ABSTRACT

This edited collection traces the impact of monographic exhibitions on the discipline of art history from the first examples in the late eighteenth century through the present. Roughly falling into three genres (retrospectives of living artists, retrospectives of recently deceased artists, and monographic exhibitions of Old Masters), specialists examine examples of each genre within their social, cultural, political, and economic contexts. Exhbitions covered include Nathaniel Hone’s 1775 exhibition, the Holbein Exhibition of 1871, the Courbet retrospective of 1882, Titian's exhibition in Venice, Poussin's Louvre retrospective of 1960, and El Greco's anniversaty exhibitions of 2014.

chapter |9 pages

Introductory

Monographic exhibitions and the history of art

part I|55 pages

Living artists’ retrospectives

chapter 1|13 pages

Nathaniel Hone’s 1775 exhibition

The first single-artist retrospective 1

chapter 3|16 pages

Braque, Gris, Léger

Cubism in Switzerland in 1933

chapter 4|12 pages

Bacon at Grand Palais

Echoes and influences

part III|68 pages

Old Master monographic exhibitions from before World War II

part IV|46 pages

Old Master monographic exhibitions after World War II

chapter 14|16 pages

Poussin in perspective

The Louvre retrospective 1960 above and beyond*

chapter 15|11 pages

Rembrandt and the polemical monographic exhibition

‘Rembrandt. The Master and His Workshop’ in Berlin, Amsterdam, and London in 1991–92

part V|51 pages

Monographic exhibitions and the twenty-first century

chapter 19|13 pages

Past institution’s future

Monographic exhibitions and Tate Modern’s make-up

chapter 20|10 pages

The rise of the monographic exhibition

The political economy of contemporary art

chapter |10 pages

Afterword

Learning from the artist’s monograph: Anarchy, quality, and the ultimate noumenon

chapter |7 pages

Epilogue

Some curatorial thoughts on the monographic exhibition