Tastemakers, Collectors, and Patrons explores the dynamic landscape of American art collecting in the United States from the late eighteenth through the early twentieth centuries. The geographic range of collecting histories presented in this publication spans the country, including the Eastern Seaboard, the Old South, the Midwest, and the West Coast.
In this volume, the contributing scholars investigate individual collectors and collectives whose missions to create regional and national collecting communities in the United States encouraged civic philanthropy in the fine arts. Key themes—such as the creation of an “American” school distinct from, yet rooted in, European tradition as well as the trials of forming publicly supported museums—reverberate throughout the publication. Essays examine early patrons, collectors, and museum founders; the impact of sectionalism, the Civil War, and reform on American collecting efforts; and the innovative and entrepreneurial spirit of artists, collectors, and dealers at the turn of the century and beyond. Each section foregrounds different issues, underscoring the complexity of the historical, cultural, and political environments in which collections of American art were formed. Together, the volume traces the evolving taste and market for American art in the United States.
In addition to the editors, the contributors include Lynne D. Ambrosini, Sarah Cash, Samantha Deutch, Julie McGinnis Flanagan, Ilene Susan Fort, Barbara Dayer Gallati, Lance Humphries, Elizabeth Mankin Kornhauser, Sophie Lynford, Kimberly Orcutt, and Richard Saunders.
Contents
List of Illustrations
Preface
Samantha Deutch and Margaret R. Laster
Acknowledgments
Samantha Deutch
Introduction: Collecting American Art During the Long Nineteenth Century
Linda S. Ferber
Part I
Crafting a Cultural Identity: Early Tastemakers Collectors, and Patrons
1. The Patronage of Robert Gilmor, Jr.: The Role of a Merchant Prince in Defining an American School of Art
Lance Humphries
2. An Art Museum for Gotham: The Luman Reed Collection and the New- York Gallery of the Fine Arts
Margaret R. Laster
3. Power Failure: The American Art- Union Experiment
Kimberly Orcutt
4. Daniel Wadsworth and Elizabeth Hart Jarvis Colt: Connecticut’s Leading Collectors of American Landscape Art
Elizabeth Mankin Kornhauser
Part II
Turbulence of Taste in Mid- Nineteenth- Century America
5. Nicholas Longworth: Early Midwestern Activist Art Patron
Lynne D. Ambrosini
6. Patrons of Reform: Collecting the American Pre- Raphaelites
Sophie Lynford
7. “Encouraging American Genius”: The Corcoran Gallery of Art, from Private Collection to the Nation’s Art Museum
Sarah Cash
Part III
Promoting, Advancing, and Collecting American Art at the Turn of the Century and Beyond
8. Samuel Untermyer: The Man Who Bought Whistler’s Falling Rocket
Barbara Dayer Gallati
9. “Caveat Emptor”: The Trade in American Historical Portraits in the Early Twentieth Century
Richard Saunders
10. A Curator’s Perspective: William Preston Harrison, Childe Hassam, and a Quest for Legacy in California
Ilene Susan Fort
11. The Grand Central Art Galleries: Expanding the Taste and Market for American Art in the 1920s and 1930s
Julie McGinnis Flanagan
Notes
References
List of Contributors
Index
Height:254
Width:203
Spine:23
Weight:1247.00