Los Angeles is a world capital in today's global age, and the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA), the largest, most comprehensive art museum in the western United States, plays a central role in the city's dynamic cultural life. LACMA is the youngest of the nation's leading encyclopedic art institutions, yet its collections have rapidly expanded to include more than 100,000 works of art, from prehistory to contemporary civilization, from every part of the world, and from all media, including painting and sculpture, prints and drawings, decorative arts, costume and textiles, and photography. This useful guide features full-color reproductions of works from each of the museum's eleven departments, including its world-famous collections of Islamic art and South and Southeast Asian art. The texts are written by the museum's curators and are accompanied by an informative introduction to the collections' history. From the magnificently intricate Ardabil Carpet to David Hockney's vast and circuitous Mulholland Drive, from pre-Columbian Andean textiles to costumes from Hollywood's golden era, LACMA's collections reflect the tremendous diversity of the city that it serves. 192 illustrations, 184 in color. Read Less