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The Elsie and Marvin Dekelboum Collection
5/25/2002 - 10/20/2002
West Palm Beach, FL - The Norton Museum of Art is exhibiting an
extraordinary gift of 21 works of art from Mrs. Elsie Dekelboum and
her husband, the late Marvin Dekelboum. The impressive collection of
19th- and 20th- century American and European paintings, pastels and
watercolors will be on view in the Museum's Dekelboum Gallery from
May 25 through October 20, 2002.
The collection includes important examples by Mary Cassatt, John H.
Twachtman, William M. Harnett, Charles M. Russell, Childe Hassam,
Maurice Prendergast, Robert Henri, John Sloan, Jerome Myers, Colin
C. Cooper, John Marin, Walt Kuhn, Charles Burchfield, Pablo Picasso,
and Fernand Léger.
Kevin Sharp, the Norton Museum's Curator of American Art, comments,
"The paintings, pastels and watercolors in the Dekelboum collection
are important and beautiful works of art that expand the Norton's
ability to describe the history of 20th-century art, which is the
strength of our collection. Our visitors will now enjoy a richer,
more in-depth look at the early Modern era."
John H. Twachtman's Pink Flowers of 1892 is a charming view of the
painter's garden in Greenwich, Connecticut. It will be the first
painting by this important artist and teacher to enter the Norton
Museum's holdings. The Dekelboums' In the Wake of the Hunters, a
striking 1896 picture of Native American life by Charles M. Russell,
provides a moving glimpse into what was already at that time a
vanishing culture. There are currently no works of art in the Norton
Museum's collection that so eloquently describe the experience of
the old West. Mary Cassatt's 1907 Portrait of Helen Sears is a major
pastel from the artist's late period that represents the daughter of
one of her closest friends, the photographer Sarah Choate Sears.
This impressive yet affectionate portrait is another masterwork in
the Dekelboum collection that breaks new ground in the Norton
Museum's holdings.
The relationships and historical parallels between the Dekelboum
collection and the Norton Museum's permanent collection could not be
more intriguing. For example, the Dekelboums' Childe Hassam
painting, A New York Blizzard, of 1889 and the later 1905 canvas,
Melting Snow on Fifth Avenue – two urban winter scenes – neatly
bracket the Norton Museum's 1899 Gloucester Harbor, a sunlit fishing
village. One of the Museum's watercolors by Maurice Prendergast,
Figures on the Quay, Dinard of 1907, was painted during the same
trip to France that the artist produced the Dekelboums' important
oil painting Ramparts, St. Malo. A second Prendergast watercolor in
the Norton Museum's holdings, Bridge and Steps, Venice, 1911, will
be enhanced by the Dekelboums' own earlier watercolor of 1899
entitled Capri. Both of these views of a vivid Italian street life
remain in frames designed by Prendergast's talented brother,
Charles.
The Dekelboums' two extraordinary genre pictures by John Sloan,
Passing through Gloucester, 1917 and Grotesques at Santo Domingo,
1923, offer chronological balance and thematic variety to the Norton
Museum's early Sloan portrait, Yolande in Gray Tippet of 1909 and
the 1932 figure painting, Nude and Chief Blanket. The same can be
said for the Dekelboums' masterpiece by Walt Kuhn, the poignant 1931
Portrait of a Clown, which culminates an artistic progression begun
in the Norton Museum's Morning, a canvas of 1912, and continues in
the engaging 1924 Kuhn painting, Dancing Pears. Equally compelling
relationships can be charted through the works of Robert Henri, John
Marin, Charles Burchfield and Pablo Picasso that appear in both the Dekelboum and Norton Museum of Art collections.
The Dekelboums have collected art for many years. They began with
local artists in Rockport, Maine, and Provincetown, Massachusetts
before turning to artists with more international reputations. Their
first purchase was Pablo Picasso's Buste de Faune, 1946. "We bought
art that we liked, not art that we thought would be a good
investment. Living with art makes me happy," says Elsie Dekelboum.
Mrs. Dekelboum and her late husband have been long-time Museum
supporters. Mrs. Dekelboum is a Director's Circle member, and has
supported the Museum's Progressive After School Art Community
Education (P.A.C.E.) program. In 1996, the Dekelboums named a
gallery during the Campaign for the Norton. Mrs. Dekelboum lives in
Palm Beach, Florida, and Chevy Chase, MD.
Speaking at the announcement of the Dekelboum gift in March 2002,
Dr. Christina Orr-Cahall, Museum Director said, "The Dekelboum gift
is a treasured addition to the Norton Museum's permanent collection,
an example of adding strength to strength. These works will become
some of the most loved by our visitors. There are many exceptional
paintings in this generous gift, which every museum in America would
love to have received. We are fortunate to have donors in our
community like Elsie and Marvin who have always wanted to move the
Norton forward in the national arena while serving our community
with beautiful and important works of art."
For further information about the Norton Museum of Art, please call
the Museum at (561) 832-5196
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The Norton Museum
of Art is a major cultural attraction in Florida.
The Museum is internationally known for its distinguished permanent
collection featuring
19th and 20th century European and American art, Chinese, contemporary art and photography.
From its founding the Norton has been famous for its masterpieces
of 19th century and 20th century painting
and sculpture by European artists such as Brancusi, Gauguin, Matisse,
Miró, Monet, Picasso
and by Americans such as Davis, Hassam, Hopper, Manship, O'Keeffe,
Pollock and Sheeler.
View special exhibitions and attend lectures and exhibition programs
for both children and adults.
THE NORTON MUSEUM OF ART
1451 S Olive Avenue, West Palm Beach FL 33401 Florida
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