Stepping Out

Peeking into the world of art collectors

Nassau Museum offers up a showcase of Modern masterworks

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As Labor Day beckons and we move past those last lazy days of summer, it’s time to look ahead to a new season of cultural exploration. The region’s museums are energized for fall and ready to unveil a wide range of offerings that will hold wide appeal for all.
Among them, Nassau County Museum of Art is welcoming throngs of visitors to its dual exhibition,“The Moderns: Chagall, Degas, Léger, Miró, Picasso and more…,” which opened in July and continues through Nov. 8. For much of fall, the museum will be a treasure trove of modernist works representing a virtual history of Modern art, compiled by private Long Island collectors.
The combined exhibit includes works by the most important artists who defined the Modernist movement and forever changed the cultural landscape. The sweeping showcase continues the commemoration of the museum’s 25th anniversary, as it honors the museum’s founding president, the late Ambassador Arnold A. Saltzman, who during his life formed one of America’s great private collections of early modernist painting and sculpture.

Saltzman Tribute

“Selections from the Saltzman Family Collection,” curated by NCMA Director Karl E. Willers, includes works by well-known modernists such as Marc Chagall, Joan Miró, Constantin Brancusi, Edgar Degas, Robert Delaunay, Pablo Picasso, Fernand Léger, and many others. 
A government advisor and roving ambassador during the Kennedy and Johnson administrations, Saltzman was an esteemed collector who during his life formed one of America’s great private collections of early modernist painting and sculpture. Saltzman, who died last year, played an important role in the museum’s development as one of the region’s leading cultural institutions. “A single art history class in college sparked Arnold’s great passion for art,” Eric Saltzman wrote in a statement about his father. “Looking led to questioning; questioning to more study and to understanding — and then a life-long dedication to collecting. He had a brilliant, sophisticated eye and he loved the chase.”
“As important to him was sharing his deep appreciation of creative work with all around him. He donated his important collection of German Expressionist works to the National Gallery of Art, so, as he put it, “the American people could enjoy it forever”. This exhibition shows a broad range of the works Arnold collected, from the most famous (Picasso, Miro, Chagall, Brancusi) to those admired by connoisseurs (Munter, Kupka, Jawlensky, Rodchenko).”
“The impetus for this exhibition is the Saltzman family’s anticipation that it will inspire others to experience the beauty, complexity and pleasure that observing creative master works can provide. If it starts a young person on the path to studying and collecting art, well Arnold would have loved that too.”

Long Island Collectors
The Saltzman exhibit, is complemented by the companion exhibition, “Long Island Collects Modern Art,” organized by guest curator Franklin Hill Perrell. It draws together choice examples of 20th-century art from significant Long Island collections. This special presentation embraces a wide range of works by pioneering artists of the modernist era, among them Matisse, Monet, Renoir, Dali, Léger, Chagall, Miró, and Toulouse-Lautrec.
“As the exhibition of the Saltzman family collection came into focus, this seemed a good occasion in keeping with the celebration of the museum’s 25th anniversary to also do an exhibit involving local collectors,” says Perrell, who was NCMA’s chief curator and is now curator emeritus.
“Visitors have the opportunity to see important pieces by major artists — Matisse, Chagall, Picasso, Dali. The works make even more of an impact when visitors realize that pieces have been hanging in someone’s home. You don’t get much of chance to see works like this on Long Island. It’s very generous of these collectors to take them out of their living room or dining room and allow the pieces to be seen.”
Some 60 paintings loaned by 12 collectors range from the late 19th to mid 29th centuries. “It’s fascinating to see the redevelopment of creativity in art during this period and the impact of history on art and the artists,” says Perrell. “Between the Saltzman exhibit and Long Island Collects, this is a superb exposure to the Modern movement. It’s the movement in a microcosm.”
Together, all the artists represented put the period into a perspective and context that informs and inspires visitors.
“The selection of these works reflects the spirit of the museum’s exhibition history,” says Perrell. “It also serves to recognize that European Modernism, chiefly from the first half of the 20th century, continues to afford considerable interest to Long Island collectors. Through the art presented here, many of Moderism’s key stylistic innovations are exemplified. Impressionism and Post-Impressionism denote art’s initial break with academism, as well as a concerted investigation of the act of painting, emphasizing the use of painterly gesture, individualized brush
strokes, strident color, and flattened pictorial space.”
“Beginning with Impressionism, art becomes largely an end in itself, rather than being an adjunct to storytelling or official political and cultural ideologies. Cubism’s premise of multiple vantage points to comprehend its subject furthered the break away from descriptive literalism. Next, Surrealism forefronted the imagination as a valid source of artistic imagery. Abstraction emerged both from simplifying Cubism, and from the free association of form in Surrealism. Artists of Modernism agree on the mandate to coin a new visual language, with each successive generation claiming the right to define it in its own terms.”
“I was so happy to be invited to do a show of this character,” Perrell adds. “I hope that it will inspire visitors. Being around art is an incredibly exciting experience. It is wonderful to have resources like Nassau Museum in our own backyard.”
As always, the museum offers exhibition-related programs to enhance visitors’ enjoyment of the exhibit. Log onto www.nassaumuseum.org/events for details on the upcoming schedule.