Joseph Duveen, art dealer extraordinaire

Joseph Duveen (1869-1947) was born in 1869 in Hull in Yorkshire, the eldest son of Dutchman Joel Duveen. With brother Henry, Joel had founded a busi­ness dealing with paintings and porcelain. On the death of his father in 1908, Joseph took control of the company.

Bernard Berenson (1865-1959) left Lithuania and eventually ended up near Florence. He was regarded as the primary authority in the world on Renaissance art. Joseph Duveen lov­ed pictures and knew a lot about British art, but was not an acad­emic. Ber­enson was not a smart busi­nessman, but he had a taste for a very exp­ensive lifestyle. So it was sens­ible that the two men should get together in a partner­ship.

Ber­enson found and authenticated pict­ures for Duveen and Duveen paid him a share of his firm’s profits. Duveen used Beren­s­on's credibility to sell pictures to the wealthiest collec­tors, especially people who had formerly worked with Berenson eg J Pierpont Morgan and Joseph Wid­ener. Ber­enson contributed to the first is­s­ue of Art in America 1913, which Duveen funded to educate Americans in European art.

Duveen was a skilled entrepreneur, an impassioned man who really did love art. A great many of his clients had come from nothing and made great fortunes. Duveen met them when they were in their spending mode, in their efforts to raise themselves up, to manifest that sense of nobility that surged in many families, flush with money for the first time. Joseph Duveen made his fortune by buying works of art from dec­l­ining European aristocrats and selling them to the million­aires of the USA. He attracted or went after the biggest of the big rich Am­er­ican art collectors in the early C20th. Otto Kahn, Jules Bache, Andrew Mellon, Henry & Arabella Huntington, William Randolph Hearst, Samuel H Kress, John D Rock­efeller Jr, Anna Dodge, P.A.B Widener, Benjamin Altman, Marj­orie Meriwether Post, JP Morgan, Isab­ella Stewart Gardner, and Henry Clay Frick were frequent buyers at Duveen’s galleries.

Turner, View of Venice: Ducal Palace 1841

Henry Clay Frick was older than Duveen, a Pitts-burgh resident who had already made a huge fortune. He was not highly cultured al­though he developed an interest in art. By the time he was rich, in the 1880s, he was buying art but not with much taste or confidence. Frick moved to New York and rented the Vand­erbilt Mans­ion at 640 Fifth Ave where WH Vanderbilt had his huge art gallery. Occasionally he bought something through Duveen but for years Frick bought most of his works of art from Rene Gimpel and Michael Knoedler, Duveen’s arch-rivals. But by 1915 as the mansion on Fifth Av and 70th St was going up, he needed lots of art objects to put in it.

JP Morgan had one of the greatest private art collections in America. Among the items Morgan had bought in London were 14 Jean-Honore Fragonard panels, bought from Thomas Agnew firm for a huge price. An opportunity came to Duveen in 1913 after Morgan’s death. Some thought his collection would go to the Met. But Morgan wanted them to dedicate a wing, named for him, in exchange for the collection. When this did not occur, he left the art to his heirs. Jack Morgan decided to sell much of his father’s collection, but first there was a large exhibition of Morgan art loaned to the Met. Then the panels were removed from the Prince’s Gate room, and shipped to New York. Frick bought the panels and installed them. Duveen also bought 1400 pieces of porcelain art from the JP Morgan estate in 1919, for a huge price. This collection also went to Frick.

Duveen made his own luck. He bought Turn­er’s View of Venice: Ducal Palace from a Br­it­ish col­l­­ector in 1925, without having a client in mind. He sold it to Mrs Elizabeth Severance Allen Prentiss later that same year!

Giorgione, Adoration of the Shepherds c1500

Duveen had a great relationship with Henry Huntington. Duveen offered Sir Thomas Lawrence’s Pinkie 1794 to Mellon, but at that stage he was secretary of the treasury and did not want to be known publicity as spending as much money as Pinkie cost. So Duveen then offered the painting to Huntington and was accepted. Mellon later wanted Pinkie, but Huntington refused to give up the painting.

