Enviable Pearlman Collection of European Masterworks on Display in "Cézanne and the Modern"

Nov 5

Nov 5 Enviable Pearlman Collection of European Masterworks on Display in "Cézanne and the Modern"

Henry Pearlman didn’t hail from a wealthy family with a vast collection of pricey paintings. Nor did he have any training in art or its history.

He was born to poor Russian immigrant parents and grew up in Brooklyn at the turn of the 20th century, before forging a career as a self-made businessman in the storage and refrigeration industry.

But one day in the winter of 1945 — just after World War II had ended — the 50-year-old was walking down Park Avenue in Manhattan when he noticed a painting in the window of an auction house. It was a piece by modernist artist Chaim Soutine called “View of Ceret” — an avant-garde depiction of a French village.

Pearlman was awestruck, and he purchased it with an $825 bid.

“There was something in it that spoke to him,” explains Betsy Rosasco, the curator of European painting and sculpture at the Princeton University Art Museum.

“That was a transformative moment,” adds Laura Giles, the museum’s curator of prints and drawings.

Over the next three decades, until his death in 1974, Pearlman pieced together one of the most impressive collections of 19th and 20th century European art on the planet.

And now, you can see it in person at the PUAM. More than 50 works gathered by Pearlman are on display there through January 3 in an exhibition called “Cezanne and the Modern: Masterpieces of European Art from the Pearlman Collection.”

Among the artists on display: Vincent van Gough, Amedeo Modigliani, Jacques Lipchitz, Chaim Soutine, Edouard Manet, Camille Pissarro, Edgar Degas, Paul Gauguin.

And the centerpiece is a set of 33 watercolors by French icon Paul Cezanne that are rarely on display.

“They’re considered to be one of the finest and best-preserved collections of Cezanne watercolors of the world,” Giles says.

Plus, you can also see the painting that started it all: the Soutine that stole Pearlman’s attention that day in New York City.

Chaïm Soutine, "Chemin de la Fontaine des Tins à Céret," ca. 1920

Pearlman had collected art before that, but the pieces were largely older, traditional paintings he bought mostly to decorate his home. The Soutine, however, was more abstract.

“It set him off in this completely different direction,” Giles says.

Pearlman once wrote poetically about the piece—“When I came home in the evenings and saw it, I would get a lift, similar to the experience of listening to a symphony orchestration of a piece well known and liked,” he wrote. “This first pleasant experience with a modern painting started me on a road of adventure. I haven’t spent a boring evening since.”

But while Pearlman was successful in business, he was not obscenely wealthy — which is often a requirement to buy significant art. Instead, he relied on luck and guile to gather his collection.

Pearlman made connections with dealers in the New York art world and soon began traveling to Europe, sometimes meeting with artists. He enjoyed plumbing for the stories behind the pieces. And he traded some pieces to upgrade his collection.

“He didn’t hesitate to sell something and buy something he thought was of higher quality or more challenging,” Rosasco says. “He was educating himself about art through conversations with artists and dealers and collectors.”

Vincent van Gogh, "Tarascon Stagecoach," 1888

In 1955, he and his wife formed the Henry and Rose Pearlman Foundation to look after the collection and educate others about art. The foundation still owns the collection, but two years after Pearlman’s death, it loaned it on a long-term basis to the PUAM in 1976.

Various pieces have been on display in Princeton at different times over the decades, and some pieces have been sent out to other museums on loan. But they hadn’t traveled as a whole group before last January, when the collection set off on a tour of museums in four countries: England, France, the U.S. (Atlanta) and Canada. After two years away, the collection returned to Princeton last month.

One of the most notable pieces on display is an 1888 van Gogh painting called “Tarascon Stagecoach” — featuring a red and green wagon against a mustard yellow wall. Look closely, and you can see the brushstrokes vividly, as well as pieces of canvass peeking through.

“It’s as well-preserved as (if) it was painted yesterday,” Rosasco marvels.

Pearlman used a combination of paintings and cash to purchase the piece in 1950. That was also the year he bought his first watercolor by Cezanne — an acquisition that sparked a fascination. Cezanne is one of the most respected artists of the 19th century, and Pearlman collected his works the most.

Paul Cézanne, "Mont Sainte-Victoire," 1900–1906

“Certainly, he was influential on everybody who came after him,” Rosasco says of Cezanne. “He’s the artist’s artist.”

On display in Princeton are a few paintings, including “Mont Sainte-Victoire” — a depiction of a mountain rising above a green field into the blue sky that is considered one of the most significant works in Pearlman’s collection.

“I think you can call Cezanne the central gallery (of the exhibit),” Giles says. “It’s almost a show within a show.”

It’s the first presentation of Pearlman’s nearly three dozen Cezanne watercolors in almost 15 years. And Giles says they may not be displayed again for another 10 years or so.

“These watercolors in particular are hardly ever displayed,” she explains. “Because they’re light-sensitive. Many of the colors are fugitive. Paper, if it’s exposed to light, discolors.”

Giles notes that dissecting Cezanne’s pieces — which are heavy on landscapes — can be a challenge. She says his brushstroke-centric style — which led to Cubism — can play tricks with your eyes.

“They were very carefully composed,” Giles explains. “However, to some people, it looks like it’s all going to come apart. He’s showing what he sees as he shifts — moving his head from side to side.

Paul Cézanne, “Three Pears,” ca. 1888-1890

“It’s very hard to talk about Cezanne,” she adds. “It’s not easy art. He was always struggling.” Most of Cezanne’s watercolors were not exhibited during his lifetime. But one on display was — and it sparked a bidding war between two other famous artists. The piece is called “Three Pears,” and it was exhibited in 1895 in a gallery in Paris. Among those interested in buying the work at the time: Edgar Degas and Pierre-Auguste Renoir.

“They had to draw straws to determine who would own it,” Giles says.

Degas won.

Another work on the wall in Princeton is a 1916 portrait of French writer and filmmaker Jean Cocteau by Amedeo Modigliani, an Italian artist who was working in Paris at the time.

“He was a very vain person,” Rosasco says of Cocteau. “And he was especially proud of his long, straight nose.”

But Modigliani painted a bump in Cocteau’s snout.

“You can see how haughty he is,” Rosasco says. “He’s perched as if on a throne as a king.”

Cocteau hated the painting.

“He paid for it,” Rosasco says, “but he never took it home and he never called for it.”

A few decades later, though, Henry Pearlman did.

"Cézanne and the Modern: Masterpieces of European Art from the Pearlman Collection" is on display through January 3 at the Princeton University Art Museum, McCormick Hall, Princeton, NJ 08542. The Museum is free and open to the public. Museum hours are Tuesdays, Wednesdays, Fridays and Saturdays 10:00 am to 5:00 pm, Thursdays 10:00 am to 10:00 pm and Sundays 1:00 to 5:00 pm.