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Great Plains Quarterly Great Plains Studies, Center for

1989

The Art Museum as Personal Statement: The Southwest Experience

Keith L. Bryant Jr University of Akron

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Bryant, Keith L. Jr, "The Art Museum as Personal Statement: The Southwest Experience" (1989). Great Plains Quarterly. 400. https://digitalcommons.unl.edu/greatplainsquarterly/400

This Article is brought to you for free and open access by the Great Plains Studies, Center for at DigitalCommons@University of Nebraska - Lincoln. It has been accepted for inclusion in Great Plains Quarterly by an authorized administrator of DigitalCommons@University of Nebraska - Lincoln. THE ART MUSEUM AS PERSONAL STATEMENT

THE SOUTHWESTERN EXPERIENCE

KEITH L. BRYANT, JR.

The museum boom in this country since World Indeed, the art museum rivals the shopping mall War II has been easy to observe and document. as a site for family excursions. The residents of Almost as many museums were constructed in the Southwest have participated in the museum the 1960s as in the previous two decades, and boom, generating new institutions and new the erection or expansion of cultural palaces has buildings along with national media attention, continued into the 1980s. The rising impor­ in a proclamation of the region's cultural ma­ tance of museums has been signaled not only turation. It has not always been so, however. by new buildings and massive additions but also In 1948, the artist, critic, and scholar Walter by attendance figures. The leading public at­ Pach published a survey of American art mu­ traction in the United States is neither profes­ seums that featured a state-by-state description sional football nor baseball; it is the Metropolitan of the best the nation had to offer. Arizona and Museum of Art in New York City. This over­ Oklahoma were not even listed. The entries for whelming public response is not limited to the Colorado and New Mexico were one-sentence "Big Apple," for museum attendance has soared statements about museums at Denver and Santa across the nation, particularly in the Southwest. Fe. The descriptions for the entire states of Texas The art museum has long since dropped its pa­ and California fell far short of the entries for trician stuffiness and become a place where the cities like Boston, Detroit, and Toledo, let alone masses enjoy the beautiful and the historical. 1 New York, Chicago, and Philadelphia. Z Yet in the 1980s, The New York Times, Newsweek, Sat­ urday Review, Time, and other national news­ papers and magazines have offered extensive coverage of art museums in Los Angeles, Hous­ Head of the department of history at the University of ton, Denver, Tulsa, and other southwestern cit­ Akron, Keith L. Bryant, Jr., has published several bio­ graphies and histories. His biography of American artist ies. How does one account for this belated William Merritt Chase is forthcoming, and he is currently regional participation in the museum phenom­ working on a cultural history of the southwest. enon? There appear to be two major factors in the (GPQ 9 (Spring 1989): 100--117) emergence of the Southwest as a home to mu-

100 ART MUSEUM AS PERSONAL STATEMENT 101 seums rivaling those of the Northeast and Mid­ museums that proliferated across the Northeast west. One obvious factor is the rapid and Midwest, but not until the twentieth cen­ urbanization and economic growth of this por­ tury did private collectors tum to the vanity tion of the so-called Sunbelt. The Southwest museum as a shrine for their connoisseurship. 4 was transformed by World War II as its popu­ The public "art palace" in America, with its lation swelled and its economy diversified. The democratic spirit, came to be rivaled by private transformation continued into the 1960s as collections reflecting the egos of the donors, Houston, Phoenix, Los Angeles, San Diego, and the impact of federal tax laws. The masses Dallas, Denver, and other urban centers wit­ flocked to these new museums, proving, as one nessed growth that doubled, tripled, or even critic wrote, "people who live in palace-mu­ quadrupled their populations in only two dec­ seums don't need them. People who don't, do."5 ades. The new urbanites were younger, wealth­ Southwesterners and other Americans have ier, more cosmopolitan, and eager to no monopoly on the formation of private art demonstrate the prosperity of the region to the museums. The Medici mentality can be seen in rest of the nation. 3 They did so by forming sym­ the Kroller-Muller Museum in Holland or the phony orchestras with internationally-known Courtauld Galleries in London, as well as in conductors 'and opera companies capable of the Frick Collection in New York or the Walters touring New York and Washington to critical Gallery in Baltimore. Some art patrons gave acclaim. They also built new art museums de­ shape to institutions the way Mrs. Potter Palmer signed by eminent architects and filled their molded the Art Institute of Chicago. Although galleries with objects purchased at extraordinary the recent opening of the Terra Museum in prices. Chicago demonstrates that new private art mu­ The other major factor in the emergence of seums are not limited to the Southwest, that the art museum as cultural artifact in the South­ region exhibits a strong dependence on the pa­ west is the individual patron or family creating tronage of individuals rather than art associa­ either a "vanity" museum or shaping a public tions or government appropriations. The use of museum's collection through sheer weight of dedicated trusts to establish a museum and to generosity. Many of these "twentieth-century endow its operations and collection develop­ Medicis" were not natives of the region but ment is an American phenomenon that has came to the Southwest to establish fortunes in reached its apogee in the Southwest. As Lewis petroleum, real estate, banking, newspaper Mumford wrote, the museum becomes "a man­ publishing, or agribusiness. Their largess be­ ifestation of our curiosity, our acquisitiveness, came the basis upon which art collections were our essentially predatory culture. "6 formed and buildings were erected, creating in­ In the Southwest entrepreneurs began to col­ stitutions of national and international repu­ lect art in the same way that they acquired tation. Indeed, most of the art museums of the business enterprises, and they often had the for­ Southwest owe their prominence to their per­ tunes to purchase art at times when others could sonalized nature. not. Their wealth allowed them a means for The great urban art treasuries in the United self-expression and later the basis for a gift that States typically originated through art associa­ guaranteed them a kind of immortality. Cities tions rather than individuals. The museums of in the region, struggling for recognition, eagerly New York, Boston, and Philadelphia served as accepted the gifts in a quest to create an instant models for Chicago, Detroit, Cincinnati, and culture. As a leading scholar of museum history St. Louis. The public art museum found its her­ has written, somewhat cynically, "The mag­ itage more in the revolutionary wave that pro­ nificent flowering of museums in the United duced the Louvre than in the elitism of the great States in less than half a century is the spon­ European private collections. Wealthy Ameri­ taneous creation of the American public whose cans donated paintings and sculpture to public richest citizens have thus acquitted their debt 102 GREAT PLAINS QUARTERLY, SPRING 1989

FIG. 1. Stark Museum of Art, Orange, Texas. The three museums pictured display strikingly different styles of architecture. Courtesy of Stark Museum of Art.

