The quality of the Jewish Museum’s new exhibit, Collecting Matisse and Modern Masters: The Cone Sisters of Baltimore, is unmistakable. The exhibit space fairly bursts with priceless works by Picasso, Paul Gauguin, Vincent van Gogh, Paul Cezanne and, of course, Matisse. Yet, despite the extraordinary collection, which is on loan from the Baltimore Art Museum, the true focus of Collecting Matisse and Modern Masters is not upon the artists so much as upon their patrons and, in some cases, friends, Claribel and Etta Cone.
In her opening remarks last Monday morning, Senior Curator of the Baltimore Art Museum Kathy Rothkopf underscored the point that the Cone sisters were appreciators of the art they collected, but that they acquired art with not only with their own enjoyment in mind. “They sought to create a context for Matisse and Picasso, who were their favorite artists,” said Rothkopf. The resulting collection is one of the finest aggregations of modern French art in the United States and the single largest collection of Matisse in the world. Yet, the Cones’ love of the modern masters and prescient curatorial sensibilities were not preformed by a long family history of art collecting. Instead, they grew out of another hobby that was perhaps more predictable for two young ladies of means.
“The Cone sisters loved to shop,” said Anne Mannix, Director of Communications at BAM, with a smile. “Claribel Cone once attended an opera in Paris and had to buy an extra seat for all of her shopping bags.” The financial successes of the two eldest Cone brothers, Moses and Ceasar, during the First World War greatly enhanced the family’s disposable income. It seems that the leap from acquiring stylish lace shawls to avant-garde works of art was a short one, and the brothers’ kindly financing of their sisters’ favorite pastime inadvertently paved the way for Claribel and Etta’s future hobby of art collecting. One day in 1898, Moses gave Etta $300, which was to be used towards redecorating the family home. The enterprising young Etta surprised everyone by instead using the money to acquire five pieces from American Impressionist Theodore Robinson. It was the beginning of what was to be a lifelong passion for both Etta and Claribel.
Upon entering the exhibit space, black-and-white portraits reveal the sisters first as young women in their twenties and then as kind-eyed, smiling matrons in their sixties. Throughout, the materials are remarkable in the breadth of their scope and the startling sense of familiarity they impart. A reproduced excerpt from an interview that appeared in the Baltimore Evening Sun on April 8, 1911 reveals that trying to force the impressive but self-effacing Claribel to speak at any length on the subject of herself was exasperating to the point of desperation for the two lady journalists reporting on the topic. The 1903 photo of the sisters sitting with the writer Gertrude Stein, in Settignano, Italy shows the three friends sitting outside on what is clearly a hot and hazy day in June, taking a respite from whatever activities that have occupied them. One gets the sense that the heat-weary Stein is a minute away from doffing her straw hat and using it as a fan and that Etta will follow suit soon after.
As the captions along the wall inform the viewer, the Cone sisters were close friends with Gertrude Stein and her brother Leo, and it was through the Steins that Claribel and Etta met the likes of Matisse and Picasso when they were still but peripheral players in the art world. The sisters were especially partial to Henri Matisse, whose kind and gentlemanly demeanor endeared him to the two ladies, and especially to Etta. After Claribel’s death in 1930, the now-famous Matisse came to the United States to visit the Baltimore Art Museum, which, thanks to the interventions of the Cone sisters, held the single largest collection of Matisse’s works. He visited with Etta during his stay in Baltimore and was overwhelmed to rediscover so many of his own early pieces displayed in places of honor within the sisters’ adjoining apartments. It was to be the beginning of a new chapter in the friendship between the younger Cone and the artist. “After Claribel’s death, it was really Matisse and Etta who became the partners,” explained Rothkopf. “He placed his most important works in her care and I really think he painted Reclining Nude for her.”
The collection is arranged according to the chronology in which the pieces were acquired, beginning with Theodore Robinson’s In the Grove (c. 1888) and concluding with Eugene Delacroix’s Perseus and Andromeda (1847), purchased just a few months before Etta’s death in 1949. Personalized artistic missives and wonderfully informative captions lend a somehow friendly feel to the exhibit space; here, a cartoonish self-portrait by Pablo Picasso whimsically tips its hat beneath the inscription “Bonjour Mlle Cone”; there, a caption reveals Matisse’s heartfelt gladness at Etta’s acquisition of Two Girls, Red & Green Background (1947), which he was certain would be viewed by posterity as one of his finest works. In addition to paintings and sculptures, the collection includes several pieces of exquisitely wrought jewelry and accessories of metal and lace that the sisters obtained over the course of their extensive travels throughout the Near and Far East. A slightly darkened central room houses these items, as well as a case containing archival documents ranging from account books and photographs to correspondences between the Cones, the Steins and Matisse. The exhibit concludes in a viewing area wherein one may watch excerpts from the 2003 BBC documentary Michael Palin and the Ladies Who Loved Matisse or take a virtual tour of the Cone sisters’ apartments to see the collection in its original configuration.
If the exhibit’s sole aim were to show a fantastic collection of pieces from some of history’s most influential artists, it would succeed admirably on the strength of that alone. But where Collecting Matisse and Modern Masters surprises is in the way it not only provides an artistic context in which the collection evolved, but brings to life the relationships between Etta, Claribel, and the artists who made up the vanguard of the modern movement.
What becomes clear as one makes one’s way through the collection is that the story of the Cone sisters and the great masters they helped raise to prominence is one of mutual regard. We find ourselves following the progression of these relationships, the warming of these individuals towards one another, with the same avidity that we observe the works of art. The historical personalities that make up the framework of the exhibit are every bit as compelling as the works themselves. It is this human element that makes Collecting Matisse and Modern Masters: The Cone Sisters of Baltimore such a special show, and it will be what stays with the viewer long after the doors close.
Collecting Matisse and Modern Masters: The Cone Sisters of Baltimore
The Jewish Museum
Through September 25, 2011
www.thejewishmuseum.org
Illustration Credits from top:
1. Claribel Cone, Gertrude Stein, and Etta Cone sitting at a table in Settignano, Italy, June 26, 1903. The Baltimore Museum of Art: Dr. Claribel and Miss Etta Cone Papers, Archives and Manuscripts Collections, CG.12.
2. Henri Matisse. Seated Odalisque, Left Knee Bent, Ornamental Background and Checkerboard, 1928. Oil on canvas. The Baltimore Museum of Art: The Cone Collection, formed by Dr. Claribel Cone and Miss Etta Cone of Baltimore, Maryland, BMA 1950.255. ©2011 Succession H. Matisse/Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York.
3. Pablo Picasso, Self-Portrait (Bonjour Mlle Cone), 1907. Pen and brown ink. The Baltimore Museum of Art: The Cone Collection, formed by Dr. Claribel Cone and Miss Etta Cone of Baltimore, Maryland, BMA 1950.12.481. © 2011 Estate of Pablo Picasso / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York.
4. Claribel and Etta Cone in Michael and Sarah Stein’s rue de la Tour apartment, Paris, c. 1922–1926. The Baltimore Museum of Art: Dr. Claribel and Miss Etta Cone Papers, Archives and Manuscripts Collections, SF.18A.
5. Theodore Robinson, In the Grove, c. 1888. Oil on canvas. The Baltimore Museum of Art: The Cone Collection, formed by Dr. Claribel Cone and Miss Etta Cone of Baltimore, Maryland, BMA 1950.291.
