From Impressionism to Modernism: The Chester Dale Collection
January 31, 2010 – January 2, 2012
West Building, Ground Floor
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![Four light-skinned ballerinas with russet-orange hair tied back in buns adjust the straps of their bodices as they gather close together, their bodies and wide, knee-length tutus taking up the left half of this horizontal painting. The background or backdrop beyond them shows a grove of deep green trees to our left and a sunset view of meadows leading back to trees to our right. Three of the dancers stand in a row that extends from the lower left corner to our right and away from us. All three wear rust-orange bodices over tutus that are painted loosely with flecks of pale celery green and buttercup yellow against a muted royal-blue background. Their bodices and upper bodies are outlined with black. The woman closest to us stands with her body angled to our right. Her face turns away as she looks to her left and adjusts that shoulder strap. The two dancers farther from us stand with their backs to us, their bodies angled away from us to our left. The middle dancer looks back over her right shoulder as she lifts the other elbow to adjust that strap. The third dancer in the row holds both hands to her right strap as she looks off into the distance, to our left. The fourth ballerina, to our far left beyond this trio, stands with the arm we can see, her left, lifted with her hand held high as she looks off to our right. Her bodice is a brighter carrot orange, and is more loosely painted. The green foliage behind the dancers extends off the top edge of the painting. The pale sage-green field to the right stretches before puffy, rounded trees daubed with mauve-pink highlights. The coral-pink and golden yellow sky is streaked with lavender-gray clouds. The artist signed his name in red paint with tiny, almost illegible letters in the lower right corner, “Degas.”](https://media.nga.gov/iiif/8677586b-668f-42c9-b76c-f4ab7bdac80d/full/!140,/0/default.jpg)
Edgar Degas, Four Dancers, c. 1899, oil on canvas, Chester Dale Collection, 1963.10.122
The Chester Dale Collection at the National Gallery of Art comprises more than 300 works of art. The core of the collection focuses on modern French art and includes many of the museum's most admired paintings by artists such as Degas, Monet, Renoir, and Picasso.
![A pale-skinned man leans forward so his arms rest on the desk in front of us as he looks out with piercing blue eyes in this horizontal portrait painting. He rests his head in his left hand, to our right, with the first two fingers extended along his temple. His blond hair is carefully combed, and he has arched eyebrows, bags under his eyes, a wide nose, and a bristle mustache over his square, cleft chin. He wears a navy-blue suit jacket over a white button-down and dark tie. The jacket has a white pocket square and a red flower on one lapel. The man wears a red pinky ring on the hand by his face. The other arm is extended so that hand, which holds a cigarette, hangs beyond the edge of the tabletop. We look slightly down onto the desk where a pair of glasses rests on an open book, which shows a self portrait by Van Gogh. A pamphlet partially tucked under one corner of the book would read, in full, “FRENCH PAINTING from the CHESTER DALE COLLECTION.” The man sits in a high-backed chair with cushion mottled with amethyst purple and topaz blue. Close behind him, a shelf to our right holds a copper-green mask and a figurine. Pale green paneling and drawers fill the left two-thirds of the background. The painting is inscribed at the top left, “To my very dear friend Chester Dale Diego Rivera. August 1945.” Brushstrokes are visible in some areas, especially in the background and chair.](https://media.nga.gov/iiif/f8a0c85d-7cfa-4e63-aeea-d67f99ea9a28/full/!140,/0/default.jpg)
Diego Rivera, Chester Dale, 1945, oil on canvas, Chester Dale Collection, 1963.10.62
Chester Dale (1883–1962) was a successful businessman who made his fortune on Wall Street in the bond market. He thrived on making deals and translated much of this energy and talent into acquiring great works of art. The result was one of the most celebrated collections of French art from the late 19th and early 20th centuries in America. The works of art that came to the Gallery through this single benefactor profoundly transformed the museum's holdings of French modern art.
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Fernand Léger, Maud Dale, 1935, oil on canvas, Chester Dale Collection, 1963.10.36
Although Chester acquired the works of art, it was his wife Maud (1876–1953), herself a trained artist and critic, who truly shaped the collection he built, offering advice and steering her husband toward works and artists she considered important. "She had the knowledge, I had the acquisitiveness," Dale often stated. The partnership was formidable.