FIG. 2. Thomas Gilcrease (right) and unidentified friend in front of the original building of the Gilcrease Institute. Note the Indian bird motif above the door. Courtesy of the Thomas Gilcrease Institute of American History and Art, Tulsa, Oklahoma. ART MUSEUM AS PERSONAL STATEMENT 103

FIG. 3. Front entrance of the McNay Art Museum, San Antonio, Texas. Courtesy Marion Koogler McNay Art Museum. to the less fortunate."7 Yet, one must ask, what vanity museum is the highest form of ego is the quality of these artistic repositories? Is it gratification to which an aesthete can as' possible to acquire works of art in this century pire. 8 that would establish a collection worthy of the older museums in the East or in Europe? To provide justification for its existence, the In his syndicated newspaper column, Edward personal museum needs to demonstrate distinc, J. Sozanski spoke to these questions; tion through exceptional concentration in a specific type or period of art, an exemplary model A private art collection is a private indulg, of connoisseurship, or a refined or contempla, ence, and, as such, it does not have to satisfy tive ambience. The Southwest provides nu, any public obligations or expectations. Nor merous examples to which these criteria may be need its owners rationalize its forms or apol, applied. ogize for any of its perceived excesses or de, ficiencies. But, when such a collection enters MUSEUMS OF WESTERN AMERICAN ART the public domain, particularly as a self,con, tained museum, it invites closer scrutiny. The One group of museums in the region reflects 104 GREAT PLAINS QUARTERLY, SPRING 1989

FIG. 4. Frederic Remington's "A Dash for the Timber" (1889) displayed in the main gallery of the Amon Carter Museum . Courtesy Arnon Carter Museum, Fort Worth, Texas. their founders' love of the West-its geography, Arnon Giles Carter grew up in frontier Texas heritage, and the values they believed indige~ before moving to Fort Worth where he formed nous to the West and its residents. These col~ the Fort Worth Star Telegram in 1909. He created lectors sought art that portrayed what William a financial empire based upon the newspaper, Goetzmann has called "the West of the imag~ early investments in American Airlines, and ination."9 They purchased sculpture and paint~ successful petroleum exploration. His tastes in ings that depicted the courage and tenacity of art reflected his personal experiences, and his the settlers and their triumphs over the weather, acquisition of Frederic Remington's "A Dash wild animals, and the native population. Arnon for the Timber" in 1945 established him as a G. Carter, Sid Richardson, William Foxley, and prominent collector (fig. 4). He formed the H. J. Lutcher Stark formed major collections of Arnon G. Carter Foundation to create a mu~ Western and frontier art and presented their seum to house the four~hundred oil paintings, holdings to the public in an effort to preserve watercolors, and sculptures in his original hold~ a heroic past and to maintain the virtues seem~ ing. He dreamed of an art museum for the peo~ ingly represented by the frontier experience. pIe of Fort Worth; Carter described it as an ART MUSEUM AS PERSONAL STATEMENT 105

"artistic enterprise." After Carter's death his paintings ranging from Foxley's first acquisition, children and the foundation pursued the dream Russell's "Wolves Attacking Cattle in a Bliz­ and erected a Philip Johnson-designed building zard," to works by Georgia O'Keeffe, Thomas to house a collection that grew to more than Hart Benton, Grant Wood, and even Jackson six thousand works of art. The museum stands Pollack. Foxley built the collection not through on a hill with its facade facing downtown Fort dealers but by targeting specific paintings in Worth, which Carter largely created. Backed private hands and making ever-increasing mon­ by the foundation's wealth, the Amon Carter etary offers until the owners sold. Following his Museum became far more than a gallery devoted acquisitive, entrepreneurial nature, Foxley de­ to Remington and Charles M. Russell and veloped a holding that for him represents "a emerged as a major repository of American art. to healthy slice of the rare frontier spirit of the Another Fort Worth millionaire, Sid Rich­ American West. "12 ardson, eschewed the opportunity to move be­ H. J. Lutcher Stark inherited timber property yond the world of Remington and Russell and in eastern Texas and then made additional in­ built a collection almost exclusively of their vestments in petroleum and banking. Following works. Born in Athens, Texas, in 1891, Rich­ the example of his mother, who collected por­ ardson entered the oil business at age twenty­ celains, lace, and European art, Lutcher Stark two and within two decades acquired a fortune began to acquire paintings while he was an un­ based upon petroleum, land, and cattle. He dergraduate at the University of Texas. After bought his first Russell in 1942 and told Bertram he married Nelda Childers in 1943, they va­ M. Newhouse of the Newhouse Gallery in New cationed in Colorado and New Mexico every York City to form a collection for him. During summer, stopping in Santa Fe and Taos to pur­ the next five years Newhouse built up the Rich­ chase paintings. Lutcher Stark formed a large ardson holdings to more than eighty paintings collection of Western art, especially the work that were transferred to the Sid Richardson of Herbert Dunton, and in the 1950s acquired Foundation. Although it had access to enor­ more than two hundred paintings by Paul Kane mous assets, the foundation did not acquire ad­ and a substantial number of Audubon prints and ditional artworks after the death of its founder letters. His wife purchased Steuben glass and but did build a small, handsome gallery in porcelain birds. The Nelda C. and H. J. Lutcher downtown Fort Worth to display the Richard­ Stark Foundation received this diverse collec­ son Collection. This would have pleased its de­ tion and erected the Stark Museum of Art in veloper who "didn't like Western landscape Orange, Texas, to house it (fig. 1). Opened in artists-he wanted cowboys, Indians and horses 1978, the two-story marble building contains in his paintings." Richardson found in Russell objects that reflect Charles Wilson Peale's ad­ and Remington the vitality and motion that he monition to form a museum to house "the won­ associated with the West. 11 derful works of Nature and Curious Works of Although he made his fortune in ranching Art." Orange thus acquired a themeless mu­ and agribusiness in the Great Plains, William seum that reflected Lutcher Stark's love of the C. Foxley moved from Omaha to Denver where West and its art as well as his family's eclectic he established the Museum of Western Art. The tastes. 13 museum was created "to give people the opti­ Thomas Gilcrease also lavished affection and mism and self-reliance of the frontier." From great wealth on Western art, but for an entirely his own experience as a schoolb~y and a "green­ different purpose. His vast collection of Amer­ horn" working on a ranch in Montana, Foxley ican art, manuscripts, books, and Indian arti­ identifies with the "environmental and human facts did not laud the Anglo conquest of the characteristics indigenous to the American frontier, but instead celebrated the cultures of West." The Museum of Western Art houses 130 both the Indians and the white settlers (fig. 2). 106 GREAT PLAINS QUARTERLY, SPRING 1989