Duveen managed the crisis in the art market that followed the Great Depression in 1929. There were some art objects that he sold 2-3 times. He sold Remb­randt’s Aris­­totle Contemplating the Bust of Homer to Arabella Hun­tington in 1907. At her death, her son, who inherited the painting, sold it back to Duveen. The picture went to McCann-Erickson Adv­ertising firm, for $750,000. In the 1929 crash Alfred Erickson went to Duveen’s gallery; Joseph bought the painting back for $500,000. When times got better, Duveen sold the painting to Erickson again, for barely any profit.

Gainsborough, The Blue Boy, 1770

Joseph Duveen was the adviser to Arabella Huntington on design and furnit­ure. Behrman said Henry and Arabella Huntington saw a rep­ro­d­uction of Blue Boy 1770 in 1921, during a transatlantic cruise with Duveen. Duveen went on to England, heading straight to the home of the Duke of Westminster, from whom he bought The Blue Boy, another Gains­bor­ough and a Reynolds for $800,000. He sold The Blue Boy to the Hunt­ingtons and they were utterly delighted.

Fin­ancier Andrew Mellon was treasury secretary to 3 successive USA presidents from 1921-32, as well as a collector. After Mellon was no longer treasury secretary, the USA government took him to court for tax evasion. Duveen spoke for Mellon in court and revealed Mellon’s plan to donate all his coll­ection to the National Gallery of Art in Washington, the construction of which he would also underwrite. Mellon was apparently as surprised as the judge.

The Duveen/Berenson relationship was never an easy one, nor was it known about in public. Anger between them finally peaked over Ador­ation of the Sheph­erds. Owned by Baron Allendale, Duv­een wished to sell it to his best and richest client of the moment, Andrew Mellon. To do so, and to obtain the price that he wished, he needed an att­rib­ution to young Venetian artist Giorgione. There is no dispute over the artistic value of Adoration of the Shepherds; just who paint­ed it. Berenson believed it was an early Titian and would not be moved by Duveen’s begging, thus severely lowering. Mellon had many Titians and did not want another one; he wanted only a Giorgione!

Meryle Secrest asked did Duveen deliberately and knowingly lie in order to boost prices? It’s possible that as a careful businessman he tended to exaggerate things and to ig­nore doubts, but he never lied. After all, Mellon and Frick were sharp businessmen who knew which way was up. They bought what Duveen sold them because they trust­ed him and trusted his prices. Kress always liked to bargain, but he too happily bought Duveen’s art treasures. Anne Goldgar, King’s College London, states that as with all art sellers, even the most respected engaged in practices that are now open to question. Any valuation of art was sub­jective and so the seller would always inflate the price.

Rembrandt, Aristotle Contemplating Bust of Homer 1653

Duveen DID create changes in the price of artwork and in the Amer­ic­an art world. But modern articles that suggest he faked Renaissance paintings to rip off naïve American millionaire coll­ect­ors are nasty and ahistoric. The Dictionary of Art Histor­ians called him aggressive and shady. The Daily Blague blog said in Duveen that he was a man of great culture, but was best underst­ood as a vir­us that found its window of opportunity. The Metropolitan Museum of Art itself, boasting the Bernard Altman collection that Duveen as­s­embled, would be a far poorer place without the legacy of Duveen’s opportun­ism. But I don’t think he was any more of an opport­un­ist than any other professional art dealer.

