author
Joseph Breck
1885–1933
Drawn to art and history from an early age, he became a museum scholar who helped shape how medieval art was studied and displayed in the United States. His short career left a lasting mark on the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the founding of The Cloisters.
1 Audiobook
Handbook of the Minneapolis Institute of Arts With 143 Illustrations
by Joseph Breck, Harry B. (Harry Brandeis) Wehle
About the author
Born in Massachusetts in 1885, Joseph Breck studied art history at Harvard and showed an early interest in writing and art. He went on to build a career in museums at a time when American institutions were rapidly expanding their collections and scholarship.
Breck served as director of the Minneapolis Society of Fine Arts before joining the Metropolitan Museum of Art, where he became curator of decorative arts and later assistant director. He is especially remembered as the first director of The Cloisters, helping shape its collections, architecture, and gardens as a home for medieval art.
He also wrote and contributed to museum publications, combining scholarship with a gift for making objects and collections meaningful to the public. He died in 1933 at just 48, but his work remained closely tied to the early history of The Met and The Cloisters.