Arts
Collector's items
John McEwen
Impressionist Paintings from the Courtauld (National Gallery till 27 March) Mantegna to Cizanne: Master Drawings from the Courtauld (British Museum till 24 April) A Private Collection of late 19th- and 20th-Century Paintings and Sculpture (Courtauld Institute Galleries, University of London, Woburn Square till 10 April)
Samuel Courtauld (1876-1947), a cousin of our Deputy Editor, is no less renown- ed for being the man most responsible for making the study of art history academical- ly respectable in this country; and for en- suring that London's public collections can boast some of the finest of late 19th-century paintings: Seurat's 'Bathers', Van Gogh's 'Chair', Manet's 'Bar at the Folies-Bergere' to name only the most familiar. Now the 50th anniversary of the foundation of his Institute has come round and, to celebrate, exhibitions derived from the holdings of the Courtauld Institute Galleries have been ar- ranged at the National Gallery, the British Museum and the Institute's own galleries.
Courtauld's benefaction is all the more remarkable when one considers how bereft of the best late 19th-century paintings we would be without it, and how late in the day it was — not until the Twenties, when most of the painters involved were long dead — that he set about collecting them. The sad truth is — and it will surely remain an in- dictment of our artistic insularity for aeons to come — that despite the fact that most of the great French artists of the era exhibited in London; that Pisarro and Monet painted here extensively; that the dealer Durand- Ruel did his best to establish a market for their work in England; the English artists, critics, collectors and public virtually turn- ed their backs on impressionist painting, or anything to do with it, for the first 40 years of its existence. Thus the National Gallery had nothing remotely representative of this kind of art till 1906, when a Boudin entered the collection; and when the Trustees fell heir to Sir Hugh Lane's collection of 19th- century French pictures (not to be com- pared with the later brilliance of Samuel Courtauld's, but including, nonetheless, Renoir's 'Umbrellas') they consigned the whole lot to the cellars as being 'unworthy of public exhibition'. That was in 1917.
Samuel Courtauld had meanwhile ex- panded his unitarian father's silk factory in- to a vast textile business, much of this new wealth earned in the first world war from the manufacture of rayon silk. This enabled him to set up house in the Robert Adam masterpiece at 20 Portman Square (now the
Courtauld Institute), lovingly collect pic- tures and, in 1923, help the Tate to buy Pie" tures too by presenting them with a fund worth £50,000 to be used solely for the pur- chase of major works by late 19th-century French artists. It was from this fund that such priceless masterpieces as Van Gogh's 'Chair' and Seurat's 'Bathers' were bought. Courtauld always wanted the best of the impressionists and post-impressionists to receive their artistic due, as he saw it, and t° be hung with their peers from earlier dines at the National Gallery; and accordinglY made provision for the gallery to have the right to any painting purchased from the fund. While the Tate remained a modern annexe to the National the Courtauld Fun"1 pictures stayed at Millbank, but when lt gained its independence in the Fifties almost all of them were duly promoted to the senior collection in Trafalgar Square' Courtauld, sadly, did not live quite long enough to see this dream of his come true. Ideally he would probably have preferred the no less brilliant paintings of his own col- lection to end up in the National as well' but the politically frustrated Lord Lee — who, according to Kenneth Clark, was the chief promoter of the institutional idea persuaded his friend to leave the majorItY of it to found the Courtauld Institute Galleries.
It is the cream of the collection — Manet's 'Bar', Gauguin's 'Nevermore', the superb Van Gogh self-portrait etc —. that may now be seen, briefly, in the Natonal Gallery. At the British Museum and in the two vacated rooms at the Institute s galleries we see, for the most part, items from other collections which have since been presented to the Institute — the wot Collection (1952), the Spooner Collection (1967) and, most spectacular of all,. the Princes Gate Collection of Count Seilern (1978), a superb gift of works by the Old Masters. These masterpieces are irritatinglY hung in a maze of over-elaboration at the British Museum but complemented bY 3 handsome catalogue (Mantegna t° Cezanne: Master Drawings from the Cour- tauld, edited by Dennis Farr, compiled bY William Bradford and Helen BrahainA' British Museum Publications. £4.50 art" £6.95). ii The latest collection to be presented that of Lillian Browse, the art dealer, tAl recently a founder partner of Rulattuci Browse and Delbanco (now Browse Darby). Mrs Browse's desire for immortau. ty has got the better of her judgment;
because this assortment of French bits allu_ bet!el English pieces would have been much left to friends and relations than clutter:0! the Courtauld. Clutter already means that
half the collection has to be .3tored, though the relief of additional space is at hand: Shortly, subject to the formality of Parlia- nlent passing an enabling bill, both the In- stitute and the Institute's galleries will be accommodated under one roof for the first time — at Somerset House. So these 50th anniversary celebrations are only a prelude, really, to the full coming of age of the In- stitute as an institution — and the further realisation, perhaps, more of Arthur Lee's extravagant dreams than plain, picture- lc:lying, Samuel Courtauld's.
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