THE ENCYCLOPEDIA BRITANNICA PURCHASE
by Joan K. Yanni
The close friendship between two men of influence brought the core of MAG's American collection to Rochester in one incredible purchase.
In the mid 1940s, in celebration of its 175th year, the Encyclopedia Britannica began to buy art by 20th-century Americans. The plan was to use the paintings as illustrations for Britannica publications and to exhibit them throughout the country so that Americans would have the opportunity to get acquainted with their own art. By 1945 the collection included over 100 paintings.
After five years of touring its art, Britannica decided to break up the collection, keeping the major portion for Encyclopedia Britannica Films, Inc., the classroom-film subsidiary of the company. The balance of the collection was to be retained by Senator William Benton, of Connecticut, formerly executive director of the Britannica.
Benton was a close friend of Alan Valentine, president of the University of Rochester, and he knew that Rochester's art museum was looking for good art that it could afford to buy. No doubt thinking this a worthy cause as well as a way to disseminate the art, Benton gave Valentine and the university "top preference in the disposition of the entire collection."
The Memorial Art Gallery, through the University, requested 18 paintings. Two of these, Dove's Cars in a Sleet Storm and Kuhn's Clown, were missing—lost in transit to the Southwest. Of the other sixteen requested, Britannica offered eight at one-half the figure paid for them, provided the university agreed to take all eight. This was done to avoid drawn-out negotiations, picture by picture. If Rochester purchased the eight, Benton offered still other works at half the purchase price, and a third group at the full price the Britannica had paid.
An amazing offer! Gallery director Gertrude Herdle Moore, with the help of the Marion Stratton Gould fund, was able to purchase the initial eight, which included Chinese Restaurant, and six additional works, including Boomtown! And the Gallery, always lean in pocket, was permitted to pay in two installments, October of 1950 and February 1951, stretching payments out over two fiscal years!
Not that there weren't some glitches. Marsden Hartley's End of Storm had been part of the deal, but Mrs. Benton decided that she couldn't part with it, and so the painting was left hanging over the Bentons' mantel. The Metropolitan Museum wanted to buy Stuart Davis's Garage Lights at a high price—-indeed it was on loan to the Met—but MAG refused to give it up. The Dove and Kuhn were recovered and became part of the sale. The group of paintings represented all important art movements of the first half of the century.
The complete purchase included the following:
Thomas Hart Benton (1889-1975), Boomtown (51.1): Everyone knows Boomtown, MAG's most borrowed painting. Regionalist Benton here paints a scene of Borger, Texas, in his undulating curves and high color. (See "About Gallery Art," October 1999.)
Ralston Crawford (1906-1978), Whitestone Bridge (51.2): A painting by precisionist Crawford, who uses an extreme form of linear perspective combined with flat, two-dimensional color areas. His nod to surrealism can be seen in the cloud at the upper right. of the canvas. The bridge in this painting, built to ease traffic at the 1939 World's Fair, connects New York City and Long Island.
Stuart Davis (1880-1946), Landscape with Garage Lights (51.3): This painting of Gloucester, MA, is an arrangement of recognizable objects woven into bright designs. Davis's syncopated forms translate his love for jazz onto canvas. He is the inventor of America's cubism.
Arthur G. Dove (1880-1946), Cars in Sleet Storm (51.4): Born in Canandaigua, Dove began his career doing illustrations for magazines. He soon moved into abstraction, often picturing the natural world in evocative compositions of curved, wavy lines in a palate of warm earth colors.
William Gropper (1897-1977), The Opposition (51.5): A work in which social realist Gropper shows his contempt for ineffective and indifferent bureaucrats, as well as the dangers of the political demagogue, whether in Congress or the city council.
George Grosz (1893-1959), The Wanderer (51.6): A painting suggesting the plight of the artist, in mortal danger from the Nazis, fleeing the destruction in Europe.
Robert Gwathmey (1903 -1988), Non-Fiction (51.7): Pictures the artist's concern with injustice and racial oppression in the South.
Walt Kuhn (1880-1949), Clown (51.8): A portrait which reveals a man’s soul. Kuhn is known for his pictures of clowns, acrobats, and exotic dancers, usually in stage dress and make-up. MAG's clown is in white-face, but his feelings are not disguised.
George Luks (1867-1933), London Bus Driver (51.9): A painting by the boastful Luks, one of The Eight, who painted drunks, derelicts, and urchins in the world around him. London Cabby is evidence that he made at least one trip to London.
John Marin (1870-1953), Marin Island (51.10): The world is in motion in this watercolor. Sky, sea, mountain and plain are the subject of Marin's abstract, personal nature studies, often views of the Maine Coast. Critics have proclaimed him the greatest watercolorist of his time.
Georgia O'Keeffe (1887-1986), Jawbone and Fungus (51.11 a): A picture probably painted in New Mexico. O'Keeffe's work ranges from pure abstraction to detailed realism. Her desert paintings involve simplified forms set against vast color spaces.
John Sloan, (1871-1951), Chinese Restaurant (51.12): A work well known to docents. Another member of The Eight, Sloan painted both city scenes and figure studies. He was a talented etcher as well as a painter and a popular teacher.
Max Weber (1881-1961), Discourse (51.13): A painting of three top-hatted Hebrew scholars in earnest discussion. Weber came to America from Russia at age ten. He first painted abstractly, then went to figurative art with lush color and an inventive, sketchy line. He was a sculptor as well as a painter.
Karl Zerbe, (1903-1972), Troupers (51.14): In this painting, Zerbe pictures the human comedy, shown as clown, fool, crook and tramp. It is painted in encaustic, an ancient technique in which beeswax is used as binding medium for pigment.
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