Passion and Patronage:

Great Collectors and Collections
Impressionism to Modern Art

From van Gogh’s notorious supporter and subject Dr. Paul Gachet to Bob and Ethel Scull, the controversial champions of Pop Art, the seminar explores the Who, What and Why of collecting.  

We will first explore collecting Impressionism, which appealed to a coterie of European, American, and Japanese collectors as disparate as a Swedenborgian Missionary from Basutoland, a French margarine magnate, a wealthy couple from Naugatuck on a Paris honeymoon, and a young Japanese aristocrat educated at Rutgers University.  

Then, we will move on to collecting Modern art.  Who was the young civil engineer with thirty Chagalls who dreamed of a museum of Jewish Art in Moscow in 1920? Who was the twenty-eight year-old costume jewelry salesman who borrowed $7000 and used the New York telephone directory to buy one of Picasso’s most famous paintings?  

We will close the seminar with the “Why” of collecting: Money, Power, and Beauty.