![Two pale-skinned women sit facing each other on a long sofa centered on the wall across from us in a room warmly lit from the right in this horizontal painting. The scene is loosely painted so some details are indistinct. The woman on our left wears a white, full-length dress belted at the waist and trimmed with a ruffled hem. The puffy sleeves narrow below the elbow and are tucked into long, fawn-brown gloves. She wears a brimmed hat topped with dabs of white and lapis-blue paint, presumably flowers, with a sheer veil covering her face and chin. Glints of gold at her wrists might be bracelets. Her lower body faces us but her head and torso turn to her left, our right, to face her companion. She leans forward, with her left hand slightly extended, and she rests her fingertips on the cushion between them. Her other hand, closest to us, holds the curving handle of a closed, shell-pink parasol trimmed with white. To our right, the second woman sits with her knees angled to our left as she turns her head in profile, looking at her companion. She wears a floor-length, butter-yellow dress with white, vertical stripes. The dress has a high black collar, and a black ribbon wraps around her waist and falls down the front of the dress. Her sleeves billow at the shoulder and narrow below the elbow. Her dark brown hair is gathered at the top of her head. She holds a flat object in the same butter yellow in her lap that may be a matching hat. The sofa spans almost the entire width of the center of the painting. Its seat is draped in spruce-green fabric, and emerald-green, mauve, rose-pink, black, and gold throw pillows are scattered along its length. The lower half of the wall behind the women is tawny brown while the upper half is divided into four sections. A coral-red and off-white wall hanging fills the wall to our left of the woman in white. A framed artwork and mustard-yellow fabric with daubs of white, ash gray, and black hang on it. Moving right, a column of three framed artworks hang on the wall between the women. Next is a large mirror with a gold frame that hangs behind the woman in yellow. At the far right is another column of three framed artworks. The room behind us is reflected in the large mirror, showing an amber-colored wall with large windows and more framed artworks. Steps leading up to another sunlit room are also visible. A wicker chair with a pink and white pillow sits in the lower right, facing the women at an angle. The floor in front of them fills the lower third of the composition and is covered with a vanilla-yellow carpet streaked with areas of smoke gray and brick red. Two small throw pillows with tassels lie at the feet of the woman in white. The tip of the parasol points to a small sage-green pillow with tomato-red tassels lying on the floor between the women. To our left of the woman in white is a cream-white pillow with marigold-orange tassels. The artist signed and dated the painting in the lower left, “Wm. M. Chase. Copyright 1895.”](https://media.nga.gov/iiif/47be487b-b414-4a14-949b-142ba8336779/full/!140,/0/default.jpg)
William Merritt Chase, A Friendly Call, 1895, oil on canvas, Chester Dale Collection, 1943.1.2
Chester initially collected American art. He would later recount that, early on, he and his wife Maud developed the "very bad and very expensive habit of attending the picture sales in New York auction rooms," purchasing a number of American paintings there. By the late 1920s, he had built a significant collection in this field, primarily of works from the late 19th and early 20th centuries, including this masterpiece by Chase, a New York–based impressionist who had studied in Europe and was a renowned teacher. Although Dale would soon turn his attention toward France, he never entirely abandoned his early love of American art.
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Henri Matisse, The Plumed Hat, 1919, oil on canvas, Chester Dale Collection, 1963.10.168
Dale purchased Henri Matisse's The Plumed Hat in 1925, the first major acquisition from a modern French artist to enter his collection. It was a daring purchase because in America at that time Matisse was considered a radical painter, outside the artistic mainstream. By the time Matisse's solo exhibitions in Paris and New York in 1931 established him as an unquestioned giant of modern art, the Dales owned ten of his works and were firmly in the ranks of the artist's most important American collectors.
