A collection of European modernism works by late 19th- and early 20th-century masters such as Henri Matisse and Pablo Picasso is coming to Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art next spring. The artwork, on loan from New York’s Museum of Modern Art, belonged to the late William S. Paley, creator of the CBS radio and television networks.
Paley died in 1990 but not before he amassed a stockpile of highly regarded works such as Picasso’s Boy Leading a Horse (1905-06) and Matisse’s Odalisque With a Tambourine (1925-26). The collection, handpicked by Paley, was split between his Fifth Avenue apartment and CBS office, both in New York.
Until his death, the works seldom left the walls except “for certain loans made to enhance exhibitions at The Museum of Modern Art,” William Rubin, director emeritus of the museum’s Department of Painting and Sculpture wrote in the preface for a 1992 catalog that accompanied the traveling exhibition.
He bequeathed the works to the Museum of Modern Art with the stipulation that it would become a traveling exhibition with at least 20 destination museums in all parts of the country. Crystal Bridges will be the 20th museum to host it, said Diane Carroll, media relations manager for the Bentonville museum.
“We will offer the chance for the exhibition to be shown in our region,” Carroll said.
Dates for The William S. Paley Collection: A Taste for Modernism are March 15-July 8, 2014, in Crystal Bridges’ temporary exhibition space. The rendition of Paley’s collection that is coming to Arkansas will include paintings, sculptures, prints and drawings, she said. It’s currently on display at the Portland Museum of Art in Maine and will be there into September.
A Taste for Modernism includes eight works by Picasso and six by Matisse, as well as major pieces by Paul Cezanne, Paul Gauguin, Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Edouard Manet, Pierre Bonnard and Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec - “names that will be recognizable to our visitors,” Carroll said.
When Paley bought his first painting in the mid-1930s, “there were relatively few collectors of modern art - and nothing chic about possessing it,” Rubin wrote. The talents of Cezanne and Gauguin, dead for almost 30 years at the time, “were lesswell-known then to the general public than are many living artists today.”
Soon after he started his collection, Paley became a trustee for the museum and remained active for 50 years, serving as president, chairman and lastly chairman emeritus.
The timing for the collection’s visit couldn’t be better. It will follow, in the same space The Artists’ Eye: Georgia O’Keeffe and the AlfredStieglitz Collection, which runs Nov.9 through Feb. 3. Many of the artists featured in the Stieglitz collection - O’Keeffe, Arthur Dove, Mardsen Hartley and John Marin - had spent time in Europe around the turn of the century and came back to develop their own unique American version of modernism.
“This will offer additional insight into the modernism movement,” Carroll added. A full roster of programs are expected to accompany Paley’s collection including educational offerings and member previews.
Northwest Arkansas, Pages 7 on 06/24/2013