The president and CEO of the Houston Museum of Natural Science (HMNS) for nearly 20 years, Joel A. Bartsch is a mineralogist with experience directing museums, curating exhibits, and creating educational programs for the public for over four decades. To share the museum’s contents with a broader audience, Joel Bartsch published Masterpieces of the Mineral World: Treasures from the Houston Museum of Natural Science (Masterpieces of the Mineral World).
Bartsch, Wendell E. Wilson, and Mark Mauthner authored Masterpieces of the Mineral World. Rather than relying on text to describe each piece derived from the HMNS’ Cullen Hall of Gems and Minerals, photographs taken by Jeffrey Scovil allow readers to observe them from multiple angles. The photographs emulate real-world visitors' ability to view the crystals from all sides through each specimen's glass case.
Bartsch curated the photographs within Masters of the Mineral World, containing over 150 across 264 pages, presented as a hardcover coffee table book. Harry N. Abrams Published the book in November 2004.
