Customer Reviews

The Art of Acquiring: A Portrait of Etta and Claribel Cone

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Pay no attention to the ho-hum title -- this is one delightful read. The book illuminates two sisters who had been virtually written out of art history. The author richly embroiders the travels of Claribel and Etta Cone and details how they came to amass one of the world's more comprehsive collections of 20th century art. This painstakingly and lovingly researched book is a masterpiece!

I happened upon this book quite by accident but was intrigued just from reading the book jacket and it did not disappoint. The story read like a novel yet it was meticulously researched. The Cone sisters were visionary collectors who supported Matisse, Picasso, Cezanne and others by purchasing their work when the rest of the snooty art world shunned it and tagged it obscene. These extraordinary women led unconventional lives, befriended artists and authors (Gertrude Stein among them) along the way and definitely marched to their own drums. And lucky for the Baltimore Art Museum that they did since their collection was estimated to be worth about $1 billion. No book has ever made me want to visit Baltimore before but I plan to go there to see the Cone Collection.

Dr. Cone and her sister, Etta, amassed one of the best art collections in American history. How and when they did this is the tale contained in this nice effort by Mary Gabriel.

Those interested in European art as created in the early part of the last century, by such people as Picasso and above all Matisse, will be interested in buying this book, as well as those who just want a slice of cultural history of the period. (And if you have a keen interest in Gertrude Stein, you will also want to read this rewarding, yet stylistically simple, work.)

I have visited the Cone Collection at the Baltimore Museum of Art and urge all interested in great art to make the same pilgrimage.

A cherished part of the Baltimore Museum and of Baltimore generally, are the fruits of the labor of two of its citizens who did not have much good to say about Baltimore and who, until the death of the older of the two, were neither much known or much respected by the City. Unlike the petulant, ego-centric, ill-tempered, imperious, yet gifted, Dr. Barnes, their art, until old age took its toll on the younger sister, was open to all of those in the world of art who showed an interest. The Great Matisse, himself, knew them not only as collectors whose support meant much to him when he needed both financial and emotional currency, but also as friends who had visited him, and, in whose home, he had known the perfect display of his work (as he wrote to the surviving sister). (It is interesting that the work of William Zorach should be among the relatively few by Americans in their collection. The noted sculptor, and his very gifted wife, were welcome guests in the Cone apartments but had the gate barred to them by Barnes. In his first book, Zorach has spoken both of the rejection by Barnes and the experience of being guests of the Sisters.)
This book is an excellent accounting of the lives of these two "Victorian" women who never outwardly changed but whose lives were altered forever by the discovery of the world of art and artists. Both the (mostly) men and their work attracted the two Maiden Ladies from the earliest days of the last century until their death. It enriched them while providing vital support, much of the time, to artists who went through many crises psychologically and morally troubled Europe. Their own course was also troubled, but they were never permanently deterred from their mission: to make their apartments centers of culture and, at the same time, homes in which their lives were enriched and expressed.
An excellent book to read as the current joint venture of the Baltimore Museum, ultimate repository of the bulk of the Sisters Art Collection, and the Jewish Museum of New York City, begins with the exhibition of some of her works at the latter museum before moving on to several other venues.

Live in Baltimore so have visited the Cone Collection many times. This book has given me a new appreciation for these women and how ahead of their times they were. Will view the collection again with new eyes understanding how the collection came to be and how choices were made. This book is so well written---enjoy!

This is a great and fascinating read. If you like history, art and eccentric people this will really please you. It is a slice of Americana and art history we never read...those who are art collectors and actually make artists famous. The women in this story were Victorian and liberated all in the same breath. Very fun!