MEMORIAL EXHIBITION: THE COLLECTION OF THE LATE LILLIE P. BLISS
A. Conger Goodyear [memorial]
A. Conger Goodyear [memorial]: MEMORIAL EXHIBITION: THE COLLECTION OF THE LATE LILLIE P. BLISS. New York: Museum of Modern Art, May 1931. First Edition [1,000 copies]. Slim quarto. Printed thick blue wrappers. 39 pp. [62] black and white plates. 149 works listed. Wrappers lightly worn and spine rolled. Endpapers dust spotted. Text and illustrations fresh and clean. A very good copy. Rare.
7.5 x 10 softcover catalog with 39 pages followed by 62 black and white plates. Published on the occasion of the Museum of Modern Art MoMA Exhibit 12 from May 17 – October 6, 1931. Alfred H. Barr, Jr. contributed an essay on the Bliss Collection.
“A Memorial Exhibition of the Collection of Miss L. P. Bliss, the late vice-president of the Museum of Modern Art, will open to the public at the Museum on Sunday, May 17th at 2 o’clock. The bulk of the collection, which has "been bequeathed provisionally to the Museum of Modern Art, will be shown together with loans from the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Tate Gallery (London), the Brooklyn Museum of Arts and Science and other beneficiaries of Miss Bliss's will.
“The group of paintings, watercolors, drawings, and prints bequeathed to the Museum of Modern Art constitutes one of the outstanding collections of work by nineteenth and twentieth century French masters in the United States. It inoludes an oil painting and prints by Daumier, eleven oils and ten water-colors by Clzanne, "Port-en-Bessin", one of the few paintings by Seurat in New York, as well as rare and distinguished drawings by Seurat. There is also important work by Degas, Derain, Gauguin, Matisse, Modigliani, Picasso, Redon, Renoir, Henri Rousseau, Segonzac, Signac, and Toulouse-Lautrec.
“In addition to the French paintings the bequest to the Museum of Modern Art includes Near Eastern textiles, important far their influence on many modern painters, and three paintings by Americans, two by Arthur B. Davies and one by Walt Kuhn.
“More than twenty other paintings by Davies are included in the Memorial Exhibition by courtesy of the beneficiaries among which are the following public institutions: the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and International House, New York, the Tate Gallery, London, the Brooklyn Museum of Arts and Science, the Newark Museum Association, the Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington, the San Francisco Art Association, the Rhode Island School of Design, Providence, the St. Paul Art Institute, the Memorial Art Gallery, Rochester, the Portland Art Association, Portland, Oregon, and the Utica Public Library.
“Other loans for the Memorial Exhibition will be the Monet "Etretat" bequeathed to the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and work by the American artists, Charles and Maurice Prendergast and Walt Kuhn, which will be included in the exhibition by courtesy of Miss Bliss's estate.
“The public opening of the Memorial Exhibition on Sunday, May 17th, will be preceded by a private Memorial Ceremony on the afternoon of Thursday, May 14th, and by the customary invitation opening to members of the Museum on Saturday, May 16th. The exhibition will remain on view through the summer, closing on Sunday, September 27th at 6 o'clock.“ [Museum of Modern Art press release, May 17, 1931]