|
|
|
| Current Issue |
|
|
| Resources |
|
|
|
The Secret Collection
| Article
# : |
19802 |
|
|
Section : |
THE ARTS
|
| Issue
Date : |
5 / 1991 |
2,149 Words |
| Author
: |
Eric Gibson
Eric Gibson, art critic for the Washington Times, last wrote
on Henry Ossewa Tanner in the September 1991 issue of The
World & I. |
It's generally understood that there are two kinds of art museums today: the city art museum and the university art museum. Each has a different function and, therefore, a different identity.
The aim of the art museum located in a city (be that city large or small) is to some extent encyclopedic. Its officers wish to present the most comprehensive account of the history of art possible. By contrast, the university art museum has no such ambitions. It is really a study collection, a relatively eclectic assemblage of objects whose purpose is simply to provide the university's art history students with examples of "the real thing" to look at as a supplement to the quantities of slides and plates they must peruse in the course of their studies.
And although these institutions may have acquisition funds, their collections are for the most part made up of gifts from loyal graduates. There are university museums whose collections are of such a caliber and breadth that they are on a par with the conventional urban art museum--particularly at the Ivy League universities--but this tends to be the exception rather than the rule.
The Carl Van Vechten Museum of Fine Arts at Fisk University in Nashville is an institution unique unto itself, and something of a well-kept secret. It is a study collection with a particular focus, works of art that at one time belonged to photographer and Modernist impresario Alfred Stieglitz. And it was donated to the university not by a misty-eyed alumnus but by Georgia O'Keeffe, Stieglitz's widow, who had no other connection to Fisk.
The Alfred Stieglitz Collection in the Carl Van Vechten Museum of Fine Arts, to give its full title, consists of about a hundred objects--paintings, sculptures, photographs, drawings, and prints--by modern artists whose cause Stieglitz championed during his years as an art dealer in New York. Arthur G. Dove, Marsden Hartley, Charles Demuth, and John Marin are all there, as are O'Keeffe and Stieglitz themselves. Elie Nadelman is among the sculptors present. In addition, there are examples of African tribal sculpture, and paintings and prints by European Modernists ranging from Picasso to George Grosz.
One thing to be said about the assembled work is that it resembles university collections in the varying levels of importance of the art. For example, the Picasso--a 1904 woman's profile--is interesting but not of any major historical
...
Read Full Article
Look for this article in Ask.com
|
|
