Rogues’ Gallery by Michael Gross

American museums are peculiar institutions. Unlike their counterparts in Europe which are owned by the government or royalty, American museums were founded and funded by ambitious citizens.  And that fact alone influences acquisions, staffing, exhibitions, expansion, location, educational programming, and the membership of every museum in the country, especially the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City.

In Rogues’ Gallery, Michael Gross examines the Met through the prism of those generous and often loathsome benefactors, from the robber barons to the present day Page Six personalities. You will never look at the Wrightsman Galleries in the same way again.

Michael Gross’s previous book examined the wealthy and powerful in their preferred residential habitat, 740 Park Avenue. In Rogue’s Gallery he scruitinizes some of those same folks in their  institutional domain.

And it is a remarkable institution. The Met is the largest museum in the western hemisphere with 46 million visitors annually and 2 million art objects on 13 acres in NYC’s Central Park.

The Met is a member of the Cultural Institutions Group (CIG) which are institutions that occupy either state or city owned land or buildings. The first CIG was the American Museum of Natural History which was created in 1869. The Met was established not long thereafter. Most CIG’s have all or a portion of their routine maintenance and capital expenditures paid for by the city. As a CIG these institutions also must have “recommended” admission fee . (The Whitney and the MOMA, for example,  charge a fixed admission fee as they are not CIG museums.)

This unusual public-private partnership makes for tense and entertaining moments between the arrogant Met and the lowly government officials on whom they depend. 

Of course, the tension between NYC officials and the Met is nothing compared to the conflict between the director & his board or the board members themselves. In fighting, is an Olympic-level sport at the Met

If you are interested in the early history of NYC and robber barons, you will enjoy the first half of the book. If you find the modern era more to your taste, skim the first part and dig in at the Thomas Hoving years. The book reads like more like a series of New York magazine articles (for whom Mr. Gross is a frequent contributor) rather than a cohesive narrative, but the dirt is dishy.