Lillie P. Bliss
Encyclopedia
Patrón
Patrón is a luxury brand of tequila produced in Mexico and sold in hand-blown, individually numbered bottles.Made entirely from Blue Agave "piñas" , Patrón comes in five varieties: Silver, Añejo, Reposado, Gran Patrón Platinum and Gran Patrón Burdeos. Patrón also sells a tequila-coffee blend known...
. At the beginning of the 20th century, she was one of the leading collectors of modern art
Modern art
Modern art includes artistic works produced during the period extending roughly from the 1860s to the 1970s, and denotes the style and philosophy of the art produced during that era. The term is usually associated with art in which the traditions of the past have been thrown aside in a spirit of...
in New York. Being one of the lenders of the landmark Armory Show
Armory Show
Many exhibitions have been held in the vast spaces of U.S. National Guard armories, but the Armory Show refers to the 1913 International Exhibition of Modern Art that was organized by the Association of American Painters and Sculptors...
in 1913, she also contributed to other exhibitions raising public attention and awareness of modern art. In 1929 she played an essential role in the founding of the Museum of Modern Art
Museum of Modern Art
The Museum of Modern Art is an art museum in Midtown Manhattan in New York City, on 53rd Street, between Fifth and Sixth Avenues. It has been important in developing and collecting modernist art, and is often identified as the most influential museum of modern art in the world...
. After her death, 150 works of art from her collection served as a foundation to the museum and formed the basis of the in-house collection. These included works by artists such as Paul Cézanne
Paul Cézanne
Paul Cézanne was a French artist and Post-Impressionist painter whose work laid the foundations of the transition from the 19th century conception of artistic endeavour to a new and radically different world of art in the 20th century. Cézanne can be said to form the bridge between late 19th...
, Georges Seurat, Paul Gauguin
Paul Gauguin
Eugène Henri Paul Gauguin was a leading French Post-Impressionist artist. He was an important figure in the Symbolist movement as a painter, sculptor, print-maker, ceramist, and writer...
, Henri Matisse
Henri Matisse
Henri Matisse was a French artist, known for his use of colour and his fluid and original draughtsmanship. He was a draughtsman, printmaker, and sculptor, but is known primarily as a painter...
, Pablo Picasso
Pablo Picasso
Pablo Diego José Francisco de Paula Juan Nepomuceno María de los Remedios Cipriano de la Santísima Trinidad Ruiz y Picasso known as Pablo Ruiz Picasso was a Spanish expatriate painter, sculptor, printmaker, ceramicist, and stage designer, one of the greatest and most influential artists of the...
and Amedeo Modigliani
Amedeo Modigliani
Amedeo Clemente Modigliani was an Italian painter and sculptor who worked mainly in France. Primarily a figurative artist, he became known for paintings and sculptures in a modern style characterized by mask-like faces and elongation of form...
.
Family and youth
Lizzie Plummer Bliss was born in 1864 as a daughter of textile merchant Cornelius Newton BlissCornelius Newton Bliss
Cornelius Newton Bliss was an American merchant and politician.Cornelius Bliss was born at Fall River, Massachusetts. He was educated in his native city and in New Orleans, where he early entered his stepfather's counting house...
(1833-1911) and his wife Mary Elizabeth Bliss, born Plummer (1836–1923), in Boston. Since childhood, her family and friends called her Lillie P. Bliss. Of her three siblings, only her brother, Cornelius Newton Bliss, Jr., born in 1874, reached adulthood. When she was two years old, her family moved to New York City. Lillie P. Bliss did not go to school but was taught by private tutors. Her father held the office of United States Secretary of the Interior
United States Secretary of the Interior
The United States Secretary of the Interior is the head of the United States Department of the Interior.The US Department of the Interior should not be confused with the concept of Ministries of the Interior as used in other countries...
under President William McKinley
William McKinley
William McKinley, Jr. was the 25th President of the United States . He is best known for winning fiercely fought elections, while supporting the gold standard and high tariffs; he succeeded in forging a Republican coalition that for the most part dominated national politics until the 1930s...
from 1897 to 1899. His wife being indisposed due to illness, his daughter accompanied him to official events in Washington, DC. repeatedly during this time.
