Page 1 Page 2 Page 3 Page 4 Page 5 Page 6 Page 7 Page 8 Page 9 Page 10 Page 11 Page 12 Page 13 Page 14 Page 15 Page 16 Page 17 Page 18 Page 19 Page 20 Page 21 Page 22 Page 23 Page 24 Page 25 Page 26 Page 27 Page 28 Page 29 Page 30 Page 31 Page 32 Page 33 Page 34 Page 35 Page 36 Page 37 Page 38 Page 39 Page 40 Page 41 Page 42 Page 43 Page 44 Page 45 Page 46 Page 47 Page 48 Page 49 Page 50 Page 51 Page 52 Page 53 Page 54 Page 55 Page 56 Page 57 Page 58 Page 59 Page 60 Page 61 Page 62 Page 63 Page 64 Page 65 Page 66 Page 67 Page 68 Page 69 Page 70 Page 71 Page 72 Page 73 Page 74 Page 75 Page 76 Page 77 Page 78 Page 79 Page 80 Page 81 Page 82A PROMISED GIFT OF AMERICAN COLLAGE WORKS DATING FROM 1919–2015 THE MEDIUM OF COLLAGE IS CONSIDERED THE ULTIMATE MODERN ART FORM. In 1912 Pablo Picasso and Georges Braque simultaneously began incorporating collage elements in their work, and the practice quickly spread throughout Europe and America. Distinguished by the use of nontraditional materials and the commingling of abstraction and representation, collage enables modern artists’ desire to directly reflect aspects of contemporary life. In 2015 SCMA received an astonishing promised gift of 59 American collages, representing almost a century of creative work in the medium, from Louisa Stude Sarofim ‘58. The gift includes examples by some of the 20th century’s most notable practitioners, including Ray Johnson, Anne Ryan and Joseph Stella, as well as collages by artists from different decades and aesthetic practices, such as Albert Gallatin, Alex Katz and Lenore Tawney. Collage played a large role in the work of Ray Johnson (see image on previous page), a pivotal artist in the development of conceptual and Pop Art in the early 1960s. Johnson began to work in collage in the early 1950s, creating small works juxtaposing images from popular magazines, which he called “moticos,” a practice he continued throughout his career. The Pink Collage (1973) displays elements that frequently appear in Johnson’s work: the juxtaposition of drawn and found materials, specific recurring images, the use of lettering and recycled bits from earlier collages. Poet Anne Ryan came late to art creation, making her first collages in the late 1940s after seeing collages by German Dadaist Kurt Schwitters. Many of Ryan’s collages, like Untitled #261, contain no words, and are built of scraps of fabric and paper of varying colors and textures. The four works by Ryan in the promised gift will join SCMA’s holdings of four other collages by the artist, allowing a deep look at this significant practitioner’s work. Although collage first flourished in Europe in the 1910s, few American artists engaged with the medium until the early 1940s. Joseph Stella was one notable exception. His collages were never exhibited during his lifetime, though Stella began making what he called macchina naturali (natural constructions) around 1918. The purest of these collages include botanical specimens, such as the two curved leaves mounted on a sheet of buff paper in Eucalyptus Leaves. Albert Gallatin was a pioneer in promoting modern art in the United States, opening his Gallery of Living Art in New York in 1927, two years before the founding of the Museum of Modern Art. Gallatin’s 1937 Papier Collé—a representative figure constructed out of bits of paper and newsprint—displays classic hallmarks of early collage, providing a dynamic example of how 50 A PROMISED GIFT OF AMERICAN COLLAGE