Lillie P. Bliss
Lillie P. Bliss | |
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Born | Lizzie Plummer Bliss April 11, 1864 |
Died | March 12, 1931 | (aged 66)
Nationality | American |
Known for | • Art collector and patron • Museum of Modern Art • Lillie P. Bliss Bequest • Lillie P. Bliss International Study Center |
Lizzie Plummer Bliss (April 11, 1864 in
Family and youth
Lizzie Plummer Bliss was born in 1864 in Boston as a daughter of textile merchant Cornelius Newton Bliss (1833–1911) and his wife, Mary Elizabeth Bliss, born Plummer (1836–1923). 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. She did not go to school but was taught by private tutors. Her father held the office of United States Secretary of the Interior under President William McKinley from 1897 to 1899. As his wife was often ill and indisposed, his daughter frequently accompanied him to official events in Washington, D.C. during this time.
At receptions at the home of her parents, artistically inclined Lillie P. Bliss met actors like Walter Hampden, Ruth Draper and Ethel Barrymore. In her youth, her main artistic interests were of both classical and contemporary music. In her thirties, she began to promote financially young pianists and opera singers. She also supported the string quartet led by Franz Kneisel (1885–1917) (Kneisel Quartet) and promoted the Juilliard Foundation devoted to musical training. Among her friends were the music critic Richard Aldrich and the musician Charles Martin Loeffler.
One of her earliest encounters with modern art were exhibition visits at the
Building the art collection
This section needs additional citations for verification. (April 2024) |
One of her earliest purchases of art works was a painting by
Her friend, physician
Over the years, Bliss acquired numerous paintings by Kuhn and all three played a significant role in the preparation of the Armory Show 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, at this time refused to support current artistic trends.[1]
Six weeks before the Armory Show, Bliss acquired two landscapes by Pierre-Auguste Renoir and Edgar Degas a painting and a pastel, at the New York branch of the gallery Durand Ruel. 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. From personal encounters with artists in the exhibition, she developed some long-lasting friendships. This was the case with artists like Charles Sheeler, Charles and Maurice Prendergast, whose works she bought as well.
Works by Paul Cézanne 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 at the Montross Gallery in New York in 1916.
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Arthur B. Davies:
Italian Hill Town, ca. 1925,
donation to the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Oil on canvas, 65.7 × 101.3 cm -
Pierre-Auguste Renoir:
Brouillard à Guernsey, 1883,
today Cincinnati Art Museum. Oil on canvas, 54 × 65 cm -
Paul Gauguin:
Hina Te Fatu, 1893,
donation to the Museum of Modern Art. Oil on burlap, 114.3 × 62.6 cm (45.00 × 24.65 in) -
Honoré Daumier:
The Laundress, ca. 1863,
today Metropolitan Museum of Art. Oil on wood, 48.9 × 33 cm -
Arthur B. Davies, The Dawning, 1915. Donated to the Brooklyn Museum
Together with her friends, art collectors Louisine Havemeyer and John Quinn, 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 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 from his collection was described by the newspaper New York World 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 Georges Seurat (Port-en-Bessin, Harbor Entrance) and a work of the realist Honoré Daumier (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; Bliss borrowed many works of art for them. In the auction of his art collection, Bliss and 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 19th century and works by contemporary artists played a decisive role.
In late May 1929, Abby Aldrich Rockefeller invited 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
Last years and legacy
Although 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
In her will, Bliss endowed charities like
To the surprise of her friends from the Museum of Modern Art, she donated most of her art collection, 150 works of art, to that institution. The museum, at first thought of only for exhibition purposes, was thus given the foundation of a proper permanent collection. The conditions attached to this legacy in the will included a "secure financial basis" to be provided by the museum within three years. Meeting this condition would permanently secure the collection.
One stipulation 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 could never be sold, only 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.
