"Offering a congent overview of modern art since 1880, the works selected for this volume reflect the richness of the collection, which is distinguished by "masterworks" and less well-known yet equally pivotal examples of painting and sculptures. An anthology of texts drawn from the Museum's archives and publications accompanies the illustrations. These writings date from 1929 - an excerpt from the catalogue of the first loan exhibition, which featured the work of Cezanne, van Gogh, Gauguin, and Seurat - to 2002 - a test from the catalogue of a Gerhard Richter retrospective of that year. Spanning three quarters of a century, the explication of images reveals the fluctuating preferences and contingencies of history, while the diversity of voices range from the scholarly and art-historical to the poetic and personal. The result is a lively, diverse, and often surprising interpretation of a work of art."--BOOK JACKET.