The quiet, unassuming Gilcrease, born in Lou­ isiana in 1890, moved with his parents to Indian WOMEN AS COLLECTORS Territory where he received part of his educa­ tion from the Creek poet Alexander Posey. One­ The personalization of museums in the eighth Creek Indian, Gilcrease obtained an al­ Southwest is not limited to native male mil­ lotment of tribal lands near Tulsa that was sit­ lionaires who sought to preserve the spirit of uated in the heart of the Glen Pool oil field. the frontier. As critic John Mason Brown has By 1917 more than thirty wells on Gilcrease's so inelegantly stated, "Women are the Typhoid property produced the beginnings of a major Marys of American Culture. "15 Indeed, female fortune. Gilcrease used his wealth to form pro­ residents of the Southwest have formed some duction and exploration companies and to ac­ of its major collections and have created and quire banks and substantial real estate holdings. endowed several of its important museums. Some By the mid-I920s he had established an office of these women came to the region from the in Europe and made extensive tours of the con­ East and became enamored with Indian and tinent. While in Paris he decided to create a Hispanic arts and crafts. Alice Bemis Taylor, collection of materials to record the history of Mary Cabot Wheelwright, and Millicent Rog­ the American Indian. He acquired manuscripts, ers provided the public with repositories of in­ books, and artifacts, largely in Europe, and soon digenous art. Other "Typhoid Marys" formed had one of the finest holdings in the country. outstanding collections of Old Master European He also added to his collection of western art paintings, Impressionist and Post-Impressionist pieces, which he had purchased at very low works, and contemporary European and Amer­ prices in a market that denigrated their impor­ ican art. The legacies of Marion Koogler McNay, tance. the Putnam sisters of San Diego, Wendy Reves, Living briefly in San Antonio, he exhibited and Dominique de Menil have produced mu­ his paintings in a gallery in the company offices. seums or museum collections strongly reflective He found that San Antonio had little interest of their taste and wealth. in his collection, however, and he returned to Alice Bemis Taylor's family came from Bos­ Tulsa. Through the Thomas Gilcrease Foun­ ton to Colorado in the 1880s. In 1921, after dation he established The Thomas Gilcrease 'she inherited a fortune from her father, Taylor Institute of American History and Art and con­ made her home in Colorado Springs where she tinued his program of acquisitions to the point became a critic, patron, collector, and bene­ of near bankruptcy in 1953. Because of inter­ factor. Trips to New Mexico and Arizona led vention by the City of Tulsa, the Gilcrease Col­ to the acquisition of first Indian and then His­ lection remained intact and in the city. While panic arts. An indefatigable collector, Taylor some dealers and other collectors considered the became known in Colorado Springs as "Lady oilman eccentric, Gilcrease's good friend Frank Bountiful. " Trips to Santa Fe led to meetings Dobie called him "one of the islands of hu­ with collectors such as Frank Applegate and manity." Thomas Hoving describes the collec­ Governor Arthur Seligman, and following their tion of 70,000 books and manuscripts, 300,000 deaths she purchased their Indian and Spanish Indian artifacts, and thousands of paintings as Colonial holdings. In addition Taylor devel­ "the most outstanding collection of American oped a large anthropological and archeological painting and Indian art in the country. "14 Gil­ library and expressed the desire to place her crease formed an institution far different in con­ books and collection in a museum or research cept and goals from those of Carter, Richardson, institute. Other cultural leaders in Colorado Foxley, and Stark, but it was a repository that Springs persuaded her to donate $400,000 to reflected his heritage and personality. build the Colorado Springs Fine Arts Center ART MUSEUM AS PERSONAL STATEMENT 107

