Leonard Lauder in 2012
One of the greatest collection of Cubist paintings, drawings and paintings, put together over 40 years by the philanthropist Leonard Lauder is been gifted to the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the museum announced after a board meeting on Tuesday. This generous gift (which is probably saving Mr. Lauder millions of tax dollars) surely fills an important gap in the museum’s early 20th century collection, and we are happy to see more great art being made accessible to the public. The collection includes 33 Picassos, 17 Braques, 14 Légers and 14 works by Gris, and comes with no restrictions so Met curators can display it as they see fit — and they are already planning an exhibition to open in fall 2014. Speaking of how he formed this collection, Mr. Lauder says that often it took him years to find something he wanted to buy; “I’ve made more trips to Switzerland than I’d like to count” He first began to collect Cubist works because he liked the aesthetic, and it was a time when a lot of it was still available and relatively inexpensive, because Impressionism and post-Impressionism was more fashionable to collect. Unlike most collectors who look at multiple periods and styles, Mr. Lauder preferred to keep a single focus and formed a unreproducible collection, which will take center place in the Met’s soon to be renovated Modern and contemporary galleries. Here are a few images from the collection:
Fernand Leger, “Smoker” 1914
Pablo Picasso, “Woman in an Armchair (Eva)” 1913
Georges Braque, “Trees at L’Estaque” 1908
Pablo Picasso, “The Absinthe Glass” 1914