More of his treasures are in the USA (c1,000 items) today than in Britain. Still, Elginism blog wrote in Lord Duveen (dec 2004) that he made a huge con­t­rib­ution to the British art world in the C20th. Not only was he resp­on­sible for the funding of numerous galleries, but his methods of dealing in artworks largely defined the way that the art market oper­ates today. Joseph Duveen was actively involved in numerous art organisations and served as a trustee for the National Gallery, London; the Wallace Collection and the Imperial Gallery of Art Lond­on. He founded the British Art­ists Exhibitions Organisation for the encouragement of younger Brit­ish artists. He provided for extensions of London museums, such as the National Gallery, National Portrait Gallery, Tate, Univ­ersity of London and the British Museum.

For his services to the art world and to philanthropy, Duveen he was knighted in 1919 and late he was made a Baron, in 1933. He was called Lord Duveen of Millbank, the area of London in which the Tate sits. He died in London in 1939.

*

Duveen Gallery British Museum, to display Elgin Marbles

The Chicago Blog said that it is no exaggeration to say that Duv­een was the driving force behind every important private art collection in the USA (see WSJ's pick for art collectors: Duveen). He dominated the market in old master paintings and European decorative arts from late 19th–mid C20th. His client­ele were large­ly US million­air­es who were then emerging as maj­or figures in the world art market. Duveen played an important role in selling robber barons on the notion that buying art was also buy­ing class. With Bernard Berenson’s aid, he expanded the market, especially for Renais­sance art.

Because of Duveen’s personal gifts to museums, his major American buyers eventually donated their own collections to American public museums. The works that Duveen shipped across the At­lantic remain the core collections of many of the USA's most famous museums. But more than that. "Without the central influence of Duveen and other art deal­ers, many American collectors would have left museums lots of Fr­ench salon paintings and Victoriana.

Grace Cossington Smith: her early career

Grace Cossington Smith (1892-1984) was born in Sydney to English par­ents. She began art classes in Dattilo Rubbo’s Sydney studio in 1910, alongside two other young artists who later became famous, Roland Wakelin and Roy de Maistre. Young ladies were al­lowed to study there two days a week, so she was fortunate at least to have access to any good training. Once they were living in the country, however, her access to classes was limited to when her father could accompany her. This overweening protection of unmarried daughters leads me to ask how her parents allowed her travel to Europe alone. We know she did attend the Winchester School of Art in Britain and an art academy in Stettin, Germany 1912-4.

Cossington Smith ret­urned to Sydney and resumed classes with Dattilo Rubbo in 1914. It isn’t surprising that her work reflected her somewhat const­ricted middle-class suburban life, devoted to art and depicting the environment about her. Her early career paintings were conc­ern­ed with form and colour.


The Sock Knitter 1915

Cossington Smith was rec­ognised for her contribution to the dev­el­op­ment of a mo­dernist idiom as early as 1915, just when war was domin­ating the lives of Austral­ian families. A painting of Grace’s sister doing war work, Sock Knitter 1915. Now this painting is thought of as a key picture in the modernist movement and makes me think of Henri Matisse’s colour. There were many post-Im­press­ionists in the world then, but it was Matisse who seemed to create colours that the Australians could best identify with.


Troops Marching 1917

The Old Paint blog managed to find a painting that I have never seen before: Grace Cossington Smith, Quaker Girl, 1915. Our fellow blogg­ers are better than the reference books I traditionally rely upon! Blue Mountains Knits blog was also useful on The Sock Knitter: Grace Cossington Smith.

Grace’s rather uneventful life was entirely de­v­oted to art, and covered important social issues that affec­t­ed Aus­t­ralia. She was essentially a reporter of cont­em­p­orary city life. Her urban im­ages were bustling, crowded and unmistakably of her time. Troops Marching 1917 ill­ust­rat­ed the growing and busy urb­an Austral­ian streetscape, and the horrible war. The viewer cannot see the sold­iers’ faces but the wives and mothers’ hankies and dresses stood out clearly.

In 1917 Australia held a referendum on conscrip-tion for WW1. The mot­ion was defeated, much to Grace’s disgust. While men were dying in Europe, she had no time for the men who remained at home. She was equally hard-nosed about workers going on strike. Her strong views were shown in this small but emot­ional image of a Strike. I have no idea if she was paint­ing an actual strike; wartime strikes were often in the news and emotions were running high.

