Twentieth-Century Art from the Nelson Aldrich Rockefeller Collection [antikvár]

foreword by Monroe Wheeler On behalf of the Trustees of The Museum of Modern Art, it is my privilege to thank the Honorable Nelson Aldrioh Rockefeller for the extraordinarily generous loan of the works of art included in this exhibition. With great discrimination, Dorothy Miller has selected, from the approximately fifteen hundred works owned by the Governor, nearly a hundred paintings and as many sculptures and constructions, together with a number of watercolors and drawings. A sampling of his extensive collection of prints and illustrated books has been chosen by Wiiiiam S. Lieberman, who has also written a commentary on the collection. In his Preface, Governor Rockefeller has provided insights Into his lifelong Impulse to acquire works of art, and into his public conscience with respect to ownership. As a preliminary to viewing this extraordinary collection, the reader may appreciate a further characterization of him as a connoisseur of art. To a remarkable degree, he personifies this happy preoccupation, which in his case may be said to be hereditary. His grandfather, Nelson W. Aldrich, set him an impressive example. In public life, he served for many years as Senator from his native state of Rhode Island: he was also a collector of European art of the past, and the initiator of an important piece of legislation exempting it from tariffs. On the Rockefeller side, his grandfather and his father conveyed to their children a deep concern for educational philanthropies of all sorts. But (as Mr. Lieberman points out, page 11), it was his mother, Abby Aldrich Rockefeller, who stimulated an awareness of the arts of their own time In her children while they were still In their teens, and whose deep Involvement with contemporary creativity led her to become one of the founders of The Museum of Modern Art. Governor Rockefeller's present taste can surely be traced to his fortuitous first interests: European porcelain; American antique furniture and folk art; Southeast Asian artifacts, brought back from a world tour in 1930-31 (some of them not genuine, a fact which he gladly refers to as having taught him a useful lesson); twentieth-century masters, and the burgeoning contemporary production in this country; above all, perhaps, primitive art, beginning with the pre-Columbian, which he came to know early in the 1930s. In his enjoyment of primitive art. he has from the start been a true crusader and has done as much as any other American to assert Its aesthetic worth, rescuing it from being the exclusive province of museums specializing in anthropology. To this end, in 1957 he founded The Museum of Primitive Art. A selection from Its collections (Art ot Oceania, Africa, and the Americas) is being shown at The Metropolitan Museum of Art concurrently with this exhibition, and folk art from the Governor's collection is on view at The Museum of Primitive Art. Certain equivalents between his successive early interests and the singularities of Governor Rockefeller's collecting to this day may be noted: an interest in the artist's direct expression, un-theoretlcal and unaffected, and a liking for work making the dual appeal of emotional significance In relation to the overall culture of our day and age, as well as of aesthetic impact. His preference for simplicity may have turned him away somewhat from surrealism and the fantastic. Consciously or otherwise, he has maintained throughout his collection a predilection for sculpture; he himself might point out that this corresponds to the fact that modern America has been especially strong in three-dimensional art. To quote his words: "I am more drawn to the plastic, three-dimensional, than to pure line and color. I seriously considered being an architect when I was In college; perhaps my love for sculpture is related to my forgotten vocation." Many Important collectors of modern art have been high-principled and generous in sharing their possessions with their less privileged fellow art-lovers; few have been more so than Governor Rockefeller. On the occasion of its Twenty-fifth Anniversary, he gave to The Museum of Modern Art one of his greatest acquisitions, Rousseau's T/7e Dream; and in 1963, in honor of Alfred H. Barr, Jr., he gave to the Museum Matisse's monumental Dance. Sixteen choice works from his collection, promised in 1958 as future gifts, are Included in this exhibition. Some collectors may have arrived at their generosity out of pride. In Governor Rockefeller's case, simple enjoyment and a sense of friendly obligation, more than any vain consideration, have prompted his policy. It was surely his desire to extend the opportunities for such enjoyment to as many others as possible that led him to initiate the New York State Council on the Arts, the first such body in the United States. It may be of interest to try to examine his personality, his psychology, with regard to art, though this pertains to an inner infinitude of the mind, in essence impenetrable. No imperatives apply to it; nothing can be proved. What he represents and exercises is the modern mentality in art appreciation, very different