The Extraordinary Havemeyer Collection: “From the Occident to the Orient and from Clouet to Cézanne”

A lecture sponsored by Greenwich Art Society

Time: 5:30 – 7 PM
Date: Thursday, February 28th, 2019

Location: Greenwich Public Library, Meeting Room, 2 ND floor. 101 West Putnam Ave., Greenwich, CT.

Cost: $20; free for current term studio school students. RSVP by calling 203-629-1533.

Online ticketing https://thehavemeyercollection.eventbrite.com

The Greenwich Art Society will present a lecture highlighting the extraordinary Havemeyer collection, “From the Occident to the Orient and from Clouet to Cézanne”, Thursday, February, 28th from 5:30-7 p.m. at the Greenwich Public Library’s Meeting Room (2nd floor). Laura Dickey Corey is Research Associate in European Paintings at The Metropolitan Museum of Art will discuss the legacy and impact of the Havemeyer bequests on American museums.

When the bequest of the Havemeyer collection to The Met was announced in 1929, then-director Edward Robinson hailed it as “one of the most magnificent gifts of works of art ever to be made to a museum by a single individual” and critic Forbes Watson declared The Met “the premier Museum for nineteenth-century French art in America, and one of the two or three most distinguished in this branch in the world.” The Museum now houses over 4,000 objects once owned by Louisine and Henry Osborne Havemeyer and their descendants in nearly every curatorial department. Yet The Met is not the only beneficiary of their bountiful collection. Significant gifts were also made to the National Gallery of Art, among others, and their daughter Electra Havemeyer Webb developed her own collection into the unique and eclectic Shelburne Museum in Vermont. This talk will illuminate how the family was inspired to become such prolific and generous collectors and how their legacy has left an indelible imprint on American museums

Laura Dickey Corey is Research Associate in European Paintings at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, where she is currently working on a major museum-wide exhibition to celebrate the Museum’s 150th anniversary in 2020. A specialist in Impressionism and Post-Impressionism, she has contributed to previous exhibitions at The Met including Impressionism, Fashion, and Modernity (2013); Seurat’s Circus Sideshow (2017); and Public Parks, Private Gardens: Paris to Provence (2018), as well as exhibitions at the Museum of Modern Art, the Phillips Collection in Washington, and the High Museum of Art in Atlanta. She holds a PhD from the Institute of Fine Arts, New York University, where she wrote her dissertation about Mary Cassatt’s career as an advisor to a variety of American collectors, including the Havemeyers.

Founded in 1912, the Greenwich Art Society is the oldest visual arts organization in Greenwich, Connecticut. The society’s Studio School offers classes by professional artists, providing traditional and foundational visual arts education for children and adults.

The cost of the lecture is $20; free for current term studio school students. RSVP by calling 203-629-1533. On line ticketing https://thehavemeyercollection.eventbrite.com

The Extraordinary Havemeyer Collection: “From the Occident to the Orient and from Clouet to Cézanne” is part of an ongoing lecture series sponsored by Greenwich Art Society.

Credit line: El Greco, Cardinal Fernando Niño de Guevara, ca. 1600, Oil on canvas,67 1/4 x 42 1/2in. (170.8 x 108cm).The Metropolitan Museum of Art; H. O. Havemeyer Collection, Bequest of Mrs. H. O. Havemeyer, 1929