M O N T C L A I R ,
N E W
J E R S E Y
Montclair Art Museum:A Centennial Celebration
by Gail Stavitsky
T
o celebrate its centennial year,
the Montclair Art Museum is
featuring 100 works of art from its collection of over 12,000 paintings, sculptures,
works on paper, photographs, and other
mediums, throughout its galleries and
grounds. Identified with special labels,
these works are on view through 2014 as
part of the exhibition 100 Works for 100
Years: A Centennial Celebration.
Ever since opening its doors on January
American Art Review Vol . XXVI No. 3 2014
15, 1914, the Montclair Art Museum has
been a significant community and national
visual arts center. With more than 60,000
visitors a year, the Museum has been
unique as a prominent art and educational
institution in a suburban locale. During the
late nineteenth century, the bucolic town of
Montclair evolved into a lively community
of artists and collectors, including the civicminded William T. Evans. This prolific collector of American art pledged thirty-six
American paintings for a new gallery in
1909. He was soon supported in his cause
78
100 Works for 100 Years: A Centennial Celebration is on view through fall of 2014, at
the Montclair Art Museum, 3 South
Mountain Avenue, Montclair, New Jersey,
07042, 973-746-5555, www.montclairartmuseum.org.
by painter and Montclair resident Florence
Rand Lang, who made a generous financial
commitment to fund the construction of a
proper, fireproof art museum, the first of
its kind in New Jersey. Furthermore, a
room was to be devoted to the presentation
All illustrated images are from the Montclair
Art Museum, gift of William T. Evans, unless
otherwise stated.
ABOVE: George Inness, Delaware Water Gap,
1857, o/c, 32 x 52 1/4, gift of Mrs. F.G. Herman Fayen in memory of Mr. Fayen.
RIGHT : Gilbert Stuart, Caleb Whitefoord,
1782, o/c, 30 1/4 x 25 1/8, Museum purchase,
Clayton E. Freeman Fund.
LEFT : Theodore Robinson, By the Brook, c.
1891, o/c, 18 1/4 x 23 3/8.
of the Native American art collection assembled by her mother, Annie Valentine Rand.
The Montclair Art Museum was among
the first to focus on American art, past and
present. Furthermore, it was a pioneer in the
appreciation of Native American work on a
par with American art. Attended by over 500
people, the Museum’s opening celebration
featured a collection of paintings and sculptures, donated by Evans and created by such
important artists of the day as Ralph Albert
Blakelock, Leon Dabo, Theodore Robinson,
Childe Hassam, Daniel Chester French, and
Charles Warren Eaton, a resident of Bloomfield, New Jersey. Evans’s largesse also included The Sun Vow, a bronze that seems to
symbolize the Museum itself in its blending
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ABOVE:
Exterior of Montclair Art Museum, front of building.
New addition of Montclair Art Museum.
BELOW: George Inness, Sunset, 1892, o/panel, 30 x 45, Museum purchase, prior bequest of James Turner and prior gifts of Dr. Arthur
Hunter, Mrs. Charles C. Griswold, Mr. and Mrs. Alexander Kasser, Dr.
and Mrs. John J. McMullen, Mrs. Siegfried Peierls, John Ritzenthaler,
and anonymous donors.
BELOW RIGHT: Ralph Albert Blakelock, Silvery Moonlight, c. 1880-95,
o/c, 18 1/4 x 15.
OPPOSITE PAGE : Asher Brown Durand, Early Morning at Cold Spring,
1850, o/c, 59 x 47 1/2, Museum purchase, Lang Acquisition Fund.
LEFT:
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80
of American and Native American themes
and that has adorned the grounds in front
of the building since 1914. A loan exhibi-
tion of works by sixty local artists was also
on view, as well as several hundred Native
American artifacts donated by Lang, who
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also donated one of the Museum’s signature pieces, the neoclassical marble Crown
for the Victor by founding artist-trustee
Vol . XXVI No. 3 2014 American Art Review
William Couper. The Montclair Times deservedly proclaimed the new Museum “one
of the finest galleries of American paintings” and praised it for “rounding out” the
town’s “reputation and attraction.”
The first several decades saw continuous
growth for the fledgling institution in spite
of war and the Depression. Under the leadership of the Museum’s first director,
Katherine Innes, a Picture Buying Fund
was established in 1926. Members were
asked to contribute to this fund and thereby
earn the privilege of voting for the purchase
of a painting. Robert Henri’s lively portrait
of an Irish child Jimmie O’D was the first
work to be acquired in this fashion. Soon
regarded as one of the “best liked” paintings
in the collection, this contemporary painting was the key acquisition of an event
which occurred annually from 1925 to
1929 and was revived in 1937. That year,
one of the exceptional works of the Museum’s collection, Edward Hopper’s Coast
Guard Station, was purchased directly from
the artist through the same fund. Attracting
considerable press as “one of Hopper’s best
pictures,” this work was selected from a Picture Buying Fund exhibition of work by
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contemporary American painters, including
Guy Pène du Bois, William Glackens,
George Luks, John Sloan, and others.
