sehepunkte 25 (2025), Nr. 6

Milena Woźniak-Koch (ed.): Mapping Art Collecting in Europe, 1860-1940

The publication consists of texts developed from papers presented at the 2021 online conference "Collection, Modernism and Social Identity: Art Collecting in Europe Between 1880-1940," organized at the Centre for Historical Research of the Polish Academy of Sciences in Berlin by Milena Woźniak-Koch. Following an introduction from the editor and an opening essay from Thomas Stammers, the volume consists of five thematically grouped sections helping the reader find the texts most relevant for them. 

The book deals with a wide spectrum of subjects relating to art collecting, within the temporal frames of the second half of the nineteenth and the first half of the twentieth centuries. With a short introductory text, Woźniak-Koch brings our attention to differences between the phenomenon of art collecting in Western and Eastern Europe, at the same time reminding us that a large number of records were lost during the war years and that it is extremely difficult, if not impossible, to reconstruct a full history on this topic. The scope of the volume's subjects, including art collections with feminist, post-colonial, and culture-building foci, presents an impressive pan-European panorama that will be of interest to anyone interested in the pre-1945 art world.

The introduction by Thomas Stammers creates a solid foundation for readers, as it offers a short, though very accurate and relevant, literature review on the subject. The focus then shifts towards the meta-nature of collecting, that is the relationship between people and their possessions, explored through psychoanalytical lenses and the study of material culture.

The first section of the volume, "Aristocracy: Art Collecting in the Twilight Era," is opened by Kamila Kłudkiewicz's account of the legacy of an immensely influential Polish art collector Edward Aleksander Raczyński. The image of the collector serves as an example of the nineteenth-century aristocracy's attitudes towards contemporary art. Following this, Maria Ponomarenko sheds light on the figure of Prince Wladimir Nikolayevich Argoutinsky-Dolgoroukoff, an art collector with Georgian and Armenian roots who, as the author of the essay claims, instrumentalized the craft of art collecting to consolidate his social position in St. Petersburg and, after the Russian Revolution, Paris. Rounding off this first section is the text by Whitney Dennis, which explores the reality of women's art collections in Spain and a history of its royal house.

The next and most substantial part of the book, "Modern Reinterpretations," shifts the focus towards the later end of the period. Agnieszka Kluczewska-Wójcik's essay introduces the reader to Feliks Jasieński, perhaps the most influential, as well as colorful and unconventional Polish art collector who was deeply engaged in the art worlds of Cracow, Warsaw, and L'viv at the beginning of the twentieth century. As we learn, his collection of modernist art, as well as Japanese paintings, graphics, clothes, and artefacts had a direct impact on the subjects of Polish artists with whom he was in close contact. In a similar vein, Lèo Rivaud Chevaillier contributed the next text which focuses on an influential and modernist collector: Paul Gallimard. This Parisian connoisseur was born into generational wealth which he, similarly to his father, used to not only satisfy his artistic tastes but also to invest and secure the family capital. This chapter is followed by Pauline Guyot's contribution on Adele Caussin, a woman of lower-class origins who used her first years in the French capital as a demimonde to gather exceptional wealth. This wealth she then invested in art collecting, which in turn propelled her towards a very privileged social status, otherwise unavailable for most women of her time. In the next chapter, Agnieszka Wiatrzyk introduces the reader to the person of Camille Gronkowski, a French collector and curator and a son of a Polish insurgent, who practiced art collecting alongside his professional involvement with the Palais des Beaux-Arts. The following text takes the reader to Bavaria at the turn of the century with Felix Steffan's focus on Max Bram's collection. Blending modern styles of acquiring and exhibiting art with a preference for traditional subjects resulted Bram's collection gaining a rather unexpected, as well as disreputable, popularity during the era of National Socialism. Marcela Rusinko's account of the freshly emerged "new middle class" in the territories of Bohemia concludes this section. 

The third part, "Art and the Art of Collecting," begins with Bénédicte Garnier's portrayal of Auguste Rodin as an artist-collector. Then, leaving the realm of "high art" per se, Fiona Piccolo introduces the reader to the art of collecting print portfolios in Germany and Austria at the turn of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Finishing this compact part is Debra DeWitte's text on the rivalry between the English and the French in the field of exhibiting and appreciating the medium of drawing.

The fourth section of the book dedicated to Jewish collectors consists of four contributions. The first is Nawojka Cieślińska-Lobkowicz's one centered around the Gutnajers, a family of art dealers particularly influential in interwar Warsaw. Following this is a text by Woźniak-Koch, which keeps the focus on Warsaw but is particularly interested in art collecting as a means of creating and upholding one's national identity. Closing this section of the book, and shifting the reader's attention to Cracow, is Tomasz Dziewicki's engaging history of Róża Aleksandrowicz's life, work, and art collection.

The last part of the book, "Museums and Institutionalised Collections," offers a sweeping account of art collecting across Europe, from Stettin, through Frankfurt and Hamburg, to the Netherlands. Its first text, contributed by Dariusz Kacprzak, recounts the legacy of the Dohrn family, most notably Heinrich Wolfgang Ludwig Dohrn and his involvement in establishing the City Museum of Szczecin in 1913. Marina Beck deals with the role of the bourgeois class in nineteenth-century Germany. For this purpose, she focuses on the case studies of the Städel Museum in Frankfurt and the Kunsthalle in Hamburg. Laurie Kalb Cosmo's text on the museums of modern art in the Netherlands concludes this section, and with it, the volume.

The volume is an enriching contribution to the broad field of art collecting. In particular, it fills the niche in scholarship on art collecting within the geographical and cultural scopes of Central and Eastern Europe. At the same time, while the general scope of the texts is already included in the book's title, the few contributions from other areas provide an invaluable context for readers not verse in the subject. It bears noting that all contributors are well established within the field of art collecting, which grants the publication high credibility and ensures that it will remain within the scholarship interest for many years to come. Additionally, and it is a particularly appealing aspect for a volume on this subject, all texts are accompanied by thoughtfully selected color and black and white illustrations. The volume concludes with notes on contributors, a full list of illustrations, and an index of names mentioned throughout the book.

Mapping Art Collecting in Europe is a successful study, which should be of interest not only to readers engaged with art collecting, but also those in the fields of history, art history, or fine arts in general. Moreover, its sophisticated, but also accessible, language makes it appealing for professional scholars as well as anyone simply attracted by its subject. Following a single, coherent goal set out by the original conference, all texts work well in tandem with each of them offering its own set of enriching observations and information.