“The Conquest of the Irrational: Salvador Dalí and the Limits of Surrealism”

Wednesday, Oct. 27, 2004 @ 7:30 p.m.
Willard Smith Library

Michael R. Taylor
Philadelphia Museum of Art

Michael R. Taylor is Associate Curator and Acting Head of Modern and Contemporary Art, Philadelphia Museum of Art. He holds MA degrees from the University of Edinburgh, Scotland and from Courtauld Institute of Art, London where he also earned a Ph.D. in the History of Art.

Dr. Taylor has been Exhibition Curator of the following recent exhibits at the Philadelphia Museum of Art: “Giorgio de Chirico and the Myth of Ariadne,” November 1, 2002 - January 5, 2003; “Museum Studies 6: Richard Hamilton,” August 31 - November 3, 2002. Recreation by Richard Hamilton of Marcel Duchamp’s Large Glass in the form of a topographical map containing typographical renderings of the French artist's notes and diagrams alongside the elements to which they relate; “Pennsylvania Impressionism,” November 15, 2001 - March 30, 2002.

Dr. Taylor’s publications include “Salvador Dalí’s Cardinal, Cardinal!” Exhibition catalogue, Collecting Modernism: European Masterworks from the Munson-Williams-Proctor Arts Institute, Utica, New York: The Munson-Williams-Proctor Arts Institute, 2005; “New York Dada,” Catalogue essay for the exhibition Dada: Zurich, Berlin, Köln, Hannover, New York, Paris, Washington, D.C.: National Gallery of Art, in conjunction with the Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris, and The Museum of Modern Art, New York, 2004; “The Fountain and the Brass Bowl: Duchamp, Stieglitz, and the Last Days of 291,” Catalogue essay for the
exhibition Mirrorical Returns: Marcel Duchamp and 20th Century Art, Osaka, Japan: The National Museum of Art, 2004; “From Munich to Modernism: John Covert, New York Dada, and the Real Smell of War” - Catalogue essay for the exhibition John Covert Rediscovered, University Park, Pennsylvania: Palmer Museum of Art and the Pennsylvania State University Press, 2003; Giorgio de Chirico and the Myth of Ariadne - Exhibition catalogue, Philadelphia: Philadelphia Museum of Art; London: Merrell Publishers, 2002.