The Museum’s collection focus, predisposed by the interests and offerings of
Evans and Lang, was further affirmed in
the 1930s with the gift of a major George
Inness painting, Delaware Water Gap. The
following year, Florence Rand Lang funded the addition of a new East Wing that
provided additional exhibition space for the
ever-expanding Native American art collection, which had grown to more than 1500
objects from all of the Native culture areas
of the United States.
Following the death of Museum cofounder Florence Rand Lang, the Lang Acquisition Fund was created in 1944,
enabling the Museum to adopt a more ambitious program of collecting. Its first purchase, the next year, was the extraordinary
Hudson River School work of art by Asher
B. Durand, Early Morning at Cold Spring.
Together with the Museum’s first eighteenth-century portrait, Gilbert Stuart’s
lively Caleb Whitefoord, acquired in 1945
through the Clayton E. Freeman Fund,
these works signified the launch of a master
plan to collect American art from the
1700s to the present. This broad program
was reinforced in 1946 with the establishment of a second purchase fund, designated
for contemporary art and named for its
benefactor, Blanche R. Pleasants. Raphael
Soyer’s After the Bath was among the first
works to be acquired by this fund.
Under the direction of Kathryn Gamble
ABOVE: Daniel Chester French, Ralph Waldo Emerson, 1879, bronze, 22 1/2 x 11 x
9 1/2, gift of the artist.
RIGHT: Robert Henri, Jimmie O’D, c. 1925,
o/c, 24 x 20, Museum purchase, Picture
Buying Fund.
BELOW RIGHT: California, Pomo, Basket, c.
1910, willow, red bud, quail plumes, clam
shell, 6 x 11, gift of Mrs. Henry Lang in
memory of her mother Mrs. Jasper R.
Rand.
ABOVE LEFT: Hermon Atkins MacNeil, The
Sun Vow, 1899 (cast 1902), bronze, 68 x
45 x 29.
FAR LEFT : Elsie Driggs, Queensborough
Bridge, 1927, o/c, 40 1/4 x 30 1/4, Museum
purchase, Lang Acquisition Fund.
from 1952 to 1979, the Museum’s collection of historical and early twentieth-century art grew dramatically, with the addition
of major works by Thomas Eakins, William
Merritt Chase, Elsie Driggs, George Bellows, and many others. The expansion of
the collection provided a solid foundation
for future exhibitions and scholarship. For
example, Driggs’ rare Precisionist work
Queensborough Bridge became the centerpiece of the Museum’s acclaimed exhibition
in 1994, Precisionism in America 1915-1941:
Reordering Reality, hailed in New York Magazine as “one of the best shows to not come
to New York this year.” In 1973, the orga83
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nization’s status as a major art institution was confirmed when it became the first museum in New
Jersey and one of the first in the country to earn the
prestigious accreditation of the American Association of Museums. Artist Moses Soyer and his wife,
Ida, greatly added to the collection in 1974 with a
bequest of more than 100 paintings, works on paper, and sculptures. Works by Raphael Soyer, Ben
Shahn, Reginald Marsh, Philip Evergood, and others provided crucial representation of American art
between World Wars I and II. The New York Times
reported in 1975 that the Museum “had evolved
into one of the country’s leading small museums
and a major showcase for American art.”
In the 1980s, when Robert Koenig assumed
directorship, the Museum’s holdings were greatly
augmented by examples of post-World War II
American art, including significant works by
Louise Nevelson, Ad Reinhardt, Robert Motherwell, Willem de Kooning, George McNeil, and
Richard Diebenkorn. One of the highlights of his
tenure was the substantial gift in 1985 of personal
papers and artwork by the pioneer of color-based
abstraction, Morgan Russell. With this donation
of over 9000 objects, the Montclair Art Museum
became a major repository for the body of work
and personal papers of Morgan Russell, a coAmerican Art Review Vol . XXVI No. 3 2014
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RIGHT :
Raphael Soyer, After the Bath,
1946, o/c, 36 1/4 x 22, Museum purchase,
Blanche R. Pleasants Fund.
LEFT: Morgan Russell, Study for Synchromy,
c. 1913, recto, o/board, 12 7/8 x 9 1/2, Morgan Russell Archives and Collection, gift of
Mr. and Mrs. Henry M. Reed.
FAR LEFT : Manierre Dawson, Thirteen,
1913, o/wood, 27 x 20 1/2, Museum purchase, Acquisition Fund.
BELOW LEFT : Barbara Kruger, Untitled
(Seeing Through You), 2004-05, color photograph, 72 x 62, Museum purchase, Acquisition Fund, ©Barbara Kruger, image
courtesy of Mary Boone Gallery, New York.
founder of Synchromism (“with color”),
the first declared American modernist art
movement. This collection served as a catalyst for the first major retrospective of
Morgan Russell, organized by former Curator of Collections Marilyn Kushner and
circulated by the American Federation of
Arts in 1990 and 1991.