![Shown from the knees up, a woman with peach-colored skin and dark hair sits facing us and holding a baby in this stylized, vertical portrait painting. The woman’s features are elongated and simplified, and the nearly geometric forms are outlined with gray. Loose brushstrokes are visible throughout, creating a textured, mottled effect. The woman’s long, thin face comes to a point at her chin, and her brown hair is pulled back on either side of her forehead. She has pale blue eyes, an exaggeratedly long nose, noticeably flushed cheeks, and her coral-pink, bow lips are closed. Her white blouse has a wide, tomato-red, squared collar that lies over her shoulders, and a thin, light blue scarf drapes around her neck and down her chest. Her long, full skirt is blended shades of violet purple and sky blue. The woman’s hands are clasped around a baby wrapped in a navy-blue blanket. The baby’s head is covered with a long pink cap with black and white bands at each end. The woman casts a narrow shadow against the gray wall behind her. Bands of elephant gray, black, and brown behind her across the bottom of the composition suggest an abstracted bench or seat she sits on. The artist signed the work in dark letters near the upper left corner: “Modigliani.”](https://media.nga.gov/iiif/d32bd15e-3b9d-47d1-87d9-b2c509ae7e57/full/!140,/0/default.jpg)
Amedeo Modigliani, Gypsy Woman with Baby, 1919, oil on canvas, Chester Dale Collection, 1963.10.174
Maud Dale was a staunch supporter of the art of Amedeo Modigliani. She organized exhibitions featuring his work and published one of the very first monographs on the artist in 1929. The Dales eventually collected 21 of the artist's works to form what contemporaries considered to be the finest selection of his oeuvre in existence. Thirteen of these works are now in the collection of the National Gallery of Art.
![We look slightly down into a lime-green and white rowboat carrying a woman holding a baby and a man in this nearly square painting. The man wears midnight-blue shoes, pants, jacket, and soft, floppy cap. He sits with his back to us, bending forward to row the boat, which is cropped by the bottom edge of the canvas. The left side of his ruddy face is visible over his left shoulder. The woman and baby both have pale skin. The woman and baby sit across from the man, facing us to our left in the bow. The woman’s long-sleeved, sky-blue dress is crosshatched with pink lines. The baby leans back in the woman’s arms, and wears a pink dress, blue socks, and brown shoes. The wide-brimmed hats on both the woman and baby are painted pale celery green. They gaze toward or just past the man. The corner of the boat’s sail, also painted pale green, is pulled taunt by the wind to our left. Azure-blue water surrounds the boat up to the high horizon line, which brushes the top edge of the painting. The shoreline in the distance is lined with trees and dotted with white houses with red roofs.](https://media.nga.gov/iiif/da9ff160-755f-4f9a-a78c-75727ce61a3b/full/!140,/0/default.jpg)
Mary Cassatt, The Boating Party, 1893/1894, oil on canvas, Chester Dale Collection, 1963.10.94
The years between 1925 and 1935 mark the peak of Dale's collecting. He purchased avidly both in New York, where he acquired Cassatt's striking canvas The Boating Party, and in Paris, where Chester and Maud made regular excursions.
![A glass bottle, a glass carafe, a stemmed glass, several pieces of fruit, and white and blue cloths are arranged on a wooden table in this horizontal still life. The bottle and carafe are at the center of this composition. The bottle has a crimson-red label, and the carafe has a tall, narrow neck and a rounded body. The stemmed glass has straight, flaring sides, and it sits on the table just in front of the carafe. Several pieces of fruit, painted in reds and yellows, are interspersed on the white cloth that surrounds the glassware. The muted, celestial-blue tablecloth is patterned with scrolls and leaves, and it bunches around the objects on the tabletop. The wall behind the table is mottled with cool blues and greens, and a brown line, perhaps a chair rail, runs from behind the still life to the right edge of the painting. Short brushstrokes are visible throughout.](https://media.nga.gov/iiif/35a87bcf-8f1d-48db-b21e-b9ba1783d23d/full/!140,/0/default.jpg)
Paul Cézanne, The Peppermint Bottle, 1893/1895, oil on canvas, Chester Dale Collection, 1963.10.104
In November and December 1927, in the space of just over a month, Dale purchased three major paintings by Paul Cézanne: Landscape near Paris, a portrait of Louis Guillaume, and this spectacular still life. All three were included in an exhibition of Cézanne's paintings organized by Maud at the Wildenstein Gallery in New York the following January. This painting was particularly well known, figuring prominently in a number of exhibitions in the years that followed, most notably the inaugural exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art in 1929 where Dale was a member of the original board of trustees.
