Publication date:
19 May 2016Length of book:
306 pagesPublisher
University of Delaware PressISBN-13: 9781611496161
Modern Art on Display: The Legacies of Six Collectors is structured as a sequence of case studies that pair collectors of modern art with artists they particularly favored: Duncan Phillips and Augustus Vincent Tack; Albert Barnes and Chaim Soutine; Albert Eugene Gallatin and Juan Gris; Lillie Bliss and Paul Cézanne; Etta Cone and Henri Matisse; G. David Thompson and Paul Klee. The case studies are linked by a thematic focus on the integral relationship between the collectors’ acquired knowledge about the work they amassed and their innovative display models. This focus brings a new perspective to the history of collecting and interpreting modern art in America for nearly half a century (1915-1960). By examining the books the collectors themselves read and analyzing archival photographs of their displays, the author makes a case for the historical significance of how the collectors presented the art they acquired before their collections were institutionalized.
K. Porter Aichele’s remarkable study, Modern Art on Display: The Legacies of Six Collectors, pairs each of her chosen collectors with an artist with whom he or she was particularly close, and through these examples, offers a careful analysis of unusually astute art collecting in the early 20th century. As she says herself, “this study develops the thesis that the savviest collectors of early twentieth-century art had more than financial means, keen instincts, and unflappable gumption; they had the desire and ambition to learn about the art they collected.”In a sense they became knowledgeable curators of their own collections. It is a captivating analysis, incorporating observation, research, and theory to show how these collectors formed a kind of collaboration with the artists through their choice of works to buy, and their efforts to understand modern art before it became popular. She delves into an analysis of the collectors’ ways of thinking about art based on what they read, what they lectured or wrote about, and how they displayed their collections. Dr. Aichele makes excellent use of both archival and published material, and has combined this research with her own sensitive observations, producing a highly readable and important study that will enlighten both scholarly audiences and the general reader interested in modern art.