However it was not until her work with Wakelin and de Maistre and the formation of the Cont­emporary Group in 1926 that the real ch­ar­ac­ter of Grace’s life work began to emerge. De Maistre's colour mus­ic work was never truly abstract; he always had a subject in HIS mind, whatever the viewer might have thought. After de Maistre organised her first show in 1926, Cossington Smith’s art sh­ared many of the same tech­niques as de Maistre's: criss-crossing lines that separated planes of discrete colours, in sequence. And her palette seemed similar to those of de Maistre and Wakel­in.

*The blog my art essays (Sept 2005) suggested that many of her paint­ings from this era were close to being in the style of con­temporary Sydney painters. I don’t know the other contemporary Sydney painters well, but I certainly agree that her pain­t­ings showed objects being broken down into forms based on their colours similar to Cezanne, and had a Cubist manipulation of some of the imagery.

 

East Rd Turramurra, c1926

Cossington Smith carefully planned the composition of the water col­our Eastern Rd Turramurra c1926. A prelimin­ary drawing was made in a sketchbook and a grid structure marked over the compos­ition. Colour notes were recorded on the page along side. For this water-col­our, she developed the drawing in detail in pencil, as guide for the precise placement of colour. This degree of prepar­at­ion was unusual.

Landscape at Pentacost, 1929

Cossington Smith looked for a spiritual aspect in her images eg Land­scape at Pentecost 1929. The hills in the farming district of Pentecost showed her skills in both design and colour, but they showed more: a view of the energetic countryside, filled with a road lead­ing off over the horizon. Before the Great Depression struck, the countryside seemed full of optimism.

She was a single woman who lived her much of her adult life in Syd­ney. As with many Sydney-siders, construction of the iconic Harb­our Bridge fascinated Grace eg Curve of the Bridge c1929. Even in this industrial and perhaps ugly building process, we can see the ar­t­ist’s use of col­our to display form and depth. If there was a certain emotional content as well, only the artist could say for sure.

Grace created many drawings and paintings based on the growing arch­itecture of the Sydney Harbour Bridge. I can only guess why. An ind­iv­­idual artist could do nothing about the tragedy of World War One, except to depict images of heroism, sacrifice and loss. The Great Depression, potentially just as tragic, offered great symbols of hope and energy. The bridge was a symbol of modernity, growth, employment. The bridge was formally opened in March 1932.
 

Curve of the Bridge, 1929

[This blog is the intellectual property of Hels and not to be copied in toto by any other author. If a sentence is taken from this blog and used elsewhere, the reference needs to be appropriately cited. If readers notice any other blog copying my material in toto, would they please refer the incident to the U.S. Copyright Office Web Site and the Digital Millennium Copyright Act].

Melbourne's Shrine and the Great Depression

Melbourne’s Shrine of Remembrance, located in in Kings Domain along­side St Kilda Road, is one of our largest war memorials. The city did indeed need a monument built to the memory of those who served and died in World War I, but its timing and funding are as interesting as its purpose. In a serious recession, architectural and infrastructure projects can save workers from unemployment, and can create valuable and much needed facilities for the city.

Shrine, classical style

Designed by ex-servicemen architects, the Shrine was created in a classical style, as anybody who had seen the Tomb of Mausolus at Halicarnassus or the Parthenon in Athens would realise.  Built in grey granite, the open and sombre sanctuary was to be the heart of the building with an ambulatory allowing visitors to circul­ate.

Sanctuary

Authorblog noted that when the Shrine was built, the architects were helped by calculations relating to astro­nomy and mathematics. The Sanctuary contains the marble Stone of Remembrance, upon which is engraved the words "Greater love hath no man". The in­tricate design means that a ray of sunlight shines through an ap­ert­ure in the roof on Remembrance Day (exactly at 11 AM, on the 11th day of the 11th month, the moment when when all the guns fell silent), to illuminate the word "love". Beneath the Sanct­uary lies the Crypt, which contains a bronze statue of a father and son and panels listing every unit of the Australian Imperial Force.

