Chester Dale:  On becoming a collector

By Ginger Levit

Maud and Chester Dale were consummate collectors.  If ever there was a collaboration, it was achieved by this unique couple.  Her knowledge of art and his keen business acumen resulted in the establishment of one of the most important art collections in America.   Washington’s National Gallery of Art is the recipient of 300 of their icons;   From Impressionism to Modernism: The Chester Dale Collection, a selection of 81 works, is on view there through mid-summer 2011.
The story of Chester Dale (1883-1962) reads like an exciting novel. He began his business career at age 15 as a runner on Wall Street. Within a decade, he and a friend founded their own firm, William C. Langley & Co.  He went on to earn an immense fortune – most of which was destined to satisfy a passionate quest for the finest paintings spanning the centuries. 
He didn’t work alone. His wife, Maud Murray Thompson, was the art expert, having studied at the Art Students League in New York and with Steinlen in Paris. 
When she and Dale married in 1911, they moved into an apartment on East 19th Street., often called New York’s “block beautiful.”  Cecilia Beaux lived in the same building; artists Robert Reid and George Bellows were nearby.  The Dales were quickly plunged into the world of artists and Chester loved the “bohemian” ambiance.
Maud introduced him to late 19th century French painting.  She believed in the importance of acknowledging the flow of artistic ideas from the work of earlier painters and how they influenced the achievements of contemporary artists. Maud’s expert guidance nurtured his boundless enthusiasm as they began gallery hopping to attend openings.  
His earliest acquisitions were works by his neighbors. In 1920, he bought a suite of lithographs from Bellows to hang in his office.  Soon after, he commissioned portraits from Reid and Bellows.  The exquisite pair of introspective Bellows portraits of the couple is on view in the exhibition. 
Maud soon recommended that he gear his purchases towards focused collecting. In April 1925, the couple began to buy systematically, marking the beginning of their serious collecting. Believing that French art from the time of the 1789 Revolution was a series of developments and reactions, the collection took off, beginning with the classicism of David and Ingres, then continuing with the romanticism of Delacroix, and cresting with the Degas, Manet, Monet, Renoir, Cézanne and the other impressionists.
The same year, they began traveling regularly to France, visiting dealers and buying prolifically at Drouot, the great Parisian auction house. They began by buying Henri Matisse’s rather avant-garde portrait The Plumed Hat, then the monumental six figure  Family of Saltimbanques, 1905 by Pablo Picasso.
Within 10 years, the bulk of the Chester Dale collection had been acquired; it included eight Picassos and many Modigliani figures with their long necks and almond eyes and a Manet masterpiece painted in 1862; The Old Musician, coincidentally, is also a six figure piece suggesting isolation.
The Dales had several residences in New York, including a large townhouse on East 79th Street that could accommodate their ever growing art collection.  Maud, who had established herself as a serious art curator and critic, was instrumental in founding the Museum of French Art at the French Institute.  Her efforts in promoting French art won her the French Légion d’Honneur. Failing health caused her to pull back from her exhilarating art activities; she died in 1952. A year later, he married Mary Towar Bullard, who had been Maud’s art secretary for many years. 
The National Gallery of Art was completed and opened in 1941 by President Franklin D. Roosevelt.  Dale lent seven paintings to the opening, then lent 25 more, then 46 more.  He became a trustee of the NGA, even getting them to change their rule of not hanging the work of living artists.  By the time of his death in 1962, he had given more than 300 masterpieces to the museum, with the stipulation that none of them could ever travel out of the museum to be exhibited elsewhere.

From Impressionism to Modernism: 
The Chester Dale Collection is on view in the National Gallery of Art’s West Building through July 31, 2011. The Gallery is free to the public.  For further information visit www.nga.gov or call 202.737.4125.

Ginger Levit,  a private dealer specializing in French paintings of the past 250 years, writes about art and antiques for several publications.  Contact her at gingerlevit@comcast.net.