Museum acquisition is a curiously complex process, which happens a bit differently every time. The curator’s role can be quite large or very slight depending on the circumstances. Sometimes it’s a matter of finding a painting; sometimes of working with a potential donor; and sometimes of just standing aside and letting powerful forces do their work. Inevitably, it’s a complex, demanding, and thoroughly political enterprise, which requires a good deal of dialogue and partnership with the museum’s director, trustees, and other members of the staff and local community. It’s also a process that’s very dependent on practical realities, and often everything falls through. Given a certain set of resources, you try to do the best you can under the circumstances, and naturally the results vary a good deal in their outcome. Indeed, the obvious variations of artistic style and even quality in this list, are a large part of what make it interesting. I’ve had the good fortune over my career to study with and work with some very gifted connoisseurs, including Ted Stebbins, Ted Pillsbury, Egbert Haverkamp-Begemann, Jack Lane and Marc Wilson. They certainly deserve a word of thanks here. For me, compiling this list provided a trip down memory lane and stirred up a hornet’s nest of recollections.

Museum Acquisitions

Carnegie Museum of Art, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania

John Sloan (1871-1951), The Coffee Line, 1905, oil on canvas, 21 ½ x 31 5/8 inches (54.6 x 80.3 cm.), Carnegie Museum of Art, Fellows of the Museum of Art Fund, 83.29.

This was my first really serious museum acquisition and was the last major early painting by Sloan in the John Sloan estate. It portrays a wind-blown winter night in Madison Square in New York, where a long line of cold, hungry men wait for the free cups of coffee being dispensed to promote one of the Heart newspapers. I first saw the painting in a Sloan show in Madison, Wisconsin, while driving to take up my job in Pittsburgh, and later tracked down John Sloan’s widow, Helen, who amazingly, was still alive, and persuaded her to sell the painting to the Carnegie Institute. It was a singularly fitting place for the painting, since it had won a prize at the Carnegie International in 1905, when Robert Henri and Thomas Eakins were serving on the jury. It’s a tough piece of art. The painting is so black and simple that some people are put off, but that’s what I like about it. The blackness nicely evokes the despair of being homeless and the near-abstract simplicity of the design both reveals Sloan’s great debt at this time to the work of Whistler, who was the artistic god of the time to artists of advanced taste, and foreshadows the abstract effects that would dominate American art later in the century. Because of the friendship we struck up at the time, Helen Sloan also arranged for a large group of early Sloan prints to be donated to the Carnegie Museum of Art.

See Henry Adams, Masterworks of the Museum of Art, Carnegie Institute (collection handbook of l50 selected works), Museum of Art, Carnegie Institute, Pittsburgh, November l985, pp. 230-31, entry on John Sloan, The Coffee Line, 1905.

Henry Adams, "John Sloan's The Coffee Line," Carnegie Magazine, LVII, no. 6, November-December, l984, l9-24, 6 illustrations in black-and white. back to top

Joseph Stella (1877-1946), Old Man Sleeping in a Field, circa 1908, gouache on paper, 11 x 16 13/16 inches (27.9 x 42.7 cm.), Copperweld, Hafner and Fine Arts Discretionary Fund, 84.52

I’ve always liked this drawing, which seemed a particularly suitable purchase for the Carnegie since it most likely was made in Pittsburgh, when Joseph Stella was making drawings of social conditions there for the magazine of social reform, The Survey. There’s an interesting tension in the piece between the refined delicacy of the technique, which has a poetic, evocative Whistleresque quality, and the brutal toughness of the subject.

See Henry Adams, American Drawings and Watercolors, Museum of Art, Carnegie Institute, exhibition catalogue of l00 selected drawings, Museum of Art, Carnegie Institute, May l985, pp. 144-47, entriy onn Joseph Stella, , Old Man Sleeping in a Field, circa 1908.

John La Farge (1835-1910), Roses on a Tray, oil on Japanese lacquer panel, 20 x 11 15/16 inches (50.8 x 30.3 cm.), Carnegie Museum of Art, Katherine M. McKenna Fund, 83.51.

Because of my research on John La Farge, I knew of the existence of this painting, which was hidden away in a private collection in England. It had originally belonged to his friend John Bancroft, with whom he collected Japanese prints in the 1860s. For those accustomed to the bombast of painters such as Church and Bierstadt, the delicacy of La Farge’s work takes a bit of getting used to, but I think this is one of his finer early flower paintings, and from the scholarly standpoint is particularly interesting because it’s actually executed on the back of a Japanese tea tray—and thus provides valuable concrete evidence of his interest in Japan at this early date. Jack Lane was director of the Carnegie Museum at the time this was acquired, and he deserves a note of appreciation for his responsiveness to the work of La Farge. Jack’s realm of expertise is the hard-edged geometric abstraction of the early and mid 20th century, but he had the breadth of taste and vision to also respond to artworks of a very different sort, such as this one.