Father and Son statue in the Crypt

There was already a proposal to build some sort of shrine at the end of WW1, but it took from 1918 until 1922 to set guidelines; to ann­ounce the competition to architects; to collect and analyse the 83 com­peting plans; and to declare a winner. Five years later Austral­ia’s most famous general, Sir John Monash, was still lobbying for govern­mental and public support for the Shrine. The foundation stone was laid on 11th November 1927, but disaster stuck. A world wide depress­ion led to mass unemployment and failed banks.

Although both the Victorian and Commonwealth governments gave funds, just over half of the cost of the Shrine was raised in a short time by public contributions, with Monash as chief fundraiser. Bowalley Road blog was particularly impressed with the funding. At a time when every penny was precious, Victoria’s impoverished citizens found the necessary money.

The onset of the Great Depression in 1929 had certainly slowed construction work. But soon the Depression actually assisted the Shrine's progress; large numbers of unemployed men were hired at barely sustenance wages to work on the project as a form of unemployment relief. Appropriately many of these were ex-servicemen.

After seven years, the Shrine was officially dedicated on 11th Nov 1934 by the Duke of Gloucester. 300,000 people, in a city of only 1 million people, gathered to watch the event. There was a commitment to those crowds that the shrine would always have an unimpeded and uninterrupted view from the city, and that the view would never be marred by buildings along St Kilda Road.

In Lest We Forget, Authorblog also talked about beautiful Legacy gardens that have since been created around the shrine, filled with bright red poppies. This was important both because poppies are the flowers of remembrance and because Melbourne is a garden city. And there is a Turkish pine tree, grown from a seed of the original Lone Pine from the battleground. For wonderful photos inside and out, see High Riser.

Unimpeded view of the shrine (centre) from the city (in the distance)

We've a serious recession in 2009. We need big infra-structure projects to save workers from unemployment.

William Dobell and Helena Rubinstein

With the passing this week of Richard Pratt, Australia's greatest philanthropist, I was reminded of a lecture I once gave at his amazing home, Raheen. It was an analysis of their William Dobell portrait of Helena Rubinstein.

William Dobell (1899-1970) was born in Newcastle, was apprenticed to a local arch­itect in 1916 and later moved to Sydney as a draftsman for an ar­chitect­ural metalworker. In 1925 he enrolled in evening classes at Julian Ashton's School, as had George Lambert, Charles Conder and Elioth Gruner a generation earlier. Arthur Streeton’s art was intr­o­duced to Sydney audiences by the very same Ashton.

In 1929 Dobell won the Society of Artists' Travelling Scholarship and travelled to UK to study at the Slade School. He used the time well, travelling across Europe, and his work from this era already start­ed to have exaggerated emphasis on characteristic forms, espec­ially solemn, elongated faces.

Soutine, Woman Knitting 1924 

Expressionism was the use of distortion & exaggeration for emot­ion­al effect. It was used to raise subjective feeling above objec­tive obs­ervation, refl­ec­ting the state of mind of the art­ist rath­er than imag­es that con­formed to the external world. It is said he owed a direct debt to the witty Expr­es­s­ionism of Chaim Soutine eg Woman Knitting 1924.  I’d also add to Amedeo Modig­liani eg the double portrait of Jacques Lip­chitz and his wife Bertha 1916.

Modigliani, Lipshutz and Wife 1916 

After 2 years, Dobell returned to Australia, working, teaching and later becoming a war artist. The first large portrait I can find is The Cypriot 1940 and even at this early stage, Dobell was int­erested in every shade of his friend Aegus Gabrielides’ character. Some­times he exaggerated aspects of the sitter to make a point: the arms were longer, the fingers more tapered, the facial hairs dark­er than the preparatory sketches showed. Even the shirt str­ipes and folds coop­erated to make an artistic statement. I wonder if Dobell had seen El Greco’s portrait of Fray Hortensio Felix Par­avicino c1609. Both sitters looked dark, exotic, Greek.

