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| “Thérèse Duncan on the Acropolis” (1921) is one of 142 Edward Steichen photos being donated by Richard and Jackie Hollander to museums in New York, Los Angeles and Evanston, Ill. |
INSIDE ART
Dispersing Steichens Across the Country
By Carol Vogel
The New York Times
Published: February 14, 2013
Eight years ago the Los Angeles financier Richard Hollander and his wife, Jackie, bought more than 500 Edward Steichen photographs directly from his estate. And in one fell swoop the Hollanders became known for having what experts say is the world’s largest private collection of Steichen works. Their holdings cover all periods — the celebrity and fashion images, the early landscapes and city scenes, the fantastical ads — and each image was printed by Steichen himself, which makes the collection highly coveted. “I’ve gotten the bug,” Mr. Hollander said in a telephone interview when asked about his love of photography and his collection, which includes works by many other photographers. “Now I want to share my vision.”
He has started close to home, giving three American museums — the Whitney Museum of American Art, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art and the Mary and Leigh Block Museum of Art at Northwestern University in Evanston, Ill. — a total of 142 vintage Steichen photographs. “This will make Steichen’s work accessible to the public from coast to coast,” he said.
Each institution is receiving more than 40 works. For the Block Museum the gift is “transformative,” according to its director, Lisa Corrin. “We had no Steichens,” she explained. “We are a university museum teaching across all disciplines.” Portraits of Franklin D. Roosevelt and J. Edgar Hoover, as well as John Barrymore as Hamlet, have gone to the Block.
As for the larger institutions the gifts strengthen existing holdings. “We did a Steichen show about 15 years ago and had a small number of images by him, but not enough,” said Adam D. Weinberg, director of the Whitney. “This gift gives us representation across the board. It’s largely portraits from poets to actors as well as a range of landscapes, still lifes and some ads.”
In 2015, when the Whitney moves to its new Manhattan home in the meatpacking district, examples of the gift will be on view, Mr. Weinberg said. “It will also be accessible in our new study center.”
Photography has become increasingly important at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. Over the past few years it has added 3,500 images from the Los Angeles collectors Marjorie and Leonard Vernon, and it joined with the J. Paul Getty Museum to acquire a significant body of work from the Robert Mapplethorpe Foundation.
The Hollanders’ gift includes portraits of Charlie Chaplin, Mae West and Brancusi — “the real celebrity of the group,” according to Michael Govan, the museum’s director. The museum plans to show its new Steichen works in one of its modern galleries in August.
Even after these donations the Hollanders retain a large stash of Steichens. Some they live with; others they plan to give to other museums.
“I’m thinking about places in Europe,” Mr. Hollander said, “and eventually Asia, India and China. I’d like to share my vision with the world.”
QUEENS MUSEUM REVAMP
As buildings go, the Queens Museum of Art in Flushing Meadows-Corona Park, near the Unisphere from the 1964 World’s Fair, has led more lives than most. Originally designed as a pavilion for the 1939 World’s Fair, it has been a recreation center (with roller and ice rinks), home to the United Nations General Assembly and the New York City Pavilion for the ’64 fair. The centerpiece of the pavilion, a 9,335-square-foot panorama of the city, is still intact.
The building wasn’t a museum until 1972, and that museum occupied only the north side. First it was called the Queens Center for Art and Culture, then the Queens Museum of Art. In the early 1990s, Rafael Viñoly renovated the space, and in 2002 Eric Owen Moss won a competition to redesign it, but the project was scrapped.
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In October, after a $68 million renovation, the museum will unveil itself anew. Grimshaw Architects from London has given it twice the exhibition space, artist studios, new public and private spaces, classrooms, a skylighted atrium and a cafe. The museum will also have a new entrance and drop-off plaza featuring a 200-by-27-foot glass wall with a multicolored lighting system. The lighted wall is to be a kind of calling card, instantly recognizable to the 244,000 motorists who will pass it every day.
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“Not everyone will get off the Grand Central Parkway to visit the museum,” Tom Finkelpearl, its executive director, said. “But I am convinced everyone who lives in New York will know exactly where the Queens Museum is.”
During most of the new construction, which began in 2011, Mr. Finkelpearl was adamant about keeping as much of the museum open as possible. Its next show — opening Sunday — is “Arte Útil Lab,” a laboratory of “useful art,” by the Cuban installation artist Tania Bruguera. Everything will be on wheels so it can be moved around the galleries during the final phase of construction. On June 2 the museum will close until the October unveiling.
Besides the physical transformation, the renovation has also been an occasion for rebranding. The museum will have a new logo and change its name to just the Queens Museum from the Queens Museum of Art. The new name “better reflects the breadth of what we do,” Mr. Finkelpearl said.
The museum will schedule shows that are international but also “engage the Queens community,” he said. Exhibitions will include “The People’s UN (pUN),” in which Pedro Reyes, a Mexican artist, will stage a conferencelike performance depicting the member states of the United Nations, and “Peter Schumann: Black and White,” the first solo museum show for Mr. Schumann, the founder and director of the Bread and Puppet Theater. “Jeff Chien-Hsing Liao: The New York City Building,” will feature photographs by Mr. Liao, who was born in Taiwan but is based in Queens. The museum will also stage “Queens International 2013,” the sixth edition of its biennial of artists from around the world who live and work in Queens.
A MOVE FROM CHRISTIE’S
Ken Yeh, Christie’s chairman for Asia, is leaving the auction house after 16 years to head up Asian sales for the Acquavella Galleries. “We want to have more of a presence in Asia, and Ken’s the person to help make that happen,” said William Acquavella, whose father founded the gallery in Manhattan in the early 1920s. Mr. Yeh will be a director and will divide his time between New York and Asia.
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/15/arts/design/steichens-given-to-three-museums-queens-museum-makeover.html?pagewanted=2&ref=design
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