The distinguished curator,critic, collector, art historian, and teacher William Rubin was a forceful presence for over two decades at The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) from the late 1960s through the 1980s. He was extraordinarily successful at acquiring for the collection such monuments of modern art as Pollock's One: Number 31, 1950 and Picasso's 1914 sheet-metal Guitar. The exhibitions he mounted as Chief Curator and later Director of the Department of Painting and Sculpture at the Museum--among them the unprecedented Pablo Picasso: A Retrospective---set a standard of curatorial excellence. A Curator's Quest is the story of the professional life of a pioneering curator who built the Modern's unparalleled collection, and a history of MoMA itself during that key period.

For anyone interested in the history and world of modern art, in connoisseurship and collecting, and in art scholarship in general, A Curator's Quest -- at once an indispensable addition to the history of modern art and a testament to William Rubin's life and achievements --is truly a publishing event.