Pearlman Collection Gifting Art to LACMA, MoMA, Brooklyn
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| Chaim Soutine, Hanging Turkey, about 1925. Henry and Rose Pearlman Foundation |
LACMA's website briefly displayed notice of an upcoming exhibition titled "Village Square: Gifts of Modern Art from the Pearlman Collection to the Brooklyn Museum, LACMA, and MoMA." The title implies that the widely traveled Pearlman collection—which has been on loan to Princeton University Art Museum since the 1970s—is being dispersed to the three institutions. The write-up said LACMA was to receive "six important works" from the Pearlman holding of Impressionist and modern art and that "Village Square" would be in the Resnick Pavilion Feb. 22 to July 6th, 2026. Then the notice was taken down.
If the Pearlman collection is being donated to the three museums, that would be big news. There has been no such announcement from the Pearlman Foundation, Princeton, or the two New York museums. My guess is that someone at LACMA posted the exhibition announcement prematurely and that an official announcement will be forthcoming. Since first posting this item I have received independent confirmation of the gift.
Brooklyn-born Henry Pearlman (1895–1974), a cold storage magnate, was a self-taught collector advised by such mid-century influencers as Alfred Barr, Meyer Shapiro, and even cranky Philadelphia mega-collector Albert Barnes. Pearlman's collection includes a Cézanne Mount Sainte-Victoire, the only vertical-format painting of the subject, plus 16 exemplary watercolors spanning the artist's career. (The last Mount Sainte-Victoire at auction, Paul Allen's, sold for $138 million and was considerably smaller than Pearlman's.) Modigliani and Chaim Soutine are well-represented, the former with his portrait of Jean Cocteau (purchased from LACMA benefactor "Buddy" De Sylva). Seven paintings by Chaim Soutine include a self-portrait and a Hanging Turkey.
The Pearlman collection also has representative paintings by Manet, Degas, Pissarro, Sisley, van Gogh, Toulouse-Lautrec, and Oskar Kokoschka; sculptures by Gauguin, Lipchitz, and Lembruck; some prints and drawings, mainly by Cézanne.
Henry Pearlman died without securing a permanent home for his collection. His widow Rose lent the art to Princeton after his death. Rose died in 1994, leaving the arrangement in place. In recent decades, the collection has spent a lot of time on the road and has been regularly lent to museums on both sides of the Atlantic.
It would be great if a few of the Pearlman works landed at LACMA. It's certainly rare for New York collectors to favor Los Angeles museums with gifts. In the early 1960s Adele Levy's estate distributed 26 modern paintings to 15 museums across the country, including LACMA—which got Cézanne's Still Life With Cherries and Peaches.
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| Cézanne, Mount Sainte-Victoire, about 1904-06. Henry and Rose Pearlman Foundation |
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| Amadeo Modigliani, Jean Cocteau, 1916. Henry and Rose Pearlman Foundation |
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| Cézanne, Three Pears, watercolor, about 1888-80. Henry and Rose Pearlman Foundation |
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| Gauguin, Te Fare Amu, 1895 or 1897. Henry and Rose Pearlman Foundation |
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| van Gogh, Tarascon Stagecoach, 1888. Henry and Rose Pearlman Foundation |
Comments
Thomas Jefferson theorized the US (such as what's known as today's Midwest) would grow much more slowly than what actually occurred.
Europe had the history of prosperity and civilization lacking in the hinterlands of North America, much less Australia. Yet the US (and Canada, etc) managed to power onward.
Japan centuries ago had a thriving book-publishing scene and industry. China over 400 years ago had cities described with some reverence by European explorers.
In both good and bad ways, as much as things change, some things never change. Which is why Zumthor's LACMA in 2026 may have various shortcomings not totally alien from those of Pereira's LACMA in 1965.
Good for LACMA, MoMA and Brooklyn.
I wonder how the divvying will be arrived at. I hope MoMA gets the Van Gogh, which is the indisputable prize of the collection.