FIG. 5. MiUicent Rogers dyeing velvet at Tony House, 1948. Courtesy of the Millicent Rogers Museum, Taos, New Mexico. 108 GREAT PLAINS QUARTERLY, SPRING 1989 with the Taylor Museum as an integral part. in divorce. After she moved to California, Rog­ The dignified benefactor of the arts thereby not ers was asked by a friend, actress Janet Gaynor, only created a center for the study of native to accompany her on a trip to New Mexico. Southwestern peoples but also provided the res­ Millicent Rogers fell in love with the Land of idents of Colorado Springs with a cultural com­ Enchantment and soon moved to Taos. Long plex of enduring worth. 16 known in society circles for her clothes and Similarly, Mary Cabot Wheelwright came jewelry, Rogers used her exquisite taste to build from a distinguished Boston Brahmin family, a collection of Pueblo pottery, Navajo silver was well educated, and had traveled extensively jewelry, and Apache baskets. At a time when in Europe. In middle age, she visited a dude prices were low, she developed substantial hold­ ranch near Alcalde, New Mexico, in 1918, ings of the very best arts of the Southwest. Se­ seeking something new in her life. She later lecting blankets, Santos, and Indian shirts and wrote, "I went to the Southwest where I seemed blouses with great care and skill, she filled her to get near something I had always wanted, a adobe home with native arts as well as paintings simple way of living, more adventurous and more by Renoir and Whistler. After her death in 1953, exciting than the safety of Boston." Wheel­ Rogers's family formed the museum whose hold­ wright purchased a home near Alcalde and be­ ings reflected her keen mind and intellectual came part of the intellectual circle of William bent. The collection shows the aesthetic de­ P. and Alice Corbin Henderson in Santa Fe. velopment of a complex multicultural society, She turned her energies and wealth toward col­ the goal Millicent Rogers had set for it. 18 lecting artifacts to preserve the heritage of the Marion Koogler McNay shared Rogers's en­ Navajo culture and religion. Strongly influ­ thusiasm for New Mexico folk art but moved enced by Navajo singer Hastum Klah, this regal far beyond that as a collector. The spoiled Victorian lady traveled through the tribal lands daughter of a Kansas physician, McNay studied on horseback, sleeping on the ground, becom­ painting in Chicago and was captivated by the ing convinced that "to study man without his exhibit of the Armory Show at the Art Institute religion is like studying the ocean without the in 1913. She subsequently married a Texas tide." Aided by Hastum Klah, Wheelwright "doughboy" ten years her junior and moved to sought first to create a "House of Navajo Re­ San Antonio. Her husband died during World ligion" but then expanded her vision to form War I, but she remained in Texas. The discov­ the Wheelwright Museum of the American In­ ery of oil on her father's lands in Kansas gave dian. William P. Henderson designed a large her the resources to collect art for more than building in the form of a Navajo hogan that thirty years. While she lived in Taos and studied Wheelwright built in Santa Fe in 1937. She art there, and was married briefly to a local filled the museum with blankets, sand paint­ artist, her collection moved beyond the South­ ings, and other objects that sought to promote west. After building a substantial Spanish Co­ understanding between Indian and non-Indian lonial Revival home in San Antonio (fig. 3), peoples. The museum reflected her metaphys­ she acquired a small but exquisite collection of ical quest in the Southwest, what Wheelwright French Impressionist paintings. Her holdings called her "Journey Towards Understanding."l7 included Renoir, Cezanne, Gauguin, and Pi­ The Millicent Rogers Museum in Taos cel­ casso. Her virile tastes led to the acquisition of ebrates the connoisseurship of Millicent Rogers, a large number of American watercolors, prints, granddaughter of Standard Oil partner Henry and drawings. When she died in 1950, McNay H. Rogers (fig. 5). The tall, elegant Rogers left the house and grounds and the collection inherited part of a fortune estimated at $150 to the city of San Antonio with an endowment million. A New York debutante in the Jazz Age, to purchase Post-Impressionist and contempo­ Rogers married three times, each union ending rary art. Subsequent additions to the museum ART MUSEUM AS PERSONAL STATEMENT 109 contain gifts from several San Antonio collec­ ies, arrangements were made in San Diego to tors, to form a diverse holding of very high house the Putnam holdings in a separate jewel quality. 19 box-like building, the Timkin Gallery, which Whereas Marion McNay's background and became a monument to the Putnams and their training led her to purchase works largely of the generosity.20 The sisters gave shape to the mu­ nineteenth and twentieth centuries, the Put­ seum and the heart of its impressive collection. nam sisters of San Diego used the wealth of New York model, international socialite, and their family to acquire European Old Master art collector Wendy Reves likewise has provided paintings, thereby giving their adopted city one a distinct flavor to the new Dallas Museum of of the finest such collections in the nation. Art through a gift that reflects her connois­ Housed in a Spanish Colonial Revival building seurship and that of her late husband. Born in Balboa Park, the San Diego Museum of Art Wyn-Nelle Russell in Marshall in rural eastern began to receive anonymous gifts of Old Master Texas, Wendy Reves became a John Robert paintings in the 1930s. Director Reginald Po­ Powers model in New York and part of the in­ land knew well the identity of the generous ternational set in the years before World War benefactors:, they were the reclusive Putnam sis­ II. In 1949 she began a life with Emery Reves, ters, Anne, Irene, and Amy. The Putnam fam­ although they were not married until fifteen ily had arrived in San Diego in 1913 from New years later. Emery Reves (originally Revesz), a York, and the father of the sisters prospered in Hungarian Jew, formed an anti-fascist news syn­ real estate, hardware, and banking. Raised in a dicate in the 1930s and became a confidant of cloistered, Victorian environment in the family Winston Churchill and other allied leaders. He home, the Putnam sisters received a private ed­ wrote extensively and prospered as a publisher ucation in languages, philosophy, religion, and and editor. Emery and Wendy Reves purchased art. They traveled to meetings with Poland in Coco Chanel's home in the south of France and a curtained car and visited the galleries to see filled it with art and distinguished guests. The "their" pictures in the evening after the museum Reveses acquired paintings by Cezanne, Monet, had closed. Working with leading dealers and Gauguin, Renoir, Van Gogh, and Degas as well experts in New York and Europe, the sisters took as Chinese porcelains, iron work from the Mid­ advantage of the desperate situation on the con­ dle Ages, Spanish and Middle Eastern carpets, tinent before 1939 to purchase Old Masters at rare books, and decorative arts. They also held discounted prices. Guided by scholarly opinion a large body of Winston Churchill memorabilia. and their own tastes, they purchased works by After the death of Emery Reves in 1981, it Goya, El Greco, Titian, Van Dyke, Rubens, became known that the collection might be and Rembrandt. Soon the museum had the fin­ available to a museum. 21 est collection of Spanish Baroque, Italian Ren­ The aggressive leaders of the Dallas Museum aissance, and Dutch Old Master paintings on of Art were ready to act. The museum had a the West Coast. The national-indeed inter­ long history in the city, having been founded national-reputation of the museum was the in 1903, but its collection varied in quality and result of the Putnams' role. The sisters's largess had few Old Masters or major pieces of Impres­ continued until 1950 when Poland retired and sionist art. In the 1960s, as the local economy the Putnams cut their ties to the institution. boomed, civic leaders determined that Dallas Through their Putnam Foundation the sisters needed a new museum with a first-class collec­ continued to purchase major pieces and loan tion. As often happens, the building came first. them to the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the In 1977, Edward Larrabee Barnes was commis­ National Gallery of Art, and other museums. sioned to design a new museum and two years Fearing the loss of these paintings to other cit- later voters approved a bond issue of almost $25 110 GREAT PLAINS QUARTERLY, SPRING 1989 million to pay for part of the structure even as band, Kay, to accompany her to a Fort Worth private donors gave an additional $20 million. Art Association exhibit. There the quiet, mod­ Civic leaders joined the museum's young direc­ est entrepreneur found an eighteenth-century tor Harry Parker to find paintings. They tar­ English hunting painting that so appealed to geted Wendy Reves, courted her assiduously, him that he knew he had to have it. Bertram and won a commitment. 22 Newhouse sold Kimbell the first of many paint­ The museum agreed to her terms in order to ings, and over the next two decades he and his obtain what they did not have-a major col­ sons guided the Kimbells on a quest for the best lection of seventy Impressionist and Post­ in Renaissance, British, and nineteenth-cen­ Impressionist paintings. Dallas had no Renoirsj tury French painting (fig. 6). Born in rural Texas Reves was offering eight! But the price was steep. in 1886, the shy, hardworking Kimbell mas­ She demanded that the museum recreate six of tered the marketplace in flour and grain and the principal rooms of her home, Villa La Pausa, began to build a business empire. By the 1960s, with the furniture, paintings, tapestries and other from his headquarters in Fort Worth, Kimbell furnishings as she had them arranged. Further­ led some seventy corporations in food manu­ more, the collection would also include the iron facturing and distribution, petroleum, real es­ works, Churchill memorabilia, and decorative tate, and insurance. From the time he acquired arts, to be displayed as a unit. To get this treas­ his first painting Kimbell became an inveterate ure trove, the museum directors ordered Barnes museum-goer. On every business trip he visited to redesign an area of the second floor of the museums, and he and his wife continued to new building at a cost of $6 million to house purchase paintings that soon overwhelmed their "The Wendy and Emery Reves Collection." The home. Loans to colleges, universities, and li­ Reves gift doubled the value of the museum's braries did not achieve Kimbell's desire to "share permanent collection, but at some sacrifice. The what he had with others. "24 museum's collection is not united, and the re­ The Kimbells created the Kimbell Art Foun­ constructed rooms place the paintings a great dation in the 1930s to own the art works, and distance from the viewer. The wing houses a Kay Kimbell willed his entire interest in all of strange combination of Churchill memorabilia, his firms to the foundation. Upon Kimbell's iron works, decorative pieces, and tapestries. death, his wife donated her share of the com­ One New York art authority noted, "Texas munity property as well. Armed with a valued museums are perceived as being on the make. collection and an endowment in excess of $100 They're energetic and extremely well heeled. "23 million and charged to create in Fort Worth a That comment describes the rise of the South­ museum of the "first rank," the foundation com­ west as a force in the international art world as missioned Louis I. Kahn to design a building powerful, wealthy collectors came to dominate for the museum. A detailed and carefully con­ the marketplace. structed planning document produced a build­ ing lauded by critics and architects worldwide. The distinguished Japanese architect Arata Iso­ FOUR DOMINANT COLLECTORS zaki calls the Kimbell simply "the best building Four collectors symbolize that presence: Kay in the United States. "25 Kimbell, John and Dominique de Menil, Nor­ Realizing that his good friend Amon Carter ton Simon, and J. Paul Getty. They created was forming a major collection of Western institutions that exhibited outstanding master­ American art and that the Fort Worth Museum works and they had the financial resources to of Art desired to build a modem art collection, dominate galleries and auction houses for more Kimbell had decided to fill the void with Eu­ than three decades. ropean paintings and sculpture. The directors In 1935 Velma Kimbell persuaded her hus- of the Kimbell built on that core collection of ART MUSEUM AS PERSONAL STATEMENT 111