Dobell, The Cypriot, 1940

Examine Inspiration: William Dobell who said that Like Otto Dix and George Grosz, Dobell ex­aggerated his subjects to the point where it be­came caricature and it seems that's what caused him a big problem with the Archibald. I would add that Dobell’s exaggerated body shapes and vigorous brush work were not just elements of expressionist tech­niques; he was also interested in satire. Aus­tral­ians have always admired a somewhat mocking outlook

It took a long time before he showed his work. His first solo ex­hibition, held in 1942, was called Margaret Preston and William Do­b­ell Loan Exhibition, AGNSW. Perhaps the delay was caus­ed by the con­tro­versy surr­ounding the portrait of Joshua Smith in 1943. Port­rait of the Artist Joshua Smith had been awarded the Archibald Prize, but it was contes­t­ed in 1944 by two unsuccessful artists. They brought a lawsuit ag­ainst Dobell and the Gallery's Board of Trust­ees on the grounds that the pain­t­ing was caricature and not a portrait. Dobell was unmarried and rumoured to be gay, which didn’t help his cause.

In any event, the award was upheld but the 2 year trial left Dob­ell emotionally devast­ated; he retreated to the countryside, to paint safe topics ie landscapes. Dobell may have been fragile but he con­tinued to win important prizes: his portraits of Margaret Olley 1948 and Dr EG MacMahon 1959 won the very prestigious Arch­ibald Prize.

Dobell, Dame Mary Gilmore, 1957

His style was able to adapt to suit the char­acter of his subject. If the character of his sitter was broad and generous, he painted broadly and generously. If the character was contained and inward looking, he used brush strokes that convey this fact. See his fine insightful portrait of the poet Dame Mary Gilmore 1957. It was an energised and witty work, but tough.

Helena Rubinstein (c1870-1965) was an astute businesswoman who had been born in Europe but who escaped a potentially insufferable marriage by fleeing to Australia in 1894. She sold skin care creams in rural Victoria, helping Australian women with their dried, wind burnt skin. Later she opened her first beauty salon in Eliz­abeth St Melbourne, with the help of wealthy, well connected friends. Rub­in­stein didn’t leave for London with £100,000 to invest until 1908.

Towards the end of her life she put her considerable assets, c$100m, into the Rubinstein Foundation, dedicated to preservat­ion and prom­ot­ion of the arts and into welfare. Dobell painted Rubinst­ein in 1957 when she was on a return visit to Australia. He was already a famous art­ist by this time, and she was an elderly and very famous cosmetics manuf­act­urer. Dobell must have enjoyed the commission because he did many versions of Rubinstein’s port­rait. This vers­ion was rich, bejewelled and monumental, even though the woman herself was quite slight. He perceived her alert and int­e­l­ligent character, and projected it with bold brushwork. She died in 1965 but her famous portrait still hangs proudly at Raheen.

Dobell, Helena Rubinstein, 1957

Read WILLIAM DOBELL re his 1957 works that were recognised as among his highest achievements. By then, he was able to pick and choose from many offers of commissions. He won his third Archibald prize in Jan 1960 for a port­rait of his surgeon EG MacMahon. That year he did the first of 4 portraits commissioned by Time magazine for cover illustrations. His career, and fame, were assured. Dobell went on to receive a Knighthood in 1966, then he died in 1970. He left his work to The Sir William Dob­ell Art Foundation.

Dobell’s broad, expressive brush strokes made his portraits elongated and distorted. They reflected a subjective view of the world and in Australia, they were un­ique. He was arguably Australia's most talented & successful portraitist.