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Francis Henry Taylor

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Nationality
  
American

Name
  
Francis Taylor

Role
  
Museum curator


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Born
  
1903
Philadelphia

Died
  
1957, Worcester, Massachusetts, United States

Education
  
University of Pennsylvania

Books
  
Pierpont Morgan as Collector and Patron, 1837-1913

General Eisenhower at the Met


Francis Henry Taylor (1903–1957) was a distinguished American museum director and curator, heading the Metropolitan Museum of Art for fifteen years.

Contents

He was born in Philadelphia, and started his career as a curator at the Philadelphia Museum of Art. In 1931 he became director of the Worcester Art Museum Massachusetts, before joining the Metropolitan Museum in New York City as its director in 1940.

Sometimes described as a showman, he developed a theory of the museum as an institution of active public service, not simply a repository of art. He was credited with doubling the number of people visiting the museum, up to 2.3 million a year.

Books

His writings include:

  • Babel's Tower: The Dilemma of the Modern Museum (1945)
  • The Taste of Angels: A History of Art Collecting from Rameses to Napoleon (1948, reprint 1955) - ASIN B0007HX8Y6
  • Fifty Centuries of Art (1954)
  • Pierpont Morgan as Collector and Patron, 1837-1913 (1957), Pierpont Morgan Library - ASIN B0007DVP6I
  • References

    Francis Henry Taylor Wikipedia