Cover image for Tastemakers, Collectors, and Patrons: Collecting American Art in the Long Nineteenth Century Edited by Linda S. Ferber and Margaret R. Laster

Tastemakers, Collectors, and Patrons

Collecting American Art in the Long Nineteenth Century

Edited by Linda S. Ferber and Margaret R. Laster

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$89.95 | Hardcover Edition
ISBN: 978-0-271-09524-0

240 pages
8" × 10"
72 color/26 b&w illustrations
2024
Co-published with The Frick Collection

The Frick Collection Studies in the History of Art Collecting in America

Tastemakers, Collectors, and Patrons

Collecting American Art in the Long Nineteenth Century

Edited by Linda S. Ferber and Margaret R. Laster

“Expertly researched.”

 

  • Description
  • Reviews
  • Bio
  • Table of Contents
  • Sample Chapters
  • Subjects
Tastemakers, Collectors, and Patrons explores the dynamic landscape of American art collecting in the United States from the late eighteenth through the early twentieth centuries. The geographic range of collecting histories presented in this publication spans the country, including the Eastern Seaboard, the Old South, the Midwest, and the West Coast.

In this volume, the contributing scholars investigate individual collectors and collectives whose missions to create regional and national collecting communities in the United States encouraged civic philanthropy in the fine arts. Key themes—such as the creation of an “American” school distinct from, yet rooted in, European tradition as well as the trials of forming publicly supported museums—reverberate throughout the publication. Essays examine early patrons, collectors, and museum founders; the impact of sectionalism, the Civil War, and reform on American collecting efforts; and the innovative and entrepreneurial spirit of artists, collectors, and dealers at the turn of the century and beyond. Each section foregrounds different issues, underscoring the complexity of the historical, cultural, and political environments in which collections of American art were formed. Together, the volume traces the evolving taste and market for American art in the United States.

In addition to the editors, the contributors include Lynne D. Ambrosini, Sarah Cash, Samantha Deutch, Julie McGinnis Flanagan, Ilene Susan Fort, Barbara Dayer Gallati, Lance Humphries, Elizabeth Mankin Kornhauser, Sophie Lynford, Kimberly Orcutt, and Richard Saunders.

“Expertly researched.”

Linda S. Ferber is Senior Art Historian and Museum Director Emerita at the New-York Historical Society. In 2017, she received The Olana Partnership’s Frederic Church Award.

Margaret R. Laster is an independent scholar of American art. She previously served as Associate Curator of American Art at the New-York Historical Society and Lunder Consortium Fellow for Whistler Studies at the Freer Gallery of Art.

Contents

List of Illustrations

Preface

Samantha Deutch and Margaret R. Laster

Acknowledgments

Samantha Deutch

Introduction: Collecting American Art During the Long Nineteenth Century

Linda S. Ferber

Part I

Crafting a Cultural Identity: Early Tastemakers Collectors, and Patrons

1. The Patronage of Robert Gilmor, Jr.: The Role of a Merchant Prince in Defining an American School of Art

Lance Humphries

2. An Art Museum for Gotham: The Luman Reed Collection and the New- York Gallery of the Fine Arts

Margaret R. Laster

3. Power Failure: The American Art- Union Experiment

Kimberly Orcutt

4. Daniel Wadsworth and Elizabeth Hart Jarvis Colt: Connecticut’s Leading Collectors of American Landscape Art

Elizabeth Mankin Kornhauser

Part II

Turbulence of Taste in Mid- Nineteenth- Century America

5. Nicholas Longworth: Early Midwestern Activist Art Patron

Lynne D. Ambrosini

6. Patrons of Reform: Collecting the American Pre- Raphaelites

Sophie Lynford

7. “Encouraging American Genius”: The Corcoran Gallery of Art, from Private Collection to the Nation’s Art Museum

Sarah Cash

Part III

Promoting, Advancing, and Collecting American Art at the Turn of the Century and Beyond

8. Samuel Untermyer: The Man Who Bought Whistler’s Falling Rocket

Barbara Dayer Gallati

9. “Caveat Emptor”: The Trade in American Historical Portraits in the Early Twentieth Century

Richard Saunders

10. A Curator’s Perspective: William Preston Harrison, Childe Hassam, and a Quest for Legacy in California

Ilene Susan Fort

11. The Grand Central Art Galleries: Expanding the Taste and Market for American Art in the 1920s and 1930s

Julie McGinnis Flanagan

Notes

References

List of Contributors

Index

Download a PDF sample chapter here: Preface