So this is an astounding story! This painting done in about 1885 by Paul Cezanne, is titled "The Bather" and was purchased by an American woman named Lillie P. Bliss. She is one of the women who began The Museum of Modern Art. The story is told in this book which I saw at MoMA: "Inventing the Modern: Untold Stories of the Women Who Shaped The Museum of Modern Art." Profiles of fourteen women who transformed the country's foremost modern art museum in its fledgling years. Founded in 1929, the Museum of Modern Art owes much of its early success to a number of remarkable women who shaped the future of the institution in its first decades. Wow, what a story. So we take modern art for granted, but not so much in 1885. She loaned this painting to an exhibit at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, because MoMA did not exist at the time. Please read the text, below about this painting and how it was received. Please click on the photo of the text to make it easier to read.
2 comments:
Thank you for sharing this story of women and art so many years ago. Ironic that the brouhaha brought more visitors to the museum. Joan
This must have been a bit shocking at the time but I love that the commotion backfired and brought in more people to the museum. Betsey
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