At receptions at the home of her parents, artistically inclined Lillie P. Bliss met actors like Walter Hampden
Walter Hampden
Walter Hampden is the artist name of Walter Hampden Dougherty was a U.S. actor and theatre manager. He was the younger brother of the American painter Paul Dougherty ....
, Ruth Draper
Ruth Draper
Ruth Draper was an American actress, dramatist and noted diseuse who specialized in character-driven monologues.-Early life and family:...
and Ethel Barrymore
Ethel Barrymore
Ethel Barrymore was an American actress and a member of the Barrymore family of actors.-Early life:Ethel Barrymore was born Ethel Mae Blythe in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, the second child of the actors Maurice Barrymore and Georgiana Drew...
. In her youth, her main artistic interests were of both classical and contemporary music. At the beginning of the 20th century, she began to promote financially young pianists and opera singers. She also supported the string quartet
String quartet
A string quartet is a musical ensemble of four string players – usually two violin players, a violist and a cellist – or a piece written to be performed by such a group...
led by Franz Kneisel
Franz Kneisel
Franz Kneisel was an American violinist and teacher of Romanian birth.Born in Bucharest, the son of a German bandmaster, he learned to play the flute, clarinet and trumpet, as well as the violin...
(1885–1917) (Kneisel Quartet) and promoted the Juilliard Foundation
Juilliard School
The Juilliard School, located at the Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts in New York City, United States, is a performing arts conservatory which was established in 1905...
devoted to musical training. Among her friends were the music critic Richard Aldrich
Richard Aldrich
Richard Aldrich was an American music critic. From 1902–23, he was music critic for The New York Times.Aldrich was born in Providence, Rhode Island and graduated A.B. in 1885 from Harvard College, where he had studied music. He began his journalistic career on the Providence Journal...
and the musician Charles Martin Loeffler
Charles Martin Loeffler
Charles Martin Loeffler was a German-born American violinist and composer.- Birthplace :Throughout his career Loeffler claimed to have been born in Mulhouse, Alsace and almost all music encyclopedias give this fabricated information. In his lifetime articles were published dissecting his...
.
One of the earliest encounters with modern art were exhibition visits at the Union League Club of New York
Union League Club of New York
The Union League Club of New York is a private social club in New York City. Its fourth and current clubhouse, which opened on February 2, 1931, is a building designed by Benjamin Wistar Morris, III, located at 38 East 37th Street between Madison and Park Avenue in the Murray Hill section of...
. Her father was a member of this club and president from 1902 to 1906. The club exhibited regularly works of living artists at public exhibitions. For example, 34 works by Claude Monet
Claude Monet
Claude Monet was a founder of French impressionist painting, and the most consistent and prolific practitioner of the movement's philosophy of expressing one's perceptions before nature, especially as applied to plein-air landscape painting. . Retrieved 6 January 2007...
were shown there in 1891. After her father's death in 1911, Bliss, who never married, lived with her mother in an apartment on 37th Street in Manhattan
Manhattan
Manhattan is the oldest and the most densely populated of the five boroughs of New York City. Located primarily on the island of Manhattan at the mouth of the Hudson River, the boundaries of the borough are identical to those of New York County, an original county of the state of New York...
.
Building the art collection
One her earliest purchases of art works was a painting by AmericanUnited States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
painter Arthur B. Davies
Arthur B. Davies
Arthur Bowen Davies was an avant-garde American artist and patron.-Biography:He was born in Utica, New York and studied at the Chicago Academy of Design from 1879 to 1882...
. She met the artist in his studio and visited art exhibitions with him and the art teacher Mary Quinn Sullivan
Mary Quinn Sullivan
Mary Quinn Sullivan was born Mary Josephine Quinn in Indianapolis, Indiana to Thomas F. Quinn and Anne E...
. In subsequent years, Bliss built the largest private collection of works by Davies in the United States.
Her friend, physician Christian Archibald Herter
Christian Archibald Herter (physician)
-Further reading:...
