ABSTRACT
This introduction presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book discusses that the earliest known monographic exhibition was not in France but rather in a London gallery, and its purpose was very different: this solo exhibition was staged by the artist himself in an attempt to ruffle the establishment critics by pitting their assessment of his oeuvre against popular opinion. It uses monographic exhibitions to promote contemporary artists as national role models. The book demonstrates the Poussin retrospective of 1960, monographic exhibitions served to resurrect artists from the dustbins of museum storage and put them in scholarly and public circulation so that different academic positions on their art could be debated. It examines that the Duccio exhibition in Siena allowed scholars to recognise what kinds of study were needed in order to establish the oeuvre of the master in the monographic exhibition on an Italian primitive.
