Description
Book SynopsisOver the years as the director of the St. Louis Art Museum and later the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, Perry T. Rathbone kept a journal. These are his unguarded and spontaneous expressions of the moment, not meant for publication—at least not in his lifetime.
Alone in his study at the end of a day, Rathbone wrote in a large, unlined sketchbook, unloading whatever was fresh on his mind. Whether a meeting at the museum, a business trip, or a party he had just returned from, he wrote about whom he met, what he thought of them, the ambiance, the conversation, the art, the wine, and the food.
Rathbone’s journals provide a window onto an era of seismic cultural change seen through the eyes of an art czar and a tastemaker. There are meetings with artists such as William de Kooning, Edward Hopper, Andrew Wyeth, Isamu Noguchi, and Alexander Calder, men of letters such as T.S. Eliot and Aldous Huxley. There are candid impressions of the co