[[Pics of the collection can be found here:
https://www.pearlmancollection.org/
> the Van Gogh,
Something about the Pearlman collection overall seems middling to me. If the Van Gogh is the high point, then when it comes to the visual arts in general, I'm fairly sure the Lucas Museum next year will give me plenty of ambivalence. That's in spite of elitism (or snobbery) - or hip contemporary for hip-contemporary's sake - annoying the hell out of me.
In the meantime, I'm curious how artworks from Jerry Perenchio and the Ahmanson Foundation will fare in the Geffen Galleries. I don't trust today's LACMA to dot their i's or cross their t's correctly---as what presumably happened with a press release that shouldn't have been made public.
The subject matter is a stage coach. Collectors prefer cypress trees, wheatfields, and flowers.
It's a color study in green, red, yellow. Collectors prefer green, blue, and yellow.
Green and red were a difficult color combination for Van Gogh. He wrote to his brother about the problem the two colors posed. He claimed he finally got it right in one painting, Night Cafe (Yale Art Gallery).
--- J. Garcin
Ted, don't be such a know-it-all. There are experts in the field of art who'll clash as to whether a painting is authentic or not. In turn, I'd never claim the Pearlman collection's Van Gogh is fake, but to me something about its nature (or composition) is less impressive than other works he's famous for.
True enough that his "Tarascon Stagecoach," of 1888, is light-years away from his portraiture and still lifes and landscapes. But it is seminal, and whoever gets it is sure to claim it as an institutional masterpiece. There's nothing like it.
I've seen it a dozen times, and every time I whisper to myself: Sunflowers, schmunflowers!
I like the Yale picture, but I always leave it feeling a bit sullen. I'm wide awake after "Stagecoach." To me they don't compare. Each to his own taste.
... There's also nothing like "Night Cafe" or "The Prisoner's Round". The former is considered an institutional masterpiece. The latter is a very extraordinary painting, both in subject matter and color combinations. "Stagecoach" looks miserable by comparison.
--- J. Garcin
"Stagecoach" would provide a brilliant counterpoint for "Starry" at MoMA. Just sayin'.
Conversely, the French painter Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec must have hated Puvis, or at least his art.
At the 1884 Paris Salon, Toulouse-Lautrec saw a painting by Puvis, “The Sacred Grove, Beloved of the Arts and Muses” (coll., Art Institute of Chicago), then went home and parodized it utterly.
The Perlman Collection has the Toulouse-Lautrec-parodized picture.
I wish that one could go to the Met..we love our Puvis.
Here's a 2008 NYT article with all the dope [I dropped the paywall]..
https://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/04/nyregion/nyregionspecial2/04artsnj.html
For Van Gogh, red, green with a grey tint, and black outlines became associated with a feeling of anxiety. In a letter to a friend, Van Gogh even asserts that at the asylum the phrase "seeing red" was a way of describing despair/anxiety.
--- J. Garcin
> of the van Gogh.
Something about the foreground doesn't work for me. I'm ambivalent towards that just as I am when dealing with pre-Raphaelite works. In those instances, the technical skill is obvious, but the creative (or aesthetic) quality seems off.
Various contemporary artworks are the flip side of that.
The Lucas Museum is going to be a roller coaster of that's good but bad or that's bad but good. Or pick your poison.
As for the Geffen Galleries, I'm hoping for the best but somewhat prepared for the worst. Or reacting with a "WTH?!"
https://www.instagram.com/p/DM0E0vDODeu/
This (the first Instagram post in a year) seems to say that the 3-year loan mentioned in the previous post didn't happen. I'm guessing the "exciting plans for 2026 and beyond" are the "Village Square" exhibition and gifts of art.
The Pearlman collection does have a history with the Musée Granet, Aix-en-Provence. It was lent there in 2014, 2017-18, and 2019.
Merrymaking and gift giving, begin!!