A native New Yorker who lives not far from the Met Cloisters in Upper Manhattan, Mr. Eckstein started with a hit list of 150 museums that eventually whittled down to the 75 featured in the book. He spent just over a year visiting the institutions to photograph and sketch them and collect stories from curators, guides and visitors.
His illustrations capture the feeling of walking through a gallery or pausing to contemplate a work of art such as John Singleton Copley’s “Watson and the Shark” from the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston (his wife, the artist Tamar Stone, is the woman reading the wall label to the right of the painting). While working on the book, Mr. Eckstein said, “I would take pictures, do a little sketch, and then I would do the illustrations in my studio and try to make the museum as sexy, as exciting as it could be. .”
This conversation has been edited for length and clarity.
“Sexy” and “exciting” may not be the first descriptions of all museums.
I enjoy going to museums so much and I wasn’t a museum goer, say, 20 years ago. I used to go to museums, but now I’m obsessed with museums. I’m so excited to see what I’m about to see. I’ve seen more art in the last two years than most people see in a lifetime. My head is full of inspiration.
As a traveler, when you go to a city, do you always go to museums?
It’s one of the things I’m going to do, yes. One of the first things I’ll check out is what’s going on in the way of exhibits and shows to make sure there’s nothing I’m missing.
Have you ever discovered a museum that you really loved?
For the book, I went to Los Angeles with a list of museums I wanted to check out, not knowing there was this one museum called the Museum of Jurassic Technology, and that became my favorite museum. I can’t say much about it except to say it’s a complete mystery and sharing more might ruin the experience for someone else. It’s one of the most impressive museums I’ve been to. I like to say it’s like the Andy Kaufman of museums.
There is certainly a wide variety of museums in the book, from the Museum of Bad Art to the Metropolitan Museum of Art. How did they get on the list?
There were many factors that made a museum make the cut. One of them would just be entertainment value, making sure there is a museum for everyone and understanding that not everyone will have a taste for fine art. I wanted everyone to see that there is a museum out there for them.
Your own encounters with museums didn’t get off to a good start.
As a kid, I think everyone who’s taken to their first museum has a bit of that resistance kicking and screaming. In my case, my mom took me to the Smithsonian in Washington, DC, and it was kind of dry and there was a lot of reading and it wasn’t exactly exciting.
What can make a child turn from a museum lover?
I think their first exciting museum experience in most cases is the American Museum of Natural History. There is less reading, it is too dark to read. I think museums like this quickly turn a child’s perspective on what is fun. There is nothing more exciting than seeing a stuffed grizzly bear just 12 feet away.
For most of the museums you provide a story about someone’s personal connection to it, like the woman whose father who worked on cars took her to a Van Gogh exhibit at the Detroit Institute of Arts.
The stories were very important to the whole book because they bring it to life. Art in museums, that’s what people expect, but what people don’t expect is that all this drama happens in museums, different things that could happen to people and their relationships.
How did you choose these stories?
It was a difficult decision to say which are the best stories, but of course some were similar. You can have so many stories of people proposing in a museum.
Is it popular to propose in a museum?
Is. At MASS MoCA there is this room that is a light installation. And it’s lit in a way that makes the horizon disappear like you’re floating on a cloud.
James Turrell?
Yes. And everyone who enters this room is asked to wear protective shoes to put on their shoes, because the whole room is a work of art. People who provide protection know that someone is ready to propose when they ask for a third piece to put on one of their knees.
The Frick Collection explained that their carpet was worn in some places, so they could tell which were the most popular pieces of art, by the wear and tear.
You include the Mütter Medical Museum in Philadelphia, and I was a bit startled by your description of the “jars of liquid specimens.” I guess it’s instruments and stuff like that.
Well, you should be petrified. It’s like a “Fear Factor” museum. But if you have a medical history, it’s something to go for. And it is a museum, for obvious reasons, that children enjoy going to.
Be disgusted and scared?
Exactly. For most kids. For me, I’d rather go to the car museum, but that’s because I’m crazy.
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