two hundred pieces, using the foundation's re, museum of truly the first rank. 26 sources to buy paintings from the Renaissance Although final judgment on the recently and scrolls from the Orient as well as pre,Co, opened Menil Collection of Houston is years lumbian art. The collection was broadened after away, John and Dominique de Menil have 1981 with the acquisition of works by Velas, strongly influenced art in the Southwest. Long quez, Chardin, Watteau, and Picasso, many of before their treasury opened in Houston, John the paintings being masterworks in prime con' de Menil had served as an advisor to the Kimbell dition. As early as 1982, Thomas Hoving called Art Museum. His wife, Dominique, continues the Kimbell "America's best small museum," to serve on the board of directors of the Museum housed in a building he declared to be a "flaw, of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles and as less success." Thus the modest Kimbell and his chairman of the Centre Georges Pompidou in wife provided Fort Worth with a museum that Paris. Their connoisseurship underlies the Menil carried out his plan, a serene place of silver light Collection, and its disparate holdings echo the to house the best and the most beautiful, an art variety found in the Reves Collection in Dallas.

FIG. 6. Velma Kimbell (left) with Mr. and Mrs. Louis I. Kahn at opening of Kimbell Art Museum, October 1972. The painting in the background is "The Concert," c. 1740, by Philippe Mercier. Courtesy Kimbell Art Museum. 112 GREAT PLAINS QUARTERLY, SPRING 1989