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Paul Cézanne:
Still life with apples, 1895–1898, donation to the Museum of Modern Art. Oil on canvas, 27 × 361⁄2" (68.6 × 92.7 cm). -
Amedeo Modigliani:
Portrait Anna Zborowska, 1917, donation to the Museum of Modern Art. Oil on canvas, 511⁄4 × 32" (130.2 × 81.3 cm). -
Georges Seurat:
Port-en-Bessin, Entrance to the Harbor, 1888, donation to the Museum of Modern Art. Oil on canvas, 215⁄8 × 255⁄8" (54.9 × 65.1 cm) -
Odilon Redon:
Silence, 1911, donation to the Museum of Modern Art. Oil on prepared paper, 211⁄2 × 211⁄4" (54.6 × 54 cm)
Among the most important works from the Bliss collection in the Museum of Modern Art today are Cézanne's The Bathers and his
The first director of the Museum of Modern Art,
The Lillie P. Bliss Bequest
The vaguely defined "secure financial basis" in Bliss's will, a sort of endowment to maintain and expand the collection, led to protracted negotiations between Bliss's brother Cornelius Newton Bliss, the executor of her will, and the board of the Museum of Modern Art. The basis for the endowment sum would be the value of the collection donated to the museum. An expert opinion of the New York gallery Ferargil valued the collection at $1,139,036.00, with Cézanne's three works The Bathers, Still Life with Apples and Pine and Rocks at $150,000 and Degas's Rider before Hills being valued at $40,000. Following this estimate, Bliss and the Museum Board initially agreed to raising a sum of $1,000,000.
Due to the
As allowed by her will, the museum sold off the Bliss art collection pieces one by one. For example, Degas's 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 with the proceeds and an additional $10,000. By the sale of three other works from the Bliss collection, Vincent van Gogh's The Starry Night was bought 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's Lion in the Jungle and Camille Pissarro's Riverside (both now in private collections) and Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec's May Belfort (now Cleveland Museum of Art) and Pierre-Auguste Renoir's Brouillard à Guernsey (now Cincinnati Art Museum) were sold as well.
In turn, the Museum of Modern Art acquired through the Lillie P. Bliss Bequest paintings by Henri Matisse, André Derain, Georges Braque, Amedeo Modigliani, Alexej von Jawlensky, Alberto Giacometti, Balthus, Alexander Archipenko, Juan Gris, Pablo Picasso, Fernand Léger, Theo van Doesburg, Marc Chagall, Piet Mondrian, Lyonel Feininger, Arshile Gorky, as well as sculptures by Umberto Boccioni, Henri Matisse, Henry Moore, Constantin Brâncuși, Joseph Cornell, and numerous other works of art.[5]
In addition to the Lillie P. Bliss Bequest, the Lillie P. Bliss International Study Center commemorates museum's co-founder. This study center of historical research in the field of modern art is located at the Museum of Modern Art.[citation needed]
Literature
- Barr, Jr., Alfred. The Lillie P. Bliss Collection. New York: Plantin Press, 1934.
- Brown, Milton. The Story of the Armory Show. New York: Abbeville Press, 1988, ISBN 0-89659-795-4:
- James, Edward T., Janet Wilson James and Paul Boyer (ed.): Notable American Women, 1607–1950: A Biographical Dictionary. Cambridge: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1971, ISBN 0-674-62734-2.
- Kantor, Sybil Gordon. Alfred H. Barr, Jr. and the Intellectual Origins of the Museum of Modern Art. Cambridge: MIT Press, 2003.
- Roob, Rona. "A Noble Legacy." Art in America, (November 2003) Vol. 91, No. 11, p. 73–83.
References
- ^ "Money, Power and Modern Art", atimes.com. Retrieved September 2, 2010.
- Time Magazine, May 25, 1931. Retrieved September 2, 2010.
- ^ Museum of Modern Art: Endowment Fund raised to secure Bliss Collection for MOMA. Archived 2011-07-27 at the Wayback Machine Press release, 1933-34.]
- ^ "The Lillie P. Bliss Collection, 1934 | MoMA". The Museum of Modern Art. Retrieved 2020-08-24.
- ^ Painting and sculpture acquisitions at MoMA, 1948–1950 Alfred Barr jstor.org Retrieved September 2, 2010.
External links
- Museum of Modern Art: Documentation of the collection
- Museum of Modern Art: Biography of Lillie P. Bliss