Known for his sensitive installations as well as his bold publicity stunts, he increased the membership and attendance figures of both institutions exponentially, and also added significant works to their permanent collections across the board.

Rathbone added key works to the permanent collection in St. Louis, including Winslow Homer's The Country School, David Smith's Cockfight, Montorsoli's Reclining Pan, and a Sumerian bull's head.

He was also responsible for many popular exhibitions, some of regional interest, such as Mississippi Panorama and Westward the Way, others international, such as the 1949 blockbuster Treasures from Berlin, which attracted an average of 12,634 visitors per day.

Rathbone staged unprecedented loan exhibitions such as European Art of Our Time and The Age of Rembrandt, renovated more than fifty galleries, and increased the annual sale of publications by 1000 per cent.

As temporary head of the paintings department while also serving as the museum's director, he added notable works to the collection such as Rosso Fiorentino's Dead Christ with Angels, Claude Monet's La Japonaise, Giovanni Battista Tiepolo's Time Unveiling Truth, and the anonymous fifteenth-century Flemish Martyrdom of Saint Hippolytus.

[1] Arriving at the MFA in the mid-fifties, Rathbone was the first director to build their collection of modern and contemporary art, including the museum's first Picasso oil, Standing Figure, 1908, first painting by Edvard Munch, The Voice, and first Jackson Pollock, Number 10, 1949.