Why Art Museums?

Alexander Dorner (1893–1957) became Director of the Rhode Island School of Design Museum in 1938, and immediately began a radical makeover of the galleries, drawing on theories he had developed in collaboration with modernist artists during his directorship of the Provinzialmuseum in Hanover, Germany. Dorner''s saturated environments sought to inspire wonderment and awe, immersing the museum visitor in the look and feel of a given period. Music, literature, and gallery talks (offered through a pioneering audio system) attempted to recreate the complex worlds in which the objects once operated. Why Art Museums? considers Dorner''s legacy and influence in art history, education, and museum practice. It includes the first publication of a 1938 speech made by Dorner at Harvard as well as galleys of Dorner''s unpublished manuscript, “