves. And they want everything back. Period. The source countries already have much more than they can afford to display or take care of. They are swimming in artifacts. Zahi Hawass, Egypt's vice minister of culture, views allowing more archeological excavations as a concession in exchange for return of already excavated objects. Even though Egypt keeps 100% of the objects excavated. The end result of their actions, if they had their way, would be that museum goers, scholars, students, and artists who cannot afford to travel or pay the admission to the very expensive traveling exhibitions won't have the opportunity to see ancient art. And their own museums are, for the most part, empty. Except for tourists.

Second, if the author thinks that the permanent collection halls are empty, I suggest he try going there on a Saturday or Sunday afternoon. They may not be quite as mobbed as the temporary exhibits. But they're far from empty. Certainly nowhere near as empty as the archeological museums in Turkey.

That said, the book was fascinating, and made me look at various objects in the museum in a new light. And if he writes a book about any of the other New York Museums, I would definitely buy it.

As noted elsewhere Rogue's Gallery, by Michael Gross, is a history of New York City's Metropolitan Museum of Art.

The book covers the entire history of the Metropolitan and is dividing into sections that highlight the dominant drivers during each era. It probably isn't a true history of the institution per se but more of a social history of the major individuals (Directors, Presidents and benefactors) who dominated. It is fair to say that most are discussed in a very gossipy manner and the reader may well enjoy discovering how their "betters" behave. A number of important issues, such as removing artifacts from developing countries and handling art previously looted by the Nazis, are covered clearly but the emphasis remains on individuals behaving questionably in those regards.

Michael Gross is a very competent author and brings the characters vividly to life. The book reads well and the material is well organized. Given the wide time frame covered it can also be said that the book doesn't "bog" down along the way.

The negative to the book is that there are no heroes or even morally decent individuals with whom readers can relate. Most of the major characters are portrayed as highly flawed. Where the author says anything good about a character he almost inevitably balances it by saying something bad about them. I don't deny that reading all of this negative gossip isn't compelling. Its just that at the end you're left slightly depressed and in need of a bath!

A strong start but that is all. Lot and lots of flash but no substance. As the story moves into the current era, it starts to read like a tabloid. I was very disappointed.

Which is exactly what I expected and wanted. I read at the same time as Artful Partners: The Artful Partners: Secret Association of Bernard Berenson and Joseph Duveen, which I liked a bit more as a read. But both were good and covered different ground.