Without the contributions of Lillie Bliss, the Museum of Modern Art might have fizzled out before it had a chance to develop into the great institution we know. Opening nine days after the crash of the New York Stock Exchange in October 1929, the museum depended critically on the support of the three women who founded it-Abby Aldrich Rockefeller, Mary Quinn Sullivan and Bliss. Alone among them, Bliss had a seasoned knowledge of the art world and a remarkable collection of Post-Impressionist and 20th-century art. Her loans populated the museum's first exhibitions and soon constituted the core of its permanent collection.
Curators Ann Temkin and Romy Silver-Kohn's presentation of her in "Lillie P. Bliss and the Birth of the Modern" strikes a perfect balance between evoking her generally discreet path through the formative events of American art during the first three decades of the 20th century and rightly placing the emphasis on the vanguard art she acquired. Nothing demonstrates her goal of self-effacement more than her order that her private papers be destroyed after her death-a directive her brother faithfully executed, to the regret of historians.
In three galleries, we are introduced to photographs of Bliss and her home, as well as to some of the surviving letters and foundational documents of the museum, but the installation quickly shifts to the art she chose. It ranges from a delicate etching by Odilon Redon, "Day" (1891); through nine Cezannes, including his great "Bather" (c. 1885), and groups of paintings, prints and drawings by Gauguin and Seurat; to end with a cluster of works by Picasso, Matisse and Modigliani.
This story is from the January 16, 2025 edition of The Wall Street Journal.
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This story is from the January 16, 2025 edition of The Wall Street Journal.
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