, accompanied her piano playing occasionally as a recreational cellist. Through him she met his sister-in-law, the painter Adele Herter who founded the Women's Cosmopolitan Club in New York City together with Abby Aldrich Rockefeller
Abby Aldrich Rockefeller
Abby Aldrich Rockefeller, , was a prominent socialite and philanthropist and the second-generation matriarch of the renowned Rockefeller family...
and five other women in March 1911. Lillie P. Bliss joined this union a few months later. She became a lifelong friend of Abby Aldrich Rockefeller. Their common interests later led to the founding of the Museum of Modern Art. In the same year, the Association of American Painters and Sculptors was constituted; among its co-founders were Arthur B. Davies, the artist Walt Kuhn
Walt Kuhn
Walt Kuhn was an American painter and was an organizer of the modern art Armory Show of 1913, which was the first of its genre in America.-Biography:Kuhn was born in Brooklyn, New York City...
and the critic Walter Pach
Walter Pach
Walter Pach was an artist, critic, lecturer, art adviser, and art historian who wrote extensively about modern art and championed the cause of modern art...
. Over the years, Bliss acquired numerous paintings by Kuhn and all three played a significant role in the preparation of the Armory Show
Armory Show
Many exhibitions have been held in the vast spaces of U.S. National Guard armories, but the Armory Show refers to the 1913 International Exhibition of Modern Art that was organized by the Association of American Painters and Sculptors...
in 1913, whose aim was to bring the latest trends in art before the American public. Other venues, such as the conservative dominated National Academy of Design
National Academy of Design
The National Academy Museum and School of Fine Arts, founded in New York City as the National Academy of Design – known simply as the "National Academy" – is an honorary association of American artists founded in 1825 by Samuel F. B. Morse, Asher B. Durand, Thomas Cole, Martin E...
, at this time refused to support current artistic trends.
Six weeks before the Armory Show, Bliss acquired two landscapes by Pierre-Auguste Renoir
Pierre-Auguste Renoir
Pierre-Auguste Renoir was a French artist who was a leading painter in the development of the Impressionist style. As a celebrator of beauty, and especially feminine sensuality, it has been said that "Renoir is the final representative of a tradition which runs directly from Rubens to...
and Edgar Degas
Edgar Degas
Edgar Degas[p] , born Hilaire-Germain-Edgar De Gas, was a French artist famous for his work in painting, sculpture, printmaking and drawing. He is regarded as one of the founders of Impressionism although he rejected the term, and preferred to be called a realist...
a painting and a pastel, at the New York branch of the gallery Durand Ruel
Paul Durand-Ruel
Paul Durand-Ruel was a French art dealer who is associated with the Impressionists. He was one of the first modern art dealers who provided support to his painters with stipends and solo exhibitions....
. She lent these works to the Armory Show and also helped with funds to enable the exhibition. From the exhibition, she bought a large number of works of art, including Silence and Roger and Angelica by Odilon Redon
Odilon Redon
Bertrand-Jean Redon, better known as Odilon Redon was a French symbolist painter, printmaker, draughtsman and pastellist.-Life:...
. From personal encounters with artists in the exhibition, she developed some long-lasting friendships. This was the case with artists like Charles Sheeler
Charles Sheeler
Charles Rettew Sheeler, Jr. was an American artist. He is recognized as one of the founders of American modernism and one of the master photographers of the 20th century.-Early life and career:...
, Charles and Maurice Prendergast
Maurice Prendergast
Maurice Brazil Prendergast was an American Post-Impressionist artist who worked in oil, watercolor, and monotype...
, whose works she bought as well.
Works by Paul Cézanne
Paul Cézanne
Paul Cézanne was a French artist and Post-Impressionist painter whose work laid the foundations of the transition from the 19th century conception of artistic endeavour to a new and radically different world of art in the 20th century. Cézanne can be said to form the bridge between late 19th...
form one focal point of her collection. Bliss acquired her first Cézanne (The Street, 1875) soon after the closure of the Armory Show from the collection of her friend Arthur B. Davies. Unaffected by negative reviews, Bliss acquired the painting Fruits and Wine and eight watercolors by Cézanne from the exhibition compiled by Félix Fénéon
Félix Fénéon
Félix Fénéon was a Parisian anarchist and art critic during the late 19th century...
at the Montross Gallery in New York in 1916.
