Author Description

With the opening in 1987 of the Lila Acheson Wallace Wing, the Metropolitan Museum at long last had a permanent gallery in which to display its Modern design and architecture collection. This space has made it possible for objects that had not been on view for several decades to be shown on a rotating basis, although they can only impart a hint of the remarkably rich collection that the Museum has amassed over a century. This book presents an extraordinary number of masterpieces from the collection that we would never have the space or ability to display simultaneously. Although not a catalogue raisonné, this book does reveal the vast range and depth of material that the Museum has acquired, most of it in the design and architecture collection of the Department of Twentieth Century Art but a great deal of it also drawn from other parts of the Museum—the American Wing, The Costume Institute, the Department of European Sculpture and Decorative Arts, and the Department of Prints and Photographs. It is divided into sections and chronologically organized. Each section begins with an introductory essay for that time period, followed by numerous color reproductions of both overall views and details of these works of art. [This book was originally published in 1990 and has gone out of print. This edition is a print-on-demand version of the original book.] Published by The Metropolitan Museum of Art/Distributed by Yale University Press