Splendid Peggy
The Proud Possessors. By Aline B. Saarinen. (Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 30s.) PEOPLE seem to collect works of art under two main impulses: in order to be admired, and be- cause they like works of art. The first of these impulses appears to be the more common one, but the admiration is seldom attained unless the second is obviously in operation. The reader of this book is likely to take a kindly view of the `pioneer collectors,' of Katherine Dreier, Peggy Guggenheim and Gertrude Stein, because they were prepared to risk all for the sake of what they rightly or wrongly revered. But with the great millionaire collectors, great appreciators as many of them were, we are inclined to look with suspi- cion, and to moralise over their often completely futile search for fame through art. When one visits a fine collection one rarely spares a thought for the man who made it.
Miss Saarinen is a thoroughly well-equipped, efficient, hard-hitting art-critic who has adorned the New York Times with her wit and erudition since 1948. In this book she portrays the origina- tors of fifteen of the great American collections. The result is a vivid, satirical but not unsympa- thetic picture of the gilded age and the exploring Twenties. At the end the reader is conscious anew that the collecting instinct is a mysterious part of human nature, but though he has had a great laugh at the great benefactors, he is not likely to feel superior. Though Miss Saarinen is almost alarmingly unsentimental, she has no sneer in her continual sense of comedy. Her book is enjoyable throughout.
The hero of the story is J. Pierpont Morgan. He is an exception to the rule that people forget the founders of collections. Everyone remembers Morgan. He is staggering for sheer size, a Lorenzo, a Crcesus, a Napoleon. He outclasses all the others by his enormity. He had in a surprising degree that rather amiable vanity of the very rich, a desire to astonish beyond all need by the scale of his transactions, and he would often augment the prices that were asked. His most famous adviser, Roger Fry, wrote contemptuously of him as a monster of coarse vanity. Miss Saarinen defends him with great ability, and shows that Fry's bitter attack was more a matter of temperament than astute observation. 'Art-collecting,' she states, 'came as naturally to him as to any prince or patrician of another age.' We know those princes and patricians by the exquisite likenesses painted by the men they patronised. We know Morgan and his contemporaries by their photographs. That is one reason why, even in Morgan's case, respect and fame still need some coaxing.
A very interesting essay is that on Thomas Gilcrease, who probably made the least valuable of the collections considered by Miss Saarinen. He is a collector in a style that was once classic and is now extremely rare among famous patrons. His purpose has been a patriotic one, to collect American archaeological remains and to stimulate works of art that fittingly celebrate American life and history.
The heroine is Peggy Guggenheim, a reckless enthusiast for modern art, who has more in com- mon with King Ludwig than with the Renaissance patrons. Like Wagner's King she reveres the artist equally with his art, and like poor Ludwig she has often been scurvily treated by those whom she has magnificently helped. She has written her autobiography with furious candour. If it is pos- sible to trace a connection between this self- .exposure and the passion to preside over a lasting exhibition of modern art, it must also be con- ceded that she has, after overcoming immense difficulties, formed one of the most remarkable
modern collections in her Venetian palazzo. She is a great personality, the personification of the Twenties in which she first astonished her fellow men and women.
The strangest story in this book is that of the Stein family. The one least likely to capture the reader's sympathy is that of the Rockefellers. The book is full of material for those with a taste for psychological speculation, and not the least strange thing recorded is the enormous part played by the women in the making of collections.
CHRISTOPHER SYKES
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