Collecting Modernism: European Masterworks

Monday, 08 August 2005 12:05

UTICA, NY.-Collecting Modernism European Masterworks from the Munson-Williams-Proctor Arts Institute showcases the Museum of Art’s small but distinguished collection of painting, sculpture and drawings by artists such as Salvador Dalí (1904-89), Pablo Picasso (1881-1973), Wassily Kandinsky (1866-1944) and Piet Mondrian (1872-1944). Longtime Institute patrons point proudly to the fact that pioneering avant-garde artists whose works are collected by the most important museums around the world are also well-represented in Utica. To a larger audience, however, because the Museum has a strong reputation as an American collection, its European art remains largely unknown. Collecting Modernism, therefore, is the most recent in a series, begun in 1989, to publish and tour important aspects of the Museum’s collections of paintings, works on paper, and decorative arts. With this new research, for instance, the Museum has learned from Michael Taylor, of the Philadelphia Museum of Art, that Salvador Dalí’s painting Cardinal, Cardinal! was originally titled Goldfinch, Goldfinch. In preparation for Collecting Modernism the Museum of Art removed 24 works of art from public view to conduct research and to assess condition. Conservation was deemed necessary for several pieces, which were treated at the Williamstown Art Conservation Center, in Williamstown, Massachusetts and supported by important funding from the National Endowment for the Arts.

---

Click on logo below to add this article to your favorite Social Website ~