Together with her friends, art collectors Louisine Havemeyer
Louisine Havemeyer
Louisine Waldron Elder Havemeyer was an art collector, feminist, and philanthropist. In addition to being a patron of impressionist art, she was one of the more prominent contributors to the suffrage movement in the United States...
and John Quinn
John Quinn (collector)
John Quinn was a second generation Irish-American corporate lawyer in New York, who for a time was an important patron of major figures of post-impressionism and literary modernism, and collector in particular of original manuscripts.- Life :...
, she persuaded the curator of painting, Bryson Burroughs, to host the Loan Exhibition of Impressionist and Post-Impressionist Art in the Metropolitan Museum of Art
Metropolitan Museum of Art
The Metropolitan Museum of Art is a renowned art museum in New York City. Its permanent collection contains more than two million works, divided into nineteen curatorial departments. The main building, located on the eastern edge of Central Park along Manhattan's Museum Mile, is one of the...
in 1921. Quinn lent 26, Bliss twelve (including five Cézannes and her Degas painting) and Havemeyer two works (both women were anonymous). The press complained about Quinn as a secret leader of this issue, criticized the self-appointed citizens committee and described the exhibition as "dangerous". The painting Quinn Hina Te Fatou (The Moon and the Earth) by Paul Gauguin
Paul Gauguin
Eugène Henri Paul Gauguin was a leading French Post-Impressionist artist. He was an important figure in the Symbolist movement as a painter, sculptor, print-maker, ceramist, and writer...
from his collection was described by the newspaper New York World
New York World
The New York World was a newspaper published in New York City from 1860 until 1931. The paper played a major role in the history of American newspapers...
as typical for the odious Bolshevik work which were on display in the exhibition. Undeterred by such criticism, a little later Bliss acquired this painting for her collection.
From 1924 to 1929, Bliss traveled to Europe once per year to discuss the latest artistic developments - especially in France. Purchases for her collection, however, were made almost invariably at New York art dealers or the New York branch of European galleries. In these years, in addition to current paintings, she bought some older works of art as well. For example, in 1927 she bought a work by the Post-Impressionist
Post-Impressionism
Post-Impressionism is the term coined by the British artist and art critic Roger Fry in 1910 to describe the development of French art since Manet. Fry used the term when he organized the 1910 exhibition Manet and Post-Impressionism...
Georges Seurat (Port-en-Bessin, Harbor Entrance) and a work of the realist
Realism (arts)
Realism in the visual arts and literature refers to the general attempt to depict subjects "in accordance with secular, empirical rules", as they are considered to exist in third person objective reality, without embellishment or interpretation...
Honoré Daumier
Honoré Daumier
Honoré Daumier was a French printmaker, caricaturist, painter, and sculptor, whose many works offer commentary on social and political life in France in the 19th century....
(The Laundress).
The foundation of the Museum of Modern Art
After the death of Arthur B. Davies in October 1928, several exhibitions were held to preserve his memory; Lillie P. Bliss borrowed many works of art for them. In the auction of his art collection, Bliss, Abby Aldrich Rockefeller, were among the buyers and both developed a plan to form an institution devoted to organize exhibitions of modern art in New York. The steadfast refusal of the Metropolitan Museum of Art to exhibit art of the late 19-century and works by contemporary artists played a decisive role.At the end of May 1929, Abby Aldrich Rockefeller invited her friends Lillie P. Bliss and Mary Quinn Sullivan for lunch in order to discuss the establishment of a museum of modern art. Another invited guest was art collector A. Conger Goodyear, who had previously served as a board member of the Albright Art Gallery
Albright-Knox Art Gallery
The Albright-Knox Art Gallery is an art museum located in Delaware Park in Buffalo, New York. The gallery is a major showplace for modern art and contemporary art. It is located directly across the street from Buffalo State College.-History:...
in Buffalo
Buffalo, New York
Buffalo is the second most populous city in the state of New York, after New York City. Located in Western New York on the eastern shores of Lake Erie and at the head of the Niagara River across from Fort Erie, Ontario, Buffalo is the seat of Erie County and the principal city of the...