See Henry Adams, Masterworks of the Museum of Art, Carnegie Institute (collection handbook of l50 selected works), Museum of Art, Carnegie Institute, Pittsburgh, November l985, pp. 176-177, entry on John La Farge, Roses on a Tray, circa 1861.

Henry Adams, "John La Farge's Roses on a Tray,” Carnegie Magazine, January-February l984, pp. l0-l4, cover illustration in color and 3 illustrations in black-and-white. back to top

Philip Pearlstein (born 1924), The Portable Phonograph (A Student Work), 1941-42, graphite and gouache on paper mounted on board, 12 x 15 7/8 inches (30.5 x 40.3 cm.), Gift of the Artist, 84.20.

When a show of Philip Pearlstein’s work came to Pittsburgh, I arranged to interview him at his home and studio in New York for an article in Carnegie Magazine. As a child Pearlstein had attended classes at the Carnegie Institute, alongside Andy Warhol, and his first notable success as an artist came when during this period, when he won a prize in a national art contest sponsored by Scholastic Magazine. When I expressed admiration for the talent he exhibited at an early age he pulled out this early watercolor and handed it to me, to bring back to Pittsburgh as a gift to the museum. I remember wandering around New York for the rest of the afternoon trying to figure out what to do. I spent a good deal of time just sitting in the lobby of the Metropolitan Museum, afraid that if I wandered into the museum itself they wouldn’t let me out again.

See Henry Adams, American Drawings and Watercolors, Museum of Art, Carnegie Institute, exhibition catalogue, Museum of Art, Carnegie Institute, May l985, pp. 46, entry on Philip Pearlestein, A 210-11Portable Phonograph, 1941-42. .

Henry Adams, "The Pittsburgh Background of Pearlstein's Realism," Carnegie Magazine, May-June l984, pp. 20-24, 4 illustrations in black-and-white. back to top

Peter Blume (1906- 1992), Study for “South of Scranton” (Crow’s Nest), 1930, graphite on paper, 13 7/8 x 8 13/16 inches (35.2 x 22.7 cm.), Patrons Art Fund, 84.28.1

This drawing touched on an interesting bit of the Carnegie Museum’s history: the scandal and controversy created by Peter Blume in 1930 when he exhibited his painting South of Scranton in the Carnegie International Exhibition. At the time, Surrealist painting was utterly new and shocking to a Pittsburgh audience: in balloting for the exhibition’s Popular Prize, South of Scranton won only twenty-two votes, whereas the winner, Frederick J. Waugh’s very conventional seascape of Tropic Seas, received 1,920.

Because of the controversy, the museum did not buy the painting, which has become a classic, and it is now in the Metropolitan Museum. But amusingly, only a few years later, Blume’s painting The Rock (which features the building of Frank Lloyd Wright’s Fallingwater), did win the popular prize—an interesting instance of how quickly taste can change. Sadly, the museum failed to secure The Rock as well. Edgar Kaufmann Jr. donated it to the Art Institute of Chicago.

On the right side of South of Scranton is a view of the German cruiser Emden, which Blume had seen in Charleston harbor, with German sailors in gym shorts performing calisthenic exercises on the deck. This is a study of the crow’s nest of the Emden. While the museum missed out on the opportunity to buy the painting itself, it seemed fitting to at least partly make up for the mistake by acquiring this drawing.

See Henry Adams, American Drawings and Watercolors, Museum of Art, Carnegie Institute, exhibition catalogue, Museum of Art, Carnegie Institute, May l985, pp. 160-163, entry on Peter Blume, Study for “South of Scranton” (Crow’s Nest, 1930. back to top

John Frederick Kensett (1818-1872), Elm, 1862, graphite on paper, 11 ¼ x 8 ½ inches (28.6 x 20.6 cm.), Mr. and Mrs George R. Gibbons Jr. Fund 84.10

Drawings tend to appear in groups, when a bunch of them from an artist’s estate come up for sale. For a brief time they’re easily obtainable and then they become virtually impossible to find. When a large group of drawings by John F. Kensett came up for sale, all the major museums and collectors of 19th-century art descended on Babcock Gallery to purchase one. Some of the best were already gone by the time I arrived, but nonetheless, what was left was very nice. I remember spending several hours with the Carnegie’s assistant curator, Liz Prelinger, a wonderfully discriminating and exacting connoisseur, looking through the group trying to pick out the very best. After endless deliberations and changes of mind we settled on this one. The manager of Babcock galleries was a quiet, polite, somewhat elderly gentleman named Michael St. Clair. I later learned that he had studied painting as a young man with Thomas Hart Benton, but didn’t know enough to ask him about that at the time.