Opened in June 1987, the Menil Collection dealers as the "steeled butterfly," Dominique de is the $150 million private holding of the de Menil decided after her husband's death in 1973 Menils, housed in a building designed by the to use their fortune, estimated at $200 million, Genoese architect Renzo Piano, who also pro­ to create a museum in Houston to house their duced the Pompidou Center. The collection collection. Other Houston foundations helped ranges from paleolithic times to the twentieth fund the $25 million building she developed century, with emphasis on expressionist and with Renzo Piano. When the collection was postexpressionist art. The ten thousand objects placed within the museum even she was shocked: reflect the de Menils' interests in Greek and "My, my goodness, we did buy a lot of things," Roman antiquities, African art, and the Cubists she declared. One of the last great private col­ and surrealists. When asked what characterized lections in the United States, its opening brought the collection, Dominique de Menil responded, critics from around the world to visit the quiet, "Maybe a passionate curiosity for the past and dignified building and its noncomprehensive also a vulnerability to poetry-the poetry of a collection. Private passions had been trans­ Cubist collage that sings a miraculous song, po­ formed into a public statement that added im­ etry of images revealing the beauty and mystery mensely to the culture of Houston, Texas, and of the world, whether the image is a small and the Southwest. 29 tender Vuillard or a stunning Magritte."27 Likewise, southern California has benefited Born in Paris in 1908, the daughter of phy­ from the creation of two of the finest vanity sicist Conrad Schlumberger, Dominique de museums in the world. Norton Simon and J. Menil inherited a substantial fortune in the oil­ Paul Getty and their foundations not only servicing company Schlumberger Limited. She opened museums of extraordinary range and married Parisian banker Jean de Menil (changed quality, but continue to acquire works of art at to John in 1962), and in the late 1930s they an astonishing rate and at astonishing prices. began to purchase art. When John paid $2,000 The result has been the creation of an entirely for a Cezanne watercolor Dominique was new art atmosphere in southern California. shocked and her mother soon feared their ac­ Although not a native of the region, Norton quisitions would lead them to poverty. But their Simon made his home in southern California discovery of Max Ernst (from whom they bought after becoming a highly successful entrepreneur. one hundred works), Miro, and Braque simply Born in Portland, Oregon, in 1907, Simon whetted their appetite. "We became totally un­ moved to San Francisco as a young man. There reasonable," Dominique recalled. "It was folly. he developed a food processing firm, and in We borrowed money to buy art. "28 Forced to 1943 he formed Hunt Foods and turned it into flee to the United States when the German a $1 billion conglomerate during the next three army occupied Paris, the de Menils moved to decades. In 1954 Simon bought his first paint­ Houston, became American citizens, and con­ ings for a new home-a Gauguin, a Bonnard, tinued to add to their art collection. They be­ and a Picasso. "I was hooked," he said. 30 Simon came a force in the Houston Museum of Fine read art books voraciously, visited museums, Arts and created art history centers at the Col­ and met with gallery owners. By the mid-1960s lege of St. Thomas and Rice University. These he was prepared to enter the international art "modem Medicis" demanded control over the market with a vengeance. He purchased the programs they supported, and if they did not entire Duveen Brothers art gallery and the receive it they moved on to other projects. building in which it was housed for $15 million, Using the Meni! Foundation as a vehicle, then bought works by Rembrandt, Raphael, they spent thirty years acquiring the impecca­ Monet, Degas, and other masters at record set­ ble. Known to Houston civic leaders and to art ting prices. Soon Simon had spent over $100 ART MUSEUM AS PERSONAL STATEMENT 113 million on art. Angered by the policies of the the J. Paul Getty Trust and its voracious ac­ Los Angeles County Museum of Art and the quisitions. Born in Minneapolis in 1892, J. Paul feuding by his fellow directors, Simon resigned Getty moved with his family in 1903 to Ok­ from its board and in 1974 prepared to create lahoma Territory where his father entered the his own museum. petroleum business. Educated at the University Fortunately for Simon, the Pasadena Mu­ of Southern California, the University of Cal­ seum of Modem Art had grossly overextended ifornia at Berkeley, and Oxford University, itself in constructing a large building without Getty toured the National Gallery in London an endowment to maintain the facility. Its des­ and the Louvre as a young man beginning a perate directors asked him for aid. He agreed lifelong interest in art. He worked on his fath­ to pay their debts, to repair and remodel the er's oil properties in Oklahoma during the sum­ building, and to continue to display their small mer and developed his own petroleum holdings. but impressive collection of modem art. But A millionaire by age twenty-three, Getty di­ they had to accept his terms: a name change to vided his time between his home in Los Angeles the Norton Simon Museum of Art and total and Europe. After the outbreak of the Great control of the policies of the museum. They Depression, he began to purchase works of art agreed, and'when the museum reopened in 1975 at very low prices. After buying his first painting it housed the various Norton Simon holdings in 1931, Getty fell in love with English and and his wife, Jennifer Jones Simon, chaired a French furniture and by the late thirties was hand-picked board of directors. Simon seized collecting in earnest. Getty read extensively in the opportunity to "pick up" a museum just as art books and journals and made a decision to he had acquired food processors for the con­ collect Greek and Roman antiquities, Renais­ glomerate. He told reporters that he wished "to sance paintings, eighteenth-century French fur­ clarify unmistakably that the museum is to be­ niture, and classical carpets. The growing Getty come an institution of the type of the Frick fortune allowed him to increase his rate of ac­ Collection in New York. "31 quisition, particularly after he moved perma­ With assets in excess of $100 million, the nently to England in 1957. Vast profits from Norton Simon Foundation acquired outstand­ Middle Eastern oil investments encouraged ing Dutch and Flemish works and then added Getty to furnish several homes with his growing some seventeenth- and eighteenth-century treasury. 33 paintings of outstanding importance. The col­ In 1953 he created a trust to build a museum lection was broadened to include Matisse, in southern California, and plans were devel­ Utrillo, and Modigliani and strengthened in oped to construct the facility on his Malibu French Impressionism. Degas bronzes, Barbizon ranch. There Getty desired to display part of landscapes, and Picasso's "Woman With Book" his holding in what he referred to as "my Taj helped form an impeccable and increasingly Mahal." A $17 million museum would house a comprehensive holding. Consumed with a rest­ collection worth $200 million. Having devel­ less energy to locate and acquire the very best oped a holding largely in a depressed market works, Simon proved not to be an adventurous and in several areas not favored by contempo­ collector, but he demonstrated a passion for pur­ rary tastes, and taking advantage of American chasing blockbuster masterpieces. By 1987, the and British tax laws, Getty ordered that a re­ Simon holdings had an estimated value of $7 50 production of a Roman villa be erected on a million and the museum had b~come one of the hill overlooking the Pacific Ocean. He did not most remarkable art collections in the world. 32 want some "tinted glass and stainless-steel mon­ The furor over soaring prices for art increased strosity" for his collection. Opened in 1974 to dramatically with the rising fiscal strength of less than positive notices, the Getty Museum 114 GREAT PLAINS QUARTERLY, SPRING 1989 was criticized both for its architecture and the are handsome art museum buildings in Phoenix, unevenness of its collection. Getty never saw Tucson, Corpus Christi, and Amarillo that lack the museum before his death in 1976 but un­ major strength in any area of their holdings; doubtedly felt the slings and arrows of its de­ meanwhile Austin, Oklahoma City, and EI Paso tractors, who noted that he had refused to enter lack anything resembling a comprehensive art the competition for the finest Old Master paint­ museum. ings and that the collection did not compare in The art boom in the Southwest in the last quality with Kay Kimbell's or Norton Simon's. thirty years has been fueled by the rise of vanity He defended the building, arguing, "What could museums provided by private collectors. The be more logical than to display [classical art] in museum expansion parallels the rapid urbani­ a classical building?"34 But what of the French zation of the region and its economic modern­ furniture, Renaissance paintings, and Persian ization. In the absence of strong, broad-based carpets? art associations in most cities, urban leaders The museum staff and trustees of the foun­ sought the donations of private collectors who dation assumed that they would benefit from a in tum used their massive wealth and the federal Getty endowment, but they were unprepared tax laws to create ego-appeasing monuments to for the largess provided in his will. Getty gave their connoisseurship. The absence of historic the museum his private art collection and his commitment to the arts in the urban Southwest entire fortune worth $ 700 million. That sum has not precluded the establishment of opera, soared to $1.25 billion when Getty Oil Com­ ballet, and theatrical companies and symphony pany was sold. Federal law required that the orchestras capable of gaining national recog­ trust spend almost $100 million per year on its nition. But these cultural amenities have not activities, and consequently the trustees have achieved the public fame and critical acclaim engaged in a policy of major purchases and in of the art institutions. Entrepreneurs have pur­ the planning of a huge new museum in Brent­ sued paintings, sculptures, and the decorative wood. They have initiated programs in the areas arts in the same way they acquired corporations, of art education, art history, and preservation. 35 ranches, and mineral rights, and they have cre­ Nevertheless, the richest museum in the world ated art museums bearing their names to estab­ is still under assault for the quality of its holdings lish an immortality that transcends the vagaries and the "modest" nature of its acquisitions. Few of Wall Street. The trend continues unabated: museums in the country so closely reflect the international business figure and Occidental Pe­ personality of their benefactors as the Getty. troleum chairman Armand Hammer has an­ nounced the construction of a $30 million museum in Los Angeles to house his $250 mil­ CONCLUSION lion art collection. Ironically, this newest pri­ There are other vanity museums in the vate treasury will not be part of the Los Angeles Southwest that reflect a private passion for ac­ County Museum of Art but will be located a quisition and display of art and crafts, and there few blocks down Wilshire Boulevard, next to are also public museums whose collections have Hammer's corporate headquarters. 36 As the last been shaped by the generosity of one patron or region of the country to urbanize and to achieve family. William Randolph Hearst in the 1940s economic maturity, the Southwest has em­ and Joe Price in the 1980s gave the Los Angeles braced the private art museum to demonstrate County Museum of Art much of its flavor, al­ cultural adulthood, and wealthy collectors have though in entirely different areas. Cities with­ responded with monumental art palaces for the out such patrons have not fared as well. There masses. ART MUSEUM AS PERSONAL STATEMENT 115