, and who also participated in the meeting. Goodyear agreed to chair this circle as president, Lillie P. Bliss became his deputy and Abby Aldrich Rockefeller was given the role of treasurer. A short time later they were joined by art historian and collector Paul J. Sachs
Paul J. Sachs
Paul Sachs was Harvard associate director of the Fogg Art Museum, a partner in the financial firm Goldman Sachs and the developer of one of the early museum studies courses in the United States.-History:...
, a friend of Abby Aldrich Rockefeller, publisher Frank Crowninshield
Frank Crowninshield
Francis Welch Crowninshield , better known as Frank or Crownie , was an American journalist and art and theatre critic best known for developing and editing the magazine Vanity Fair for 21 years, making it a pre-eminent literary journal.-Personal life:Crowninshield was born June 24, 1872 in Paris,...
, a friend of Lillie P. Bliss, and Josephine Porter Boardman
Josephine Porter Boardman
Josephine Porter Boardman Crane was an American socialite and patron of the arts.-Personal life:Boardman was from a well-to-do family. Her father, William Jarvis Boardman , a lawyer and active in politics, was the grandson of the Senator Elijah Boardman...
, a friend both to Bliss and Rockefeller, who hosted a literary salon in New York. On November 7, the first exhibition of the Museum of Modern Art opened in rented spaces in the Heckscher Building at 730 Fifth Avenue (corner of Fifth Avenue and 57th Street) in Manhattan. To the first exhibition of Post-Impressionism
Post-Impressionism
Post-Impressionism is the term coined by the British artist and art critic Roger Fry in 1910 to describe the development of French art since Manet. Fry used the term when he organized the 1910 exhibition Manet and Post-Impressionism...
, entitled Cezanne, Gauguin, Seurat, Van Gogh, Bliss in turn contributed some paintings from her collection.
Last years and testament
Although Lillie P. Bliss was weakened by cancer the last months of her life, she participated actively in the formation of the Museum of Modern Art until shortly before her death. For example, March 2, 1931, she visited the exhibition Toulouse-Lautrec/Redon to which she had contributed three works by Odilon RedonOdilon Redon
Bertrand-Jean Redon, better known as Odilon Redon was a French symbolist painter, printmaker, draughtsman and pastellist.-Life:...
and her paintings of Toulouse-Lautrec. On March 12, 1931 Lillie P. Bliss died in New York. She found her final resting place on the Woodlawn Cemetery. Two months after her death, the Museum of Modern Art presented in its 12th exhibition Works by 24 Artists from the Collection of Lillie P. Bliss, in memory of the Museum co-founder.
In her will, Lillie P. Bliss endowed charities like the New York Hospital
New York Hospital
New York Hospital or “Old New York Hospital” or “City Hospital” was the oldest hospital in New York City and the second oldest hospital in the United States.-Early History:...
or the New York Association for Improving the Conditions of the Poor, (an organization for relief for the poor), with financial contributions. She bequeathed part of her art collection to the Metropolitan Museum of Art, including works by Arthur B. Davies and Claude Monet
Claude Monet
Claude Monet was a founder of French impressionist painting, and the most consistent and prolific practitioner of the movement's philosophy of expressing one's perceptions before nature, especially as applied to plein-air landscape painting. . Retrieved 6 January 2007...
's painting The Rocky Cliffs at Étretat.
To the surprise of her friends from the Museum of Modern Art, she donated most of her art collection, 150 works of art, to this institution. The museum, was at first thought of only for exhibition purposes and without its own permanent collection, was thus given the foundation of a proper permanent collection. The conditions attached to this legacy in the testament included a secure financial basis to be provided by the museum within three years. This condition should permanently secure the collection.