See Henry Adams, American Drawings and Watercolors, Museum of Art, Carnegie Institute, exhibition catalogue, Museum of Art, Carnegie Institute, May l985, pp. 46-48, entry on John F Kensett, Elm, 1862. back to top

A. F. King (1854-1945), A Late Night Snack, circa 1895, oil on canvas, 16 x 22 ½ inches (40.6 x 56 cm.), Carnegie Museum of Art, Museum purchase: gift of R. K Mellon Family Foundation, 83.3.

It’s interesting to highlight the work of local artists, particularly when they surpass themselves, as A. F. King did in this somber still-life showing a late night snack of beer, biscuits, cheese and mustard against a black background. A. F. King was a figure of local renown in Pittsburgh, who saw his work go out of fashion when the Carnegie International was created in 1896, and exposed Pittsburghers to more sophisticated work by European and American painters. He seems to have supported himself largely through portraiture, much of it based on photographs. The bulk of his work is rather pedestrian, but this painting stands out for its uncanny realism and for its emotional moodiness, created by contrasting appealing items of food and drink against a dark setting which evokes darkness and solitude. In the 1930s King was still churning out canvases, although well aware that his work had long been out of fashion. “There’s only a few of old ‘old timers’ left,” he told a reporter in 1938. “Make me feel lonesome.” What I find intriguing is that today King’s rather retardetaire still-life speaks to us more directly, seems more authentically modern, than much of the more advanced and up-to-date painting of the period.

See Henry Adams, Masterworks of the Museum of Art, Carnegie Institute (collection handbook of l50 selected works), Museum of Art, Carnegie Institute, Pittsburgh, November l985, pp. 220-221, entry on A. F. King, A Late Night Snack, circa 1895. back to top

Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, Missouri

John Singer Sargent, (1856-1925) Mrs. Cecil Wade, 1886, (Portrait of a Lady; Portrait: Mrs. Cecil Wade [Frances Frew Wade]), oil on canvas, 66 x 54 ¼ in. (167.6 x 137.8 cm.), signed and dated lower right : John [illegible] Sargent [very faint] 188 [?}, Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Gift of the Enid and Crosby Kemper Foundation, F86.23.

I came to the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art at a very fortunate time, when the museum had just completed a very successful 50th-anniversary fundraising campaign, and there was a sort of giddy optimism in the air. In addition to museum purchase funds, the museum had an incredibly generous donor, Crosby Kemper, the Chief Executive Officer of the United Missouri Bank (now UMB), which had been founded by his grandfather. His relationship with the museum had had its ups and downs. I had the good luck to be the museum’s principal liaison with him during a remarkable “up” period, when his purchases transformed the American art collection, raising it to a completely new level in just a few years. At our first meeting, Crosby and I agreed that the museum needed a major Sargent portrait. I hardly had time to blink before he acquired this amazing masterwork. It’s a key painting in Sargent’s life story—the first major portrait he exhibited at the Royal Academy, just after he had moved to England to recover from the scandal he had created in Paris with Madame X. Shortly after we acquired it, Scott Heffley in the conservation studio restored it to its full original splendor, so that the whites glow like opalescent pearls, and I went to New York to find a suitable frame, a big pretentious French affair from the 18th century, which highlights all its dramatic qualities. Today this may well be the single most popular paintings in the entire museum and it’s featured on the cover of the new scholarly catalogue of the museum’s collection, edited by Margaret Conrads.

Henry Adams, Handbook of American Paintings, The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, 1991, entries on three paintings by John Singer Sargent: pp. 40-42, entry on Mrs. Cecil Wade (Frances Frew Wade), 1886.

Henry Adams, A Bountiful Decade: Selected Acquisitions l977-l987 The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, [exhibition catalogue], entry on John Singer Sargent, Mrs. Cecil Wade.

Henry Adams, "Mrs. Cecil Wade--Sargent Masterpiece Given to Museum," Calendar of Events, November l986, The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, Missouri, l-2, 2 illustrations in black-and-white and color poster as insert. back to top

John Singer Sargent (1856-1925), Francisco Bernareggi, circa 1908, oil on canvas, 26 13/16 x 19 5/16 inches, inscribed and signed across top: a M. Francisco Bernareggi, souvenir amical de/John S. Sargent: dated lower right 1907 (likely not in the artist’s hand), Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Gift of the Enid and Crosby Kemper Foundation, F86-26.

One of the benefits of working with a strong-minded private donor, like Crosby Kemper, was that it was often possible to break the unspoken rules that dictate museum purchases. After acquiring a Sargent masterpiece such as Mrs. Wade, no curator would be allowed to go out and spend museum funds on another painting by the same artist. But Crosby was able to do so in this instance, with brilliant results. When you put this beside the portrait of Mrs. Wade, it might almost be the work of another artist, yet the two paintings speak to each other in a fascinating way, and they stand at opposite ends of Sargent’s career, since the Mrs. Wade is quite early, the Bernereggi quite late. Bernereggi was an Argentine landscape painter whose chief claim to fame today is that he was a friend of the young Picasso. What’s wonderful about the painting is the amazing freedom of the brushwork, which at times almost has the look of an abstraction by Willem de Kooning.

See Henry Adams, Handbook of American Paintings, The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, 1991, pages 43-44, entry on Francisco Bernareggi, 1907. .
Henry Adams, "John Singer Sargent's Portrait of Francisco Bernareggi," Calendar of Events, April l987, The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, Missouri, 3, one illustration in black-and-white. back to top

Charles Willson Peale (1741-1827), Catherine and Elizabeth Hall, 1776, oil on canvas, 30 ¼ x 25 ¼ inches (76.8 x 64.1 cm.), signed and dated lower right: C. W. Peale/pinx 1776, Gift of William B. and Harvey R. Fullerton, descendants of the sitters, F90-16.

l04 "Family Heirloom Enters the Museum" (Charles Willson Peale's Portrait of The Hall Children) Calendar of the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, May l99l, pp. 2-3, one illustration in black-and-white.

The painting is mentioned in Peale’s diary, so we know the very days that he worked on it. William Fullerton, who donated this painting to the museum, was a direct descendent of the little girl on the right. Mr. Fullerton seemed in perfectly good health when I visited him in his apartment near the Country Club Plaza to look at the painting, but he had died by the time the gift was announced just shortly afterwards.

See Henry Adams, Handbook of American Paintings, The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, 1991, pp. 18-19, entry on Charles WIllson Peale, Catherine and Elizabeth Hall, 1776.
Henry Adams, "Family Heirloom Enters the Museum" (Charles Willson Peale's Portrait of The Hall Children) Calendar of the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, May l99l, pp. 2-3, one illustration in black-and-white. back to top

John Frederick Kensett (1816-1872), A Woodland Waterfall, circa 1855-65 (The Flume, Franconia Notch, N. H.) oil on canvas, 40 1/16 x 34 1/16 inches (101.7 x 86.5 cm.), signed lower left: JFK, Purchase: Nelson Trust through the generosity of Mrs. George C. Reuland through the W. J. Brace Chairtable Trust and by exchange of Trust peropeties, 86-10.

The collection was curiously weak in landscapes of the Hudson River School, so it was nice to be able to acquire this fine landscape by John F. Kensett, which nicely exhibits the subtle color gradations of his work. The waterfall seems to have been partly based on The Flume in Franconia Notch, and partly a concoction, created in Kensett’s studio.

See Henry Adams, Handbook of American Paintings in the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, Missouri,1991, pp. 88-89, entry on John Frederick Kensett, A Woodland Waterfall, circa 1855.
Henry Adams, "Woodland Waterfall," The Antique Collector, LVIII, no. l, January l987, 52-53, l illustration in color.

Henry Adams, "John F. Kensett's A Woodland Waterfall," Calendar of Events, The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, September l986, one illustration in black-and-white.
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George Wesley Bellows (1882-1925), Frankie the Organ Boy, 1907, oil on canvas, 48 ¼ x 34 ¼ inches (122.6 x 87 cm.), signed lower left: Geo Bellows, Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Purchase: acquired through the bequest of Ben and Clar Shlyyen, F91-22.

An unexpected bequest made it possible to acquire this remarkable early portrait by George Bellows, one of a group of early studies of street urchins, often slightly deformed, as in The Cross-Eyed Boy. Frankie seems at once appealing and grotesque. It seems possible that he suffered from Williams Syndrome, a genetic disorder whose victims have an elfin facial appearance, with a low nasal bridge, and who combine mild mental retardation with a cheerful demeanor and unusual sociability with strangers.

See Henry Adams, Made in America: Ten Centuries of American Art, Hudson Hills Press, New York, 1995, entry George Bellows, Frankie, the Organ Boy, p. 136.

Henry Adams, Handbook of American Paintings, The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, 1991, p. 139-141, entry on George Bellows, Frankie, the Organ Boy, 1907.

Henry Adams, "George Bellows: An American Master," 1991, exhibition brochure of paintings, drawings and lithographs owned in the Kansas City region, 17 pages, twenty illustrations in black-and-white.

Henry Adams, "George Bellows: An American Master," Calendar of the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, October 1991, pp. 1-2, two illustrations in black-and-white.
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Thomas Hart Benton (1889-1975), Persephone (The Rape of Persephone), 1939-9, tempera with oil glazes on canvas, mounted on panel, 72 1/8 x 56 1/16 inches (183.2 x 142.4 cm.), signed lower left: Benton, Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Puchase: acquired through the Yellow Freight Foundation Art Acquisition Fund and the generosity of Mrs. Herbert O. Peet, Richarda J. Stern, the Doris Jones Stein foundation, the Jacob L. and Ella C. Loose foundation, Mr. and Mrs. Richard M. Levin and Mr. and Mrs. Marvin Rich, F86-57.

As a small child I admired Thomas Hart Benton’s Persephone in one of the first coffee-table art books: Thomas Craven’s A Treasury of Art Masterpieces, which covered the history of painting from Giotto to Picasso. Of course it never occurred to me that I would someday play a role in acquiring it for a museum. The painting stirred up a good deal of controversy when it was made because of the provocative way it moved a nude like that of the old masters into a modern setting. It’s arguably the greatest of Benton’s easel paintings.

During his lifetime, Benton repeatedly offered the painting to the Nelson-Atkins museum for modest sums, but was turned down. We paid what at the time seemed a truly staggering amount for it, though it proved only a fraction of what the painting would sell for today. Marc Wilson, the museum’s director, showed exceptional vision in overcoming the trustee’s residual reluctance to take Benton seriously as an artist, and in recognizing that Persephone would provide a splendid centerpiece for the museum’s impressive collection of Benton’s work.

When we acquired the painting it was in a flimsy traveling frame, but we eventually located the original, a massive affair, handcrafted by Benton’s wife and students from a strip of outdoor billboard molding.

See Henry Adams, Handbook of American Paintings in the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, Missouri,1991, entries on paintings by Thomas Hart Benton; p. 196, Persephone, 1938.

Henry Adams, Thomas Hart Benton: An American Original, April l989, published by Alfred Knopf, Inc., in association with the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art and the WGBH Educational Foundation in Boston, discussion of Persephone, pages 284-293.

Henry Adams, A Bountiful Decade: Selected Acquisitions l977-l987, The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, [exhibition catalogue], October l987, entry on Persephone. back to top

John Frederick Peto (1854-1907), Books on a Table, circa 1900, oil on canvas, 24 5/8 x 42 7/8 inches (62.6 x 108.9 cm.), Purchase: Nelson Trust through the exchange of a gift of the Friends of Art, 90-11.

After a brief early career in Philadelphia, Peto retreated to Ocean Heights, New Jersey, where he supported himself as a musician playing the coronet. His paintings were critically ignored in his lifetime and he was only rediscovered in the 1940s. For years Peto’s work was confused with that of William Harnett, but today we can see that his sensibility is fundamentally different, and in many ways more modern. This is arguably the best of Peto’s large still-life paintings of books, and surely one of his masterpieces. The Nelson-Atkins had little in the way of American still-life, so this was a logical addition to the collection.
See Henry Adams, Handbook of American Paintings, The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, 1991, pp. 56-57, entry on John Frederick Peto, Books on a Table, circa 1900.

Henry Adams, "A Masterpiece of American Still Life: John Frederick Peto's Books on a Table,” Calendar of Events, The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, September l990, cover illustration. back to top

John La Farge (1835-1910), Study of Pink Hollyhocks in Sunlight, From Nature, circa 1879, watercolor and gouache on paper, 11 15/16 x 9 11/16 (30.3 x 24.6 cm.), The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Gift of James Maroney, F86-22.

When we were bickering over the price of the major Peto still-life, Jay Maroney agreed to throw in this lovely La Farge watercolor to sweeten the deal. Its original owner was William Sturgis Bigelow, the Boston Buddhist, who in 1886 served as La Farge’s tour guide of Japan. I wrote my doctoral dissertation on La Farge and Maroney knew how to play on one of my weaknesses.

Henry Adams, American Drawings and Watercolors from the Kansas City Region, [exhibition catalogue], July 19-September 6, 1992, The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, pp. 172-74, entry on John La Farge, Study of Pink Hollyhocks in Sunlight, from Nature, circa 1879.
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Severin Roesen (circa 1815-1872), Two Tiered Still Life with Fruit and Sunset Landscape, circa 1867, oil on canvas, 36 ¼ x 50 ¼ inches (92.1 x 127.6 cm.), signed lower center: Roesen, Purchase: acquired through the bequest of Dorothy K. Rice, F91-58.

To balance the dark and brooding still-life by Peto, I was eager to get something more Victorian in feeling and luckily ended up with this Roesen. It’s one of Roesen’s largest and most ambitious works and is also in near-perfect condition. Unlike most 19th-century paintings, it has never been relined.

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Stanton Macdonald-Wright, (1890-1973), Self Portrait, circa 1907-9, oil on canvas, 19 5/8 x 15 5/8 inches (49.9 x 39.7 cm.), Gift of the Enid and Crosby Kemper Foundation, F89-39.

l03 "Benton's 'Closest Friend' Enters Collection" (an early self-portrait by MacDonald-Wright), Calendar of the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, March l99l, p. 3, one illustration in black-and-white.

Very few paintings survive from Macdonald-Wright’s early years in Paris, so this is an important document. It was acquired by Crosby Kemper from Myra Morgan, a legendary local art dealer, who in the early 1960s sold amazing Pop Art by figures like Warhol and Johns to Kansas City collectors. It’s surely one of the paintings that Macdonald-Wright showed to Thomas Hart Benton in Paris, shortly after they first met at the Café du Dome. “Their bravura, their confident brush stroking, took my breath,” Benton later recalled.

See Henry Adams, Handbook of American Paintings in the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, Missouri,1991, p. 163, entry on Stanton MacDonald-Wright, Self Portrait, circa 1908.

Henry Adams, "Benton's 'Closest Friend' Enters Collection" (an early self-portrait by MacDonald-Wright), Calendar of the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, March l99l, p. 3, one illustration in black-and-white.

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John La Farge (1835-1910), Peonies Blowing in the Wind with Kakemono Border, 1889, stained glass window, 56 ½ x 26 ½ inches, The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Gift of the Enid and Crosby Kemper Foundation, F88-34.

Sometimes lightening strikes twice. When a wonderful La Farge stained glass window of Peonies in the Wind came up for sale, the Seattle Art Museum snagged it. Then, improbably, this work came up for sale shortly afterwards—a previously unknown window of similar design, which La Farge exhibited in Europe in 1895, and which had ended up in a private collection in Scotland. Crosby Kemper generously came forward to purchase it for the museum. His son Crosby Jr. did the bidding.

This whole group of peony windows is connected to the commission La Farge received to produce two windows for the dining room of the Hay-Adams house in Washington D.C., one of H. H. Richardson’s best buildings, which was located across Jackson Square from the White House. The peony window that was in the house ended up in the Smithsonian, but I think this window is even more beautiful, and arguably the best of the series. In my opinion the glass for this window was museumally selected by La Farge, while that for the Smithsonian window was selected by his assistant Thomas Wright, and the whole visual effect is more obvious and brittle.

See Henry Adams, Made in America: Ten Centuries of American Art, Hudson Hills Press, New York, 1995, enntry on John La Farge, Peonies Blowing in the Wind, p. 118.

Henry Adams, Handbook of American Paintings in the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, Missouri,1991, pp. 118-121, entry on John La Farge, Peonies Blowing in the Wind with Kakemono Border, 1889.

Henry Adams, "Stained Glass Masterpiece Donated to Museum" (John La Farge's Peonies Blown in the Wind), Calendar of Events, Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, December l989. back to top

Frederic Remington (1861-1909), Teaching a Mustang Pony to Pack Dead Game, circa 1890, oil on canvas, 20 ¼ x 30 ¼ inches (51.4 x 76.8 cm.), signed lower right: --REMINGTON, Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Purchase: acquired through the generosity of the Union Pacific Foundation, F86-19.

I’ve always been a fan of Remington’s grisaille illustrations, which tend to be more lively in composition than his larger paintings in full-color. While generally considered a conservative figure, Remington was a master of boldly irregular arrangements, of a sort that probably ultimately owe a debt to Japanese prints. This was purchased with a fund for western art provided by the Union Pacific Foundation, and provides a good example of the sort of masculine, somewhat grisly subject matter of Remington at his best.
Henry Adams, Handbook of American Paintings in the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, Missouri,1991, pp. 113-114, entry on Teaching a Mustang Pony o Pack Dead Game, 1890;
Henry Adams, "Remington Painting Added to Collection," Calendar of Events, February l987, The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, Missouri, l-2. back to top

Reginald Marsh (1898-1954), Street Scene, Twelfth Avenue, 1928, oil on canvas, 19 ½ x 29 ½ inches, Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Acquired through the generosity of the Union Pacific Foundation and Mrs. Herbert O. Peeet, and the William Rockhill Nelson foundation (by exchange), F90-37.

With the help of the Union Pacific Foundation we were able to acquire this nicely observed street scene by Marsh, which has all the elements one wants in a Marsh: a striding woman, a bunch of men talking, a luncheonette, a tenement, telephone wires, a locomotive spewing smoke, and lots of other well-observed elements of the urban scene. It had formerly belonged to the filmmaker Steven Spielberg and came on the market as a result of his divorce from Amy Irving. You can see why Spielberg liked the painting: it feels like a scene from a movie.

See Henry Adams, Handbook of American Paintings, The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, 1991, pp. 155-56, entry on Reginald Marsh, Street Scene, Twelfth Avenue, 1928.
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George Copeland Ault (1891-1948), January Full Moon, 1941, oil on canvas, 20 ¼ x 26 3/8 inches (51.4 x 67 cm.), signed and dated lower right: G. C. Ault ’41, Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Purchase: Nelson Trust (by exchange), 91-19.

To my mind this is George Ault’s masterpiece, and one of the truly great American paintings of the period. What’s interesting is how the black barn is at once a central motif and a black hole that bores through the center of the painting. Throughout his life, Ault struggled with depression and he committed suicide in Woodstock, New York in 1948.

See Henry Adams, “George Ault, January Full Moon," American Art Review, vol. V, no. 1, Summer 1992, pp. 77, 154, with one illustration in color.

Henry Adams, "George Ault's January Full Moon, Calendar of the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, January-February 1992, pp. 1-2, cover illustration in black-and-white.

Henry Adams, Handbook of American Paintings in the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, Missouri,1991, p. 175, entry on George Ault, January Full Moon, 1941.
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Cummer Museum of Art, Jacksonville, Florida

Thomas Hart Benton, June Morning, 1945, tempera and oil on masonite, 41.88 x 48.06 inches, The Cummer Museum of Art and Gardens, Museum purchase with funds provided by The Cummer Council, the Morton R. Hirschberg Memorial Fund and the Mae W. Schultz Acquisition Endowment.

I learned of this painting, which was in a private collection in England, when I was doing research for the Benton retrospective. In 1994, during a downturn in the art market, it was put up for sale at Christie’s and failed to meet the reserve. After some negotiations, I purchased it for the Cummer shortly afterwards. The painting shows the view from the home of Benton’s mother on Martha’s Vineyard, and was painted one month after Germany’s surrender in World War II. It’s tempting to see the storm clouds as a symbol of the passing storm of war. Continuing in this vein of interpretation, perhaps the lush foliage contrasting with the dead tree symbolizes the cycle of life.

See: Henry Adams, “Director's Letter" (acquisition of Thomas Hart Benton's June Morning, 1945), Calendar of the Cummer Museum of Art and Gardens, April 1995. back to top

Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, Ohio

Viktor Schreckengost (1906-2008), New York on Christmas Eve, or The Jazz Bowl, about 1930, glazed ceramic with sgraffito design, height 28.6 cm., diameter 41.3 cm., John L. Severance Fund 2000.65

When I first arrived in Cleveland, for some reason I was fascinated by Art Deco. In books on the subject I kept coming across reproductions of something called The Jazz Bowl, a splendid Egyptian-blue punch bowl, with cubist jazz-age decoration of skyscrapers, musical instruments and cocktail glasses. At some point, I learned that the museum who had made the bowl, Viktor Schreckengost, lived in Cleveland, so on a whim I called him up and invited him to meet me at the museum. I was so impressed by our conversation that I decided to interview him at length, and the information I collected eventually led to a major show of his work—the first large scale retrospective of his achievement. The Jazz Bowl was clearly the greatest masterpiece of Cleveland Art, and it seemed odd that the museum didn’t own it, so when one came up for auction in Cincinnati, I pushed hard to acquire it.

See Henry Adams, What’s American about American Art? A Gallery Tour of the Cleveland Museum of Art, Hudson Hills Press, New York, 2008, pp. 124-125, entry on Viktor Schrekengost, New York on Christmas Eve or “Jazz” Bowl, about 1930.

Henry Adams, “Viktor Schreckengost, American Design Hero,” Modernism Magazine, Spring 2001, vol. 4, no. 1, pp. 34-39, 12 illustrations in color.

Henry Adams, “Viktor Schreckengost and 20th-Century Design,” Member’s Magazine, Cleveland Museum of Art, November 2000.

Henry Adams, Viktor Schreckengost and 20th-Century Design, book/catalogue (50,000 words) for an exhibition at the Cleveland Museum of Art, November 12, 2000--February 2, 2001, Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH, distributed by the University of Washington Press. back to top

Viktor Schreckengost (1906-2008), Cocktails and Cigarettes Punch Bowl, 1931, glazed earthenware with engobe sgraffito, height 23.5 cm., diameter 42.8 cm., Cleveland Museum of Art, gift of Elizabeth Mather MacMillan.

While organizing the exhibition of Viktor’s work, I learned that he had also made another punch bowl around 1930, which was a variation of the Jazz Bowl design featuring imagery of Cocktails and Cigarettes. It was this piece rather than the Jazz Bowl that Viktor exhibited at the Cleveland Museum’s May Show in 1931, where it won first prize from a jury that included the illustrious painter John Sloan. By a delicious irony, object celebrating sinful pleasures was purchased from the May Show by S. Livingston Mather, a direct descendent of Cotton Mather and other Puritan Divines. With some prompting from William Milliken, the director of the Cleveland Museum of Art, Mather agreed to purchase the piece for $100, or twice the asking price of $50, on the condition that the design would not be duplicated. Thus, unlike The Jazz Bowl, which was produced in a small edition, this one was unique.

I was eager to locate Cocktails and Cigarettes, to include it in the show, but when I contacted them, Mather’s descendents insisted that they didn’t own the piece. Then, a few months later, they discovered it in a china cabinet, hidden behind some other objects, and donated it to the museum.

See Henry Adams, “Cocktails and Cigarettes” (note on Schreckengost exhibition and punch bowl by Schreckengost), Member’s Magazine, Cleveland Museum of Art, December 2000. back to top

Fitz Henry Lane (1804-1865), Harbor of Boston, with the City in the Distance, about 1846-47, oil on canvas, 43.2 x 68.6 cm., Leonard C. Hanna Jr. Fund and partial gift of Travers Newton, Joanna Newton Riccardi and Georgia Newton Pulos, 2004.35

Getting a major Lane seascape for Cleveland was one of my first priorities, and wasn’t easy since they’ve become costly and there aren’t many of them left. This wonderful early view of Boston was purchased directly from the descendents of its first owner: Dr. Armsby of Albany, New York, who purchased it directly from Lane.

Henry Adams, What’s American about American Art? A Gallery Tour of the Cleveland Museum of Art, Hudson Hills Press, New York, 2008, pp. 58-59, entry on Fitz Henry Lane, Harbor of Boston with the City in the Distance, about 1846-47.

John Singer Sargent (1856-1925), Portrait of Lisa Colt Curtis, 1898, oil on canvas. 219.3 x 104.8 cm., inscribed: To Ralph and Mrs. Ralph, John S. Sargent 1898, Leonard C. Hanna Jr. Fund 1998.168.

A major work by Sargent was also a priority. We finally landed this splashy portrait showing Lisa Curtis, an heir to the Colt firearms fortune. Sargent gave it to her as a wedding present and for years it hung in the family’s pied a terre in Venice, the Palazzo Barbaro.

Henry Adams, What’s American about American Art? A Gallery Tour of the Cleveland Museum of Art, Hudson Hills Press, New York, 2008, pp. 106-07, John Singer Sargent, Portrait of Lisa Colt Curtis, 1898. back to top

Samuel Hester Crone, Figure Study: Lamenting Woman (Sarah H. Crone), red chalk on white paper, 9 15/16 x 12 9/16 inches, The Cleveland Museum of Art, gift of William S. Huff.

When I was at the Carnegie Museum in Pittsburgh, I was visited by a gentleman named William Huff, who owned a large group of drawings (and some paintings) by his ancestor Samuel Crone, who had studied in Munich in the 1870s, around the same time as Frank Duvenck and William Merritt Chase. I was impressed by their generally high standard of technical competence and fascinated to see such a large group of drawings that remained together as a group, and provided an unusually detailed record of Crone’s training and influences. William Huff and I remained in touch and in 1997 I was the major author of a catalogue of Crone’s drawings produced by the Art Museum at the University of Memphis. William Huff eventually donated most of the collection to the University of Memphis, but I arranged for him to give this drawing, one of the best, to the Cleveland Museum of Art. I persuaded him that it would benefit Crone’s reputation to be represented in such a major collection.

See Henry Adams, "Life Lines: The Drawings of Samuel Crone," in Return to Memphis: The Art of Samuel Hester Crone (1858-1913), exhibition catalogue, Art Museum, University of Memphis, September 6-November 8, 1997, discussion of Figure Study on page 42. back to top

Grant Wood (1892-1943), January, 1940, oil on masonite, 67 x 82.5 cm., signed and dated lower left: Grant Wood/1940, purchase from the J. H. Wade Fund 2002.2

Grant Wood’s paintings, or at least the ones in a Regionalist style, are incredibly rare. Once he developed his signature style, he produced fewer paintings than Vermeer. The Museum was incredibly lucky to snag this chilly snow scene, which originally belonged to the great film director King Vidor. The icy quality of the scene probably reflects Wood’s museumal troubles during the last year of his life, when he was drinking heavily and was battling with other faculty members at the University of Iowa.

See Henry Adams, What’s American about American Art? A Gallery Tour of the Cleveland Museum of Art, Hudson Hills Press, New York, 2008, pp. 138-39, entry on Grand Wood, January, 1940.

Henry Adams, “January by Grant Wood,” Calendar of the Cleveland Museum of Art, April 2002, pp, 10-11, one illustration in color.
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Manierre Dawson (1887-1969), Differential Complex, 1910, oil on board, 40.7 x 31.8 cm., Mr. and Mrs. William H. Marlatt Fund 2001.123.

There’s a good argument that Manierre Dawson was the world’s first abstract painting. In early spring of 1910, in Chicago, he produced a series of abstractions that precede the first abstractions of Wassily Kandinsky and Arthur Dove, the two other major claimants for the title of “First Abstract Painter.” Many people don’t even know of Dawson’s existence, but this came up shortly after I had written a major essay about his work for the Hollis Taggart Galleries in New York. The best-known of Dawson’s early abstractions is a painting titled Prognostic in the Milwaukee Art Museum. This one is probably just a little earlier. By Cleveland standards this was an inexpensive purchase but I think it’s one of the most remarkable paintings in the museum.

See Henry Adams, What’s American about American Art? A Gallery Tour of the Cleveland Museum of Art, Hudson Hills Press, New York, 2008, pp. 118-119, entry on Manierre Dawson, Differential Complex, 1910.

Henry Adams, “The First Abstract Painter,” in Manierre Dawson, Hollis Taggart Galleries, October 1999, pp. 10-57. back to top