NOTES 8. Edward J. Sozanski, "The Menil Collection," Bryan-College Station [Texas] Eagle, 16 October 1987. 1. The Southwest is defined as that part of the 9. William H. Goetzmann and William N. United States south and west of a line extending Goetzmann, The West of the Imagination (New York: from Houston to Tulsa, Denver, and Los Angeles. W. W. Norton and Co., 1986). C. Ray Smith, "The Great Museum Debate," Pro­ 10. "News Release," 30 June 1986, Library of the gressive Architecture 50 (December 1969): 76--85; Paula Amon Carter Museum, Fort Worth, Texas; Linda Eyrich Tyler and Ron Tyler, Texas Museums: A Ayres et aI., American Paintings: Selections from the Guidebook (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1983), Amon Carter Museum (Birmingham: Oxmoor House, p. vii; Karl E. Meyer, The Art Museum: Power, Money, 1986); Burt, Palaces for the People, pp. 376--77; Aloi, Ethics (New York: William Morrow and Co., 1979), Musei: Architettura-Tecnica, pp. 492-96. See also Jerry p. 17. Flemmons, Amon: The Life of Amon Carter, Sr., of 2. Walter Pach, The Art Museum in America (New Texas (Austin: Jenkins Publishing Co., 1978). York: Pantheon, 1948), pp. 270-88. 11. Annual Report, Sid Richardson Foundation, 3. Gerald D. Nash, The American West in the Fort Worth, Texas, 1985; "Sid Richardson Collec­ Twentieth Century (Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice­ tion of Western Art," Jan Brenneman, Director of Hall, 1977), pp. 217-18; Jerome O. Steffen, "Stages the Richardson Collection, quoted, typescript, Sid of Development in Oklahoma History," in Anne Richardson Collection of Western Art, Fort Worth; Hodges Morgan and H. Wayne Morgan, eds. Okla­ "Sid Richardson Collection of Western Art," bro­ homa: New Views of the Forty-sixth State (Norman: chure, Richardson Collection. Universiry of Oklahoma Press, 1982), pp. 28--30; 12. William C. Foxley, Frontier Spirit: Catalog of Christopher S. Davies, "Life at the Edge: Urban and the Collection of the Museum of Western Art, (Denver: Industrial Evolution of Texas, Frontier Wilderness­ Museum of Western Art, 1983); Barbaralee Dia­ Frontier Space, 1836-1986," Southwestern Historical monstein, Remaking America: New Uses, Old Places Quarterly 89 (April 1986): 443-554. (New York: Crown Publishers, 1986), pp. 174--76; 4. Sherman E. Lee, ed. On Understanding Art all quotations from Diane Wengler, "Museum of Museums (Englewood Cliffs, N. J.: Prentice-Hall, Western Art Depicting the Frontier Spirit," Artists 1975); Germain Bazin, The Museum Age (New York: of the Rockies and the Golden West (Spring 1984), Universe Books, 1967); Calvin Tomkins, Merchants reprinted by the Museum of Western Art, (n.d., n. p.). and Masterpieces: The Story of the Metropolitan Mu­ 13. Julie Schimmel, "A New Museum of the seum of Art (New York: E.P. Dutton, 1970). For an American West," American West 16 (January/Feb­ earlier period see Lillian B. Miller, Patrons and Pa­ ruary 1979): 38; see also Julie Schimmel, Stark Mu­ triotism: The Encouragement of the Fine Arts in the seum of Art: The Western Collection (Orange: Stark United States, 1790- 1860 (Chicago: University of Museum of Art, 1978); clipping file, Stark Museum Chicago Press, 1966), pp. 443-554. of Art Library, Orange, Texas; The Orange [Texas] 5. Nathaniel Burt, Palaces for the People: A Social Leader, 4 February 1973 and 29 November 1978. History of the American Art Museum (Boston: Little, 14. Saarinen, "Cowboys and Indians" in The Brown and Co., 1977), p. 14. Proud Possessors, pp. 307-25; Louisa Barry Collett, 6. Herbert Katz and Marjorie Katz, Museums, "A Collection of Collections," Southwestern Art 17 U.S.A.: A History and Guide (Garden City: Double­ (November 1987); Martin Wenger, "Thomas Gil­ day & Co., 1965); Roberto Aloi, Musei: Architettura­ crease," Chronicles of Oklahoma 40 (Summer 1962): Tecnica (Milano: Ulrico Hoepli, 1962), pp. 167-74; pp. 94--98; "Thomas Gilcrease, 1890-1962" and Burt, Palaces for the People; Aline B. Saarinen, The "Thomas Gilcrease Instirute of American History and Proud Possessors: The Lives, Times, and Tastes of Some Art: Research Library," typescripts in the Gilcrease Adventurous American Art Collectors (New York: Ran­ Institute Library, Tulsa, Oklahoma; Francine Du dom House, 1958); Meyer, The Art Museum, pp. 14-- Plessix and Cleve Gray, "Thomas Gilcrease and 15, 30; Daniel M. Fox, Engines of Culture: Philan­ Tulsa," Art In America 52 (No.3, 1964): 64--73; thropy and Art Museums (Madison: State Historical David Randolph Milsten, Thomas Gilcrease (San An­ Society of Wisconsin, 1963), pp. 1-2,5,27; Eugene tonio: The Naylor Co., 1969). See also Fred A. Smolensky, "Municipal Financing of U.S. Fine Arts Meyers, Thomas Gilcrease and His National Treasure Museums: A Historical Rationale," Journal of Eco­ (Tulsa: Gilcrease Museum, 1987). Dobie quoted in nomic History 46 (September 1986); Lewis Mumford, Du Plessix, "Thomas Gilcrease and Tulsa," 71; Hov­ Sticks and Stones (New York: Dover Publications, ing quoted in "Gilcrease Museum," brochure, Gil­ 1955), p. 150. crease Museum Library. 7. Bazin, The Museum Age, p. 261. 15. John Mason Brown quoted in Eloise Spaeth, 116 GREAT PLAINS QUARTERLY, SPRING 1989