![A man and woman, both with pale, peachy skin, sit on opposite sides of a burgundy-red, low-backed sofa in a room wallpapered with a striped, floral pattern in this vertical painting. To our left, the woman sits with her body facing us, and she looks at us with dark eyes under dark, arched brows. She has an oval face, a straight nose, and her coral-pink lips are closed. The woman’s dark brown hair is parted down the middle, and smoothed and pulled back to the base of her head. Her pinkish-tan dress has a narrow white collar and a full, billowing skirt. A loosely painted, crimson-red shawl wraps around her torso and is pulled over white, puffy sleeves. Also loosely painted, a shell-shaped, tan object to our right could be a fan held in her left hand. To our right and on the far side of the piece of furniture, the man sits on the low back of the chaise-longue, his left knee bent so that thigh, closer to us, rests along the back of the sofa. He turns his face to look at us from the corners of his eyes. He has a rounded nose, and his full, pink lips are closed. He has an auburn-brown beard and his short hair is tousled. He wears a brown coat and charcoal-gray slacks. He rests the hand closer to us against his hip so his elbow juts toward us. To either side of the people and nearly spanning the width of the painting, the arms of the chaise curve upward to about the height of the woman’s shoulders. A loosely painted, ball-like form next to the left arm of the chaise could be a hat or other object on a side table. The wall behind the people extends from the left edge of the painting to just behind the man, and is patterned with evergreen-colored dots to create floral patterns along vertical beige-colored stripes, all against a moss-green background. A golden yellow, vertical line near the left edge of the painting may be the frame of a mirror or painting. Beyond the man, to our right, a doorway opens to another room with mustard-yellow walls with white molding along the ceiling. A ghostly outline in ash-gray suggests a woman wearing a full skirt, long sleeved jacket, and hat in the room beyond. The paint in some areas is thinly applied or scraped away, especially in the people’s clothing.](https://media.nga.gov/iiif/08f3f26d-bca4-46a6-8df8-d5572d944eb4/full/!140,/0/default.jpg)
Edgar Degas, Edmondo and Thérèse Morbilli, c. 1865, oil on canvas, Chester Dale Collection, 1963.10.125
Portraiture dominates the Dale collection, largely owing to the influence of Dale's wife Maud. "Portraits," she explained, "are the documents by which not only the individual, but his epoch, can be recreated. In portraits one is permitted to view the passing show, and in the images they present of life and art we catch again the echo of their times." The Dales owned nine portraits by Degas, including this one of the artist's brother-in-law and sister.
![A dark-haired, disembodied head of a haloed man with pale, peach skin floats against a red and yellow background in this vertical portrait. The man’s hair seems to be flattened against his forehead, and extends beyond his head at the back in a way that suggests it may become a cap or hood. His face turns toward us, and he looks down to our left under arched eyebrows. He has a prominent hooked nose and a brushy mustache. Behind his head, the background is divided into a tomato-red zone for the top half and a golden yellow field below, separated by a thin, pine-green line. Two red and green apples hang from a branch near the upper right corner. The thin yellow halo floats over his head to the left of the branch. A pine-green, stylized, vine-like form curves up from the bottom edge of the panel and ends with flat, sunshine yellow, square shapes, perhaps abstracted flowers or fruit. A hand near the lower right holds one end of the vine like a cigarette between fingertips. The vine seems to turn into a serpent’s head beyond the man’s fingers. Numbers and letters are painted in green in the lower left: “1889” and “P Go.”](https://media.nga.gov/iiif/1e92536c-e274-4c31-bbe9-cdb6aba6c162/full/!140,/0/default.jpg)
Paul Gauguin, Self-Portrait, 1889, oil on wood, Chester Dale Collection, 1963.10.150
This painting was included in an exhibition of 51 modern French paintings from the Dale collection held for the benefit of the French Hospital of New York in October 1928. Organized by Maud, it was the first exhibition ever devoted exclusively to their collection. "The Dale collection of modern French paintings now numbers more than 300 canvases and has been ranked one of the most representative collections of the period in America," a contemporary author noted.
![A row of spire-like structures of different heights is silhouetted in azure blue against a soft pink, yellow, peach, and lavender-purple sunset and reflected in a rippling river in this nearly square landscape painting. Along the horizon, the buildings stretch from our right, almost fully across the canvas, and are painted with vertical brushstrokes in cool shades of blue. The sky behind the towers seems hazy with intermingling, pastel-colored clouds. The buildings are reflected in the river, which fills the bottom third of the painting. The surface of the water is painted with short, horizontal brushstrokes in azure blue for the buildings, and apricot, rose, and marigold orange for the sky’s reflection. A streak and smudge of olive-green paint on the water represents a person in a boat near the center of the painting. The artist signed and dated the work in the same olive color at the lower right: “Claude Monet 1903.”](https://media.nga.gov/iiif/9eae6258-ec1c-442f-b353-a89cff510113/full/!140,/0/default.jpg)
Claude Monet, The Houses of Parliament, Sunset, 1903, oil on canvas, Chester Dale Collection, 1963.10.48
Claude Monet was indisputably Dale's favorite landscape painter. Dale owned 11 paintings by the artist—all of them landscapes with the exception of a single still life. His acquisition of Claude Monet's Houses of Parliament, Sunset made headlines for the price he paid at auction in 1929, just one of many high-profile acquisitions to join his collection.