In the 1990s, the Museum placed a
new emphasis on acquiring modern and
contemporary art upon the approach of the
twenty-first century. This focus was initiated by the Museum’s seventh director, Ellen
S. Harris (1992-2000), and continued by
Patterson Sims (2001-2008). It was
strengthened by MAM’s current director,
Lora S. Urbanelli (2009-present), who appointed the first curator of contemporary
art in the Museum’s entire history, Alexandra Schwartz, in 2010.
Works on view in the Museum’s
Roberts Gallery by Carrie Mae Weems,
Lorna Simpson, Dulce Pinzón, Rafael Ferrer, Willie Cole, and others reflect the multicultural diversity of contemporary art,
addressing issues of race/heritage, gender,
and identity. The Museum has also in recent years developed a notable collection of
contemporary art by such Native American
artists as Kay WalkingStick, Tony Abeyta,
Dan Namingha, Marie Watt, and Doug
Miles. Whereas works by Brian Alfred and
Jenny Holzer explore aspects of the impact
of new technologies, others by Sandy
Skoglund, Wardell Milan, and Barbara
Kruger exemplify the predominance of
photography as a medium in art today.
Nevertheless, a wide variety of acquisitions in the 1990s and beyond have reflected the Museum’s ongoing commitment to
its long-range plan of acquiring 300 years
of American and Native American art. Ma-
jor acquisitions of such late George Inness
paintings as Sunset and Gathering Clouds,
Spring, Montclair, New Jersey (c. 1890-94)
augmented one of the largest and most significant collections of the artist’s work,
which now totals over twenty paintings and
works on paper. Noteworthy works by Man
Ray, Georgia O’Keeffe, Philip Evergood,
Stuart Davis, and Andy Warhol greatly bol85
stered the Museum’s modernist holdings.
In the mid-1990s the Museum began
to greatly augment its collection of American photographs, with acquisitions of
more than 100 works by Walker Evans,
Aaron Siskind, Margaret Bourke-White,
Berenice Abbott, Helen Levitt, Harry
Callahan, James Van Der Zee, Gordon
Parks, and others. Furthermore, the MuVol . XXVI No. 3 2014 American Art Review
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RIGHT :
William Merritt Chase, A Tambourine
Player, c. 1886, o/c, 74 1/2 x 39 1/2, Museum purchase, Acquisition Fund.
LEFT : William Couper, Crown for the Victor,
1896, marble, 69 1/2 x 31 1/2 x 28 3/4, gift of Mr.
and Mrs. Henry Lang.
FAR LEFT: Childe Hassam, Summer at Cos Cob,
1902, pastel on paper, 22 1/8 x 18 1/8.
BELOW LEFT: Edward Hopper, Coast Guard Station, 1929, o/c, 29 x 43, Museum purchase, Picture Buying Fund.
seum launched a unique collection of work by
American artists who greatly appreciated Native
American art, with acquisitions of work by
Steve Wheeler, Will Barnet, Peter Busa, Robert
Barrell, Howard Daum, and, most recently,
Charles Greene Shaw.
With the Museum’s expansion in 20002001, the doubling of gallery space to nearly
12,000 square feet has afforded greater opportunities to feature MAM’s wide-ranging collections
in such thematic exhibitions as Engaging Nature:
American and Native American Artists (A.D.
1200– 2004) in 2010 and Patterns, Systems, Structures: Abstraction in American Art in 2012-13.
The Museum’s collection-based shows are
complemented by its increasingly ambitious program of special loan traveling exhibitions, accompanied by catalogues providing new
scholarship on their topics. Often inspired by
works in the MAM’s collection, these shows include the groundbreaking Cézanne and American
Modernism (2009-2010), which was the best attended exhibition in the Museum’s entire history
with over 50,000 visitors and the first to examine the master’s profound influence on American
artists from about 1907 to 1930.
The Museum’s recent acquisition of a
groundbreaking abstraction by Manierre Dawson, Thirteen, brings its collection full circle to its
institutional origins. While Dawson was creating
this pioneering non-objective painting in Chicago, the Montclair Art Museum was under construction. Later this year, Thirteen will be
featured in a special reinstallation of a section of
the 100 Works exhibition that will include other
paintings of 1913 in the collection. It is this particular convergence of artists, collectors, and the
public that is still reflected in the comments of
Lloyd Goodrich, leading American art scholar
and former director of the Whitney Museum of
American Art, who observed in 1977:
The [Montclair Art] Museum has never
been doctrinaire in its judgements…. One of
the outstanding features of the collection is the
breadth of viewpoint it displays, its recognition
of merit in the works of widely differing artists.
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