American Art Museums and Galleries: An Introduction of American Art, 1982), pp. 89-91. to Looking (New York: Harper Brothers, 1960), p. 23. Julie Vorman, "Texas Aims to Strike it Rich 169. Culturally With Museums," Houston Post, 7 Decem­ 16. Spaeth, American Art Museums and Galleries, ber 1985. pp. 139-41; Marshall Sprague, Newport in the Rockies: 24. "Kay Kimbell," undated personal data sheet, The Life and Good Times of Colorado Springs (Chicago: Kimbell Art Museum Library, Kimbell Art Museum, Swallow Press, 1971), pp. 282-306. See Jonathan Fort Worth, Texas; Kimbell Art Museum Catalogue Batkin, "The Taylor Museum: A Tribute to Folk (Fort Worth: Kimbell Art Museum, 1972), pp. iii­ Culture," pp. 44--50, Marshall Sprague, "Colorado iv; Kimbell Art Museum Handbook (Fort Worth: Kim­ Springs Fine Arts Center: Its Formative Years," pp. bell Art Museum, 1981), pp. viii-ix; Vorman, "Texas 12-24, and Christopher Wilson, "A Unique Op­ Aims to Strike It Rich Culturally With Museums"; portunity: John Gaw Meem and the Colorado Fine Catherine Chadwick, "The Museum," Texas Monthly Arts Center," pp. 13-18, all in Colorado Springs Fine 14 (January, 1986): 242; Burt, Palaces for the People, Arts Center: A History and Selections from the Per­ p. 376. See also In Pursuit of Quality: The Kimbell manent Collection (Colorado Springs: Colorado Springs Art Museum-An Illustrated History of the Art and Fine Arts Center, 1986). Architecture (Fort Worth: Kimbell Art Museum, 17. Susan Brown McGreevy, "Journey Towards 1987). Understanding: Mary Cabot Wheelwright and Has­ 25. John Davidson, "The Empress of Fort Worth," tum Klah," The Messenger, Special Issue (1987). Texas Monthly 15 (February 1987): 85; Thomas Hov­ 18. "Description of Resources: Physical Facili­ ing, "Money and Masterpieces: Rating the Acqui­ ties," file of the Membership and Development De­ sitions of the Two Richest Museums," Connoisseur partment, Millicent Rogers Museum, Taos, New 217 (December 1986): 92-99; Isozaki quoted in Phil Mexico; Jim Sagel, "A Cultural Gathering-Milli­ Patton, "Japan's Best Architect Gives Los Angeles cent Rogers Museum," New Mexico Magazine (May a Great Museum," Connoisseur 217 (November 1986): 1986): 36-41; T ricia Hurst, "Millicent Rogers," In­ 125. See also Nell E. Johnson, compiler, Light is the terview 17 (January 1987): 54--56. Theme: Louis I. Kahn and The Kimbell Art Museum 19. Les Krantz, "Marion Koogler McNay Art In­ (Fort Worth: Kimbell Art Foundation, second ed., stitute," The Texas Art Review (Houston: Gulf Pub­ 1978). lishing Co., 1982), pp. 18-19; Burt, Palaces for the 26. Thomas Hoving, "A Gem of A Museum," People, p. 379; Spaeth, American Art Museums and Connoisseur 210 (May 1982): 88; Edmund Pillsbury, Galleries, pp. 186-87; Tyler, Texas Museums: A "Recent Painting Acquisitions: The Kimbell Art Mu­ Guidebook, pp. iii, 234. seum," Burlington Magazine 124 (January 1982): i­ 20. "San Diego Museum of Art," Apollo 115 (June viii; Emily J. Sano, "Recent Asian Acquisitions: The 1982): 7--65; William R. Wilson, The Los Angeles Kimbell Museum," Burlington Magazine 126 (January Times Book of California Museums (New York: Harry 1984): i-viii; Meyer, The Art Museum, pp. 159-60. N. Abrams, Inc., 1984), pp. 247-48; Spaeth, Amer­ 27. Dominique de Menil quoted in "Comments ican Art Museums, 196-98; Burt, Palaces for the Peo­ on the Menil Collection and Museum," typescript, ple, pp. 394--96; San Diego Museum of Art (San Diego: Menil Collection, Houston, Texas. San Diego Museum of Art, 1985). 28. Clifford Pugh, "The Magnificent Obses­ 21. Robert V. Rozelle et at., The Wendy and Emery sion," Houston Post, 31 May 1987. Reves Collection (Dallas: Dallas Museum of Fine Arts, 29. Dominique de Menil quoted in Susan Chad­ 1985); Helen Dudar, "An Art Filled Villa Finds a wick, "Sneak Peek," Houston Post, 4 June 1987. See Special Setting in Texas," Smithsonian 17 (January also Jacqueline M. Pontello, "Graffiti," Southwestern 1987): 50-59; "The Wendy and Emery Reves Col­ Art 17 (June 1987): 12; Michael Ennis, "Art: New lection at the Dallas Museum of Art," (Dallas: Dallas Kid on the Block," Texas Monthly 15 (June 1987): Museum of Art, 1986); Clifford Pugh, "Wendy 142-45; Cathleen McGuigan, "A Private Passion for Reves," Houston Post, 29 December 1985. Art" Newsweek 109 (15 June 1987): 68--69; "Houston 22. Jerry Bywaters, Seventy-Five Years of Art in Comes to Paris," Newsweek 103 (23 April 1984): 60- Dallas: The History of the Dallas Art Association and 62; Grace Glueck, "The de Menil Family: The Med­ the Dallas Museum of Fine Arts (Dallas: Dallas Mu­ ici of Modem Art," New York Times Magazine, 18 seum of Fine Arts, 1978); Anne R. Bromberg, Dallas May 1986; and Ann Holmes, "Dominique de Meni!: Museum of Fine Arts: Selected Works (Dallas: Dallas From Jeune Fille to 'Renaissance Woman,'" Art News Museum of Fine Arts, 1983); Helen Searing, New 82 (January 1983): 80-85. American Art Museums (New York: Whitney Museum 30. Meyer, The Art Museum, p. 154. ART MUSEUM AS PERSONAL STATEMENT 117

31. Ibid., p. 158. Winter, Architecture in Los Angeles: A Complete Guide 32. "The Norton Simon Museum of Art at Pas­ (Salt Lake City; Peregrine Smith Books, 1985), p. adena," Connoisseur 193 (November 1976); 161-240; 38. See also Burt, Palaces For the People, pp. 397- "Norton Simon Museum of Art," brochure and "His­ 98; and Thomas Hoving, "Money and Masterpieces," torical Sketch" in "Dedication of the Pasadena Mu­ 97. seum, November 24, 1969," Norton Simon Museum 35. Handbook of the]. Paul Getty Museum, pp. of Art Files, Pasadena, California; McGuigan, "A vii-ix; "Building for the Future," The]. Paul Getty Private Passion for Art"; 69. Trust Bulletin 1 (Fall 1986); Helen Dudar, "Onward, 33. J. Paul Getty, How To Be Rich (New York; Upward and Westward With the Fine Arts," Smith­ Playboy Press, 1965); Getty, As I See It: The Auto­ sonian 17 (June 1986); 96-97; Wilson, The Los An­ biography of]. Paul Getty (Englewood Cliffs, N.J.; geles Times Book of California Museums, pp. 167-69; Prentice-Hall, 1976); Handbook of the Collections of for critical comments see Hoving, "Money and Mas­ the]. Paul Getty Museum (Malibu; The J. Paul Getty terpieces"; 99; Lenzer, The Great Getty, pp. 178-96; Museum, 1986),pp.1-10;RobertLenzner, The Great and David Shaw, "J. Paul Getty's Dream Museum; Getty: The Life and Loves of]. Paul Getty-Richest Critics Pan It, Public Loves It," Smithsonian 5 (May Man in the World (New York; Crown Publishers, 1986), 1974): 28-35. pp. 178-96. 36. Houston Post, 22 January 1988. 34. Getty quoted in David Gephard and Robert