The Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum
and the Great Art Theft
BY LORRAINE BERTAN,
CULTURE COMMITTEE
The Isabella Stewart Gardner
Museum in Boston is
famous for its art collection
which represents the personal
taste of Isabella Stewart Gardner,
Philanthropist and Collector.
It is also famous for the theft of
13 works of art stolen in March,
1990, valued at $500 million. A
reward of $10 million was offered
but never claimed.
Isabella Stewart was born in
1824 to a wealthy family living on
University Place in New York City.
Her father, David Stewart, was an
importer of Irish linen and expanded
his business through investments.
She was educated privately,
traveling with her family through
Europe, as most young women of
that social class did in those days.
She married Jack Lowell Gardner
in 1840 and moved to Boston.
Her father provided a house for
the couple as a wedding gift.
Their first child died from pneumonia.
Isabella became extremely
depressed, and she and her husband
went on frequent European,
Asiatic and Egyptian trips which
encouraged a passionate interest in
art. She made meticulous notes of
the journeys which are part of the
museum collection.
In 1887, she attended a reading
of the works of Charles Eliot
Norton, the first professor of art
history at Harvard, and she joined
the Dante Society and became a
collector rare books. The couple
became friends of Bostonians who
collected works of art and were
introduced to Bernard Berenson,
a Lithuanian immigrant studying art
and history at Harvard. He became
an art advisor to the Gardners and
their friends. His knowledge of art
and history was quite impressive;
the Gardners financed his trips to
Italy to collect art for them and he
became the foremost authority on
Italian Renaissance Art.
In 1891 Isabella inherited her
father’s fortune and now the
Gardners had the means to exhibit
their art collection in a the Venetian
Palazzo they were building to house
their extensive art collection in
Boston. In 1892, at a Paris auction,
Isabella’s first major purchase, “The
Concert” by Vermeer, established
her reputation as a collector, since
her agent outbid the Louvre and
the National Gallery of London.
Unfortunately, the Vermeer is one
of the stolen works of art. In 1896,
Berenson advised the Gardeners to
purchase Rembrandt’s “Self Portrait
at Age 23” and Titian’s “Rape Of
Euro p a . ”
Both of these
paintings are
exhibited in
the room
where several
paintings
were stolen,
and the
empty frames are still on the walls.
The theft was carried out during
the early hours by two men posing
as policemen claiming to respond
to a disturbance. They overpowered
the guards and spent about
an hour removing 13 works of art
valued at $500 million, including
Rembrandt’s “Storm on the Sea Of
Galilee.” Some of the more valuable
paintings were not stolen. A reward
of $10 million was offered, and it
remains an unsolved crime.
In 1998 Jack Gardener died, and
Isabella continued building the
museum which she called Fenway
Court, buying land to expand
the museum. It opened in 1903,
accompanied by a
performance of the
Boston Philharmonic
Orchestra. The four
floors of the museum
were expanded
to include a concert
hall, classrooms, temporary
exhibition galleries and a
restaurant. The paintings include
works by Monet, Matisse, Sargent
as well as tapestries, ceramics, furniture
and a cloistered courtyard
reminiscent of a Venetian Palazzo.
Like many personal collections,
the exhibits resemble an assemblage
of interests and desires, like
the painting of Isabella Stewart
Gardner by John Singer Sargent
and the various furnishings from
the Italian Renaissance which
embellish the rooms. The museum
invites visitors to learn about Isabella
Stewart Gardner during comfortable
talks in the “living room” and has
“explainers” in some of the rooms
to describe and engage with visitors
about the exhibits. It is a beautiful
and interesting museum reflecting
the life of an art lover who wanted
to share her treasures with the world.
The Isabella Stewart Gardner
Museum is located at 25 Evans Way
in Boston. Hours are 11 AM-5 PM
except Tuesday.
BY ROBERTA GRAFF
With all the excitement of
a special birthday or a
new baby, the new Museum
of Modern Art has emerged
on the scene and it is worthy of all
the hoopla. You can now enter the
museum on both West 53 and 54
Streets, wander through the spacious
lobby, enjoy the sculpture
garden and view a design exhibit
and a painting show without
buying a ticket. However, if you
are inclined to go for the pricey
admission, you are in for a very
exciting artistic experience.
Many old friends have been
cleaned and rehung in the spacious
light-filled galleries. The
fifth floor permanent collection
has van Gogh’s “The Starry
Night” and Monet’s “Water
Lilies”; they are rubbing elbows
with Brancusi and my new
favorite artist, Faith Ringgold,
whom I first met at the Fine Arts
Museum in Hempstead over 25
years ago. To see a living artist
sharing space with Picasso shows
how prescient our Nassau
County museums have been
and how exciting and up to
the minute MoMA is.
The fifth floor with art from
1945 to 1975, also part of the
permanent collection, shows
off Warhol, Pollock and Joan
Jonas and also introduces most of
us to “Rainforest V (Variation 1),”
a sonic sculpture by David Tudor
in a new studio space.
There are six long-time, site-specific
works by contemporary
artists, galleries for textiles and
industrial designs and inaugural
exhibits which are drawn from
the Museum’s renowned collection
of modern and contemporary art
such as modern Latin American
Art. In addition, there are film
retrospectives, several dining
options, design shops, a department
of Photography and Private
Lives Public Spaces which is the
first large-scale exhibition of home
movies and amateur films.
MoMA is a new and exciting
experience. It encompasses everything
there is in the world of modern
and contemporary art. What a
way to spend a day! The museum
is located at 11 W. 53 Street in
Manhattan. Hours are daily from
10am – 5:30pm.
Museum Beat: The New MoMA
Vincent van Gogh: “The Starry
Night”
“Lady in Black” by
Tintoretto
Portrait of Isabella
Stewart Gardner by
John Singer Sargent
38 NORTH SHORE TOWERS COURIER ¢ December 2019