One clause stipulated in her will proved to be proactive and helpful for the future museum collection: her collection of works of art could be sold or exchanged for other works of art. Only three pictures, the two Cézanne paintings Still Life with Apples and Still Life with Ginger Container, Sugar and Oranges and the Laundress by Daumier were excluded from this stipulation. These works should never be sold, only to be given to the Metropolitan Museum if not suitable for the Museum of Modern Art. The two Cézanne paintings are still in the Museum of Modern Art, the Daumier painting was transferred to the collection of the Metropolitan Museum in 1947.
Among the most important works from the Bliss collection in the Museum of Modern Art today are Cézanne's The Bathers and his still-life painting, Portrait of Anna Zborowska by Amedeo Modigliani
Amedeo Modigliani
Amedeo Clemente Modigliani was an Italian painter and sculptor who worked mainly in France. Primarily a figurative artist, he became known for paintings and sculptures in a modern style characterized by mask-like faces and elongation of form...
, Still Life in Green by Pablo Picasso
Pablo Picasso
Pablo Diego José Francisco de Paula Juan Nepomuceno María de los Remedios Cipriano de la Santísima Trinidad Ruiz y Picasso known as Pablo Ruiz Picasso was a Spanish expatriate painter, sculptor, printmaker, ceramicist, and stage designer, one of the greatest and most influential artists of the...
, Hina Te Fatou by Paul Gauguin
Paul Gauguin
Eugène Henri Paul Gauguin was a leading French Post-Impressionist artist. He was an important figure in the Symbolist movement as a painter, sculptor, print-maker, ceramist, and writer...
, Port-en-Bessin, Harbor Entrance by Georges Seurat, Interior with Violin Case] by Henri Matisse
Henri Matisse
Henri Matisse was a French artist, known for his use of colour and his fluid and original draughtsmanship. He was a draughtsman, printmaker, and sculptor, but is known primarily as a painter...
and Silence and Roger and Angelica by Odilon Redon
Odilon Redon
Bertrand-Jean Redon, better known as Odilon Redon was a French symbolist painter, printmaker, draughtsman and pastellist.-Life:...
.
The first director of the Museum of Modern Art, Alfred H. Barr, characterized the importance of this collection saying: "With the Bliss Collection, New York can now look London, Paris, Berlin, Munich, Moscow and Chicago in the face so far as public collections of modern art are concerned. Without it we would still have had to hang our heads as a backward community."
The Lillie P. Bliss Bequest
The vaguely defined "firm financial basis" in the testament, a sort of endowment to maintain and expand the collection, led to protracted negotiations between the brother of the deceased, employed as testamentary executor, and the board of the Museum of Modern Art. Basis for the assessment of the foundation sum should be the value of the collection donated to the museum. An expert opinion of the New York gallery Ferargil estimated the collection at $1,139,036.00 with Cézanne's three masterpieces The Bathers, Still Life with Apples and Pine and Rocks at $150,000 and Degas' Rider before Hills being valued at $40,000. Following this estimate, Cornelius Newton Bliss and the Museum Board initially agreed to raising a sum of $1,000,000.Due to the impact of the Great Depression
Great Depression
The Great Depression was a severe worldwide economic depression in the decade preceding World War II. The timing of the Great Depression varied across nations, but in most countries it started in about 1929 and lasted until the late 1930s or early 1940s...
at the beginning of the 1930s, raising the sum demanded by the donation proved to be extremely difficult. The Museum of Modern Art managed to negotiate the amount required to be lowered to $750,000 initially and eventually to $600,000. This amount could indeed be raised, not the least by a few large donations. Abby Aldrich Rockefeller alone contributed $200,000, her son Nelson A. Rockefeller and the Carnegie Foundation
Carnegie Foundation
The Carnegie Foundation is an organization based in The Hague, Netherlands. It was founded in 1903 by Andrew Carnegie in order to manage his donation of US$1.5 million, which was used for the construction, management and maintenance of the Peace Palace...
each had $100,000 available. In March 1934, the amount agreed upon was allocatable and the collection of Lillie P. Bliss was legally handed over to the stock of the museum. It forms the basis of the museum collection and the proceeds of the applied amount of money serve to expand the collection since then as Lillie P. Bliss Bequest.
According to the scheme in the will, the museum sold off the Bliss art collection pieces one by one. For example, Degas' Jockeys on Horseback before Distant Hills was sold in the late 1930s for $18,000, in order to purchase Picasso's Les Demoiselles d'Avignon
Les Demoiselles d'Avignon
He followed his success by developing into his Rose period from 1904 to 1907, which introduced a strong element of sensuality and sexuality into his work...
with the proceeds and an additional $10,000. By the sale of three other works from the Bliss collection, the acquisition of Vincent van Gogh's Starry Night was achieved in 1941.
In 1951, three more works from the Bliss collection were sold to the Metropolitan Museum: Odilon Redon's Etruscan Vase with Flowers, Paul Cézanne's Portrait of Antoine Dominique Sauveur Aubert and Pablo Picasso's Woman in White. Henri Rousseau
Henri Rousseau
Henri Julien Félix Rousseau was a French Post-Impressionist painter in the Naïve or Primitive manner. He was also known as Le Douanier , a humorous description of his occupation as a toll collector...
s Lion in the Jungle and Camille Pissarro
Camille Pissarro
Camille Pissarro was a French Impressionist and Neo-Impressionist painter born on the island of St Thomas . His importance resides in his contributions to both Impressionism and Post-Impressionism, as he was the only artist to exhibit in both forms...
s Riverside (both now in private collections) and Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec
Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec
Henri Marie Raymond de Toulouse-Lautrec-Monfa or simply Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec was a French painter, printmaker, draughtsman, and illustrator, whose immersion in the colourful and theatrical life of fin de siècle Paris yielded an œuvre of exciting, elegant and provocative images of the modern...
's May Belfort (now Cleveland Museum of Art
Cleveland Museum of Art
The Cleveland Museum of Art is an art museum situated in the Wade Park District, in the University Circle neighborhood on Cleveland's east side. Internationally renowned for its substantial holdings of Asian and Egyptian art, the museum houses a diverse permanent collection of more than 43,000...
) and Pierre-Auguste Renoir's Brouillard à Guernsey (now Cincinnati Art Museum
Cincinnati Art Museum
The Cincinnati Art Museum is one of the oldest art museums in the United States. Founded in 1881, it was the first purpose-built art museum west of the Alleghenies. Its collection of over 60,000 works make it one of the most comprehensive collections in the Midwest.Museum founders debated locating...
) were sold as well.
In turn, the Museum of Modern Art acquired through the Lillie P. Bliss Bequest paintings by Henri Matisse
Henri Matisse
Henri Matisse was a French artist, known for his use of colour and his fluid and original draughtsmanship. He was a draughtsman, printmaker, and sculptor, but is known primarily as a painter...
, André Derain
André Derain
André Derain was a French artist, painter, sculptor and co-founder of Fauvism with Henri Matisse.-Early years:...
, Georges Braque
Georges Braque
Georges Braque[p] was a major 20th century French painter and sculptor who, along with Pablo Picasso, developed the art style known as Cubism.-Early Life:...
, Amedeo Modigliani
Amedeo Modigliani
Amedeo Clemente Modigliani was an Italian painter and sculptor who worked mainly in France. Primarily a figurative artist, he became known for paintings and sculptures in a modern style characterized by mask-like faces and elongation of form...
, Alexei von Jawlensky, Alberto Giacometti
Alberto Giacometti
Alberto Giacometti was a Swiss sculptor, painter, draughtsman, and printmaker.Alberto Giacometti was born in the canton Graubünden's southerly alpine valley Val Bregaglia and came from an artistic background; his father, Giovanni, was a well-known post-Impressionist painter...
, Balthus
Balthus
Balthasar Klossowski de Rola , best known as Balthus, was an esteemed but controversial Polish-French modern artist....
, Alexander Archipenko
Alexander Archipenko
Alexander Porfyrovych Archipenko was a Ukrainian avant-garde artist, sculptor, and graphic artist.-Biography:...
, Juan Gris
Juan Gris
José Victoriano González-Pérez , better known as Juan Gris, was a Spanish painter and sculptor who lived and worked in France most of his life...