![We look slightly down onto a woman dressed in golden yellows, sitting in a pale green chair, with a nude child sitting in her lap as they both gaze into a mirror in this vertical portrait painting. Both the people have pale, peachy skin. The chair is angled to our left so the woman’s knees and child cant down toward the lower left corner of the composition, and the woman leans onto the arm closer to us. The chair is painted mint green and the rose-pink upholstery is visible on the seat and a corner behind the woman’s shoulder. To our right, the woman’s vibrant, copper-colored hair is pulled loosely to the back of her head. She has a rounded nose, flushed cheeks, and her full, coral-pink lips are closed. Her long dress has a low, U-shaped neckline. The fabric shimmers from pale, cucumber green to light sunshine yellow. The sleeves of the dress split over the shoulder and a second long, goldenrod-yellow sleeve falls from her elbow off the bottom edge of the canvas. An oversized sunflower, larger than the woman’s face, is affixed to her dress near her left shoulder, closer to us. She looks with dark eyes down toward the small, gold-rimmed mirror she holds in her right hand, farther from us. The child also holds the handle of the mirror with both hands, and in the reflection, the child looks back at us with dark eyes, a button nose, and pink lips. The child’s hair in the reflection is the same copper color as the woman’s, but the child on her lap has blond, shoulder-length hair. The woman rests one hand on the child’s left shoulder, closer to us. The child has a rounded belly and smooth, rosy limbs. The woman and child are reflected in a second mirror hanging on the wall alongside them, opposite us. Their reflections are very loosely painted. The wall behind the pair is sage green across the top and it shifts to fawn brown across the bottom. Brushstrokes are visible throughout, especially in the woman’s dress and hair, and are more blended in the bodies and faces. The artist signed the painting in the lower right corner, “Mary Cassatt.”](https://media.nga.gov/iiif/6ee124da-972a-4f02-83b8-7dc09c33f17c/full/!140,/0/default.jpg)
Mary Cassatt, Mother and Child, c. 1905, oil on canvas, Chester Dale Collection, 1963.10.98
Mother and Child is one of seven works Dale purchased in April 1930 from the estate of Louisine Havemeyer, who was renowned as one of the first great collectors of French modern art in America. Although many works were bequeathed to the Metropolitan Museum of Art or passed down to family members, a select group was sold at auction. Dale drew considerable public notice for his Havemeyer acquisitions, in part because of their high prices.
![A wood table is piled with stylized and abstracted objects, including a jug, lemons, a knife, guitar, newspaper, and a smoking pipe in this horizontal still life painting. The objects are made up of areas of mostly flat color and many are outlined in black, creating the impression that some shapes are two-dimensional and assembled almost like a collage. We look down onto the top of the table and at the front, where the grain of the wood is painted in tan against a lighter background. Concentric black and white circles make up the knob on the face of the table’s single drawer. There are two rows of objects on the table. Along the front, near the left corner of the table, the knife hangs with its blade slightly over the open drawer. A newspaper with the title “LE JOUR” rests next to the knife. Next to the newspaper are two yellow pieces of fruit, near the front right corner of the table. Behind the fruit, the right third of the pitcher is marine blue and the left two thirds is mostly straw yellow, with one round olive-green area near the handle. Next to the pitcher is a tobacco pipe, and, at the back left edge of the table, the guitar. The instrument rests on its side so the front of the soundboard faces the viewer, and the neck extends to our left. The instrument is bisected lengthwise into two halves that appear to be spliced together, and the edges and features of the halves are not symmetrical or aligned with each other. The bottom half of the guitar is painted a beige color, and is curved like a typical guitar body. The top half is painted black, and the contour of the instrument’s body rises into two pointed peaks instead of mirroring the rounded forms below. The sound hole is markedly smaller on the bottom half, and the two halves of the hole do not exactly line up. A rectangular form behind the table could be a screen. The left side is fern green, the right side black. Behind the screen is a wallpapered wall above wood paneling. The wallpaper is patterned with teardrop shapes, dots, and zigzagging lