In purchasing the Duveen stock, Simon was acquiring the contents of a gallery that, more than any other, had influenced the way Americans collected art, and some of whose clients had gone on to found the nation’s foremost public and private museums, including the National Gallery of Art, The Frick Collection, and the Huntington Library and Art Collections. But there comes a time when a collector of this caliber realizes that their acquisitions will outlast them, and so begin to contemplate the future. His initial foray into collecting came when, like other famous collectors-Getty, Huntington, Frick, Morgan, and Gardner, among them-he wanted to outfit his home and corporate offices with art that reflected his newfound wealth. 2: Edward Fowles in his Parisian house (the former residence of World War I General Joseph Joffre).
4), far afield from his more obscure days as a tomato and orange juice canning magnate.įig. Was it the sheer need to possess a thing of beauty? Or was he more interested in art as an investment? Juxtaposed with his purchase of one year later-Rembrandt’s Portrait of a Boy (originally thought to be an image of the artist’s son Titus)-it is impossible not to think that Simon was enjoying his newfound notoriety as one of the major players on the art market (Fig. Speculation remains regarding Simon’s drive to own art. With this single action, he and his foundations became the owners of more than 800 objects of art he was only familiar with fewer than twenty of the works. The Duveen acquisition must have been tantalizing for someone like Simon. Simon was a keen observer of the business of running a museum, and he was already displaying his prowess as a master of negotiations with art dealers and at auctions.
His close ties to the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, where he was a member of the board, as well as speculation that he would build a museum in Fullerton, California, where his company was headquartered, are faint signs that his drive to amass a collection of art was not only for his own personal gratification. Simon had been collecting art-primarily nineteenth-century paintings-for a decade, and had neither the space nor the staff to undertake such a major acquisition.
2) to purchase the legendary Duveen Brothers Gallery, including its massive stock of decorative arts, paintings, and sculpture, as well as its important library and stately galleries at East 79th Street in Manhattan (Fig. 1) signed an agreement with Edward Fowles (Fig. One wonders what his thoughts were when, in 1965, Norton Simon (Fig. 1: Norton Simon, 1952, Norton Simon Museum Archives. After you've checked out the temporary shows, head into the excellent sculpture garden. Other valuable holdings include a generous array of Degas' underappreciated ballerina bronzes, some excellent modern works - including a haunting Modigliani portrait of his wife, some Diego Rivera paintings, plenty of works by the so-called Blue Four (Feininger, Jawlensky, Klee and Kandinsky), and large collections of European prints, Far Eastern art and Buddhist artifacts. The French impressionists are represented by, among others, Monet, Manet and Renoir. The museum is still best known for its impressive collection of Old Masters, notably pieces by 17th-century Dutch painters such as Rembrandt (a particularly rakish self-portrait), Brueghel and Frans Hals. And this is a beautifully designed museum, its collection sympathetically mounted and immaculately captioned. But it also helped it expand the range of its collection, giving it more space and creating a calm, simple environment in which to display it. The Norton Simon's Gehry-helmed makeover in the late 1990s raised the museum's profile.
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