, Pablo Picasso
Pablo Picasso
Pablo Diego José Francisco de Paula Juan Nepomuceno María de los Remedios Cipriano de la Santísima Trinidad Ruiz y Picasso known as Pablo Ruiz Picasso was a Spanish expatriate painter, sculptor, printmaker, ceramicist, and stage designer, one of the greatest and most influential artists of the...
, Fernand Léger
Fernand Léger
Joseph Fernand Henri Léger was a French painter, sculptor, and filmmaker. In his early works he created a personal form of Cubism which he gradually modified into a more figurative, populist style...
, Theo van Doesburg
Theo van Doesburg
Theo van Doesburg was a Dutch artist, practicing in painting, writing, poetry and architecture. He is best known as the founder and leader of De Stijl.-Biography:-Early life:...
, Marc Chagall
Marc Chagall
Marc Chagall Art critic Robert Hughes referred to Chagall as "the quintessential Jewish artist of the twentieth century."According to art historian Michael J...
, Piet Mondrian
Piet Mondrian
Pieter Cornelis "Piet" Mondriaan, after 1906 Mondrian , was a Dutch painter.He was an important contributor to the De Stijl art movement and group, which was founded by Theo van Doesburg. He evolved a non-representational form which he termed Neo-Plasticism...
, Lyonel Feininger
Lyonel Feininger
Lyonel Charles Feininger was a German-American painter, and a leading exponent of Expressionism. He also worked as a caricaturist and comic strip artist.-Life and work:...
, Arshile Gorky
Arshile Gorky
Arshile Gorky was an Armenian-born American painter who had a seminal influence on Abstract Expressionism. As such, his works were often speculated to have been informed by the suffering and loss he experienced of the Armenian genocide.-Early life:...
, as well as sculptures by Umberto Boccioni
Umberto Boccioni
Umberto Boccioni was an Italian painter and sculptor. Like other Futurists, his work centered on the portrayal of movement , speed, and technology. He was born in Reggio Calabria, Italy.-Biography:...
, Henri Matisse
Henri Matisse
Henri Matisse was a French artist, known for his use of colour and his fluid and original draughtsmanship. He was a draughtsman, printmaker, and sculptor, but is known primarily as a painter...
, Henry Moore
Henry Moore
Henry Spencer Moore OM CH FBA was an English sculptor and artist. He was best known for his semi-abstract monumental bronze sculptures which are located around the world as public works of art....
, Constantin Brâncuşi
Constantin Brancusi
Constantin Brâncuşi was a Romanian-born sculptor who made his career in France. As a child he displayed an aptitude for carving wooden farm tools. Formal studies took him first to Bucharest, then to Munich, then to the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris...
, Joseph Cornell
Joseph Cornell
Joseph Cornell was an American artist and sculptor, one of the pioneers and most celebrated exponents of assemblage...
, and numerous other works of art.
In addition to the Lillie P. Bliss Bequest, the Lillie P. Bliss International Study Center is reminiscent of the Museum co-founder. This study of art historical research in the field of modern art is located at the Museum of Modern Art.
Literature
- Alfred H. Barr, Jr.Alfred BarrAlfred Hamilton Barr, Jr. , known as Alfred H. Barr, Jr., was an American art historian and the first director of the Museum of Modern Art in New York City...
(Ed.): The Lillie P. Bliss collection. Plantin Press, New York 1934. - Milton W. Brown: The story of the Armory Show. Abbeville Press, New York 1988, ISBN 0-89659-795-4:
- Sybil Gordon Kantor: Alfred H. Barr, Jr. and the Intellectual Origins of the Museum of Modern Art
- Edward T. James, Janet Wilson James und Paul Boyer (Ed.): Notable American Women, 1607-1950: A Biographical Dictionary. Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts 1971, ISBN 0-674-62734-2.
- Rona Roob: A Noble Legacy. Art in America, Vol. 91, No. 11 (November 2003), p. 73–83.
External links
- Museum of Modern Art: Documentation of the collection
- Museum of Modern Art: Biography of Lillie P. Bliss