The History of the Art Museum: Looking back 200 years
An art historian by training, Dr. Tina Rivers Ryan is currently Assistant Curator at the Buffalo AKG Art Museum in Buffalo, New York. She holds a BA from Harvard, three master’s Degrees, and a PhD from Columbia, and has taught classes on art at institutions including the Museum of Modern Art, the Pratt Institute, and Columbia University, where she was one of the top-ranked instructors of the introduction to art history, “Art Humanities: Masterpieces of Western Art.” A regular critic for Artforum, her writing has also appeared in periodicals such as Art in America and Art Journal, and in catalogs published by museums including The Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Walker Art Center.
Overview
Art museums as we know them today didn’t always exist. In this talk, Dr. Tina Rivers Ryan will tell the story of how art museums evolved over hundreds of years, and propose how they might continue evolving in the near future.
I have always loved visiting Art museums, and Ryan’s talk will only make my future visits that much better. It was fascinating to hear about the evolution of the art museum in general, and the details about a few very famous museums in particular. I am thankful for philanthropists, such as Vanderbilt and Mellon, who made decisions that have so greatly benefited the public. I look forward to visiting the Albright-Knox Art Gallery in the future, and walking through an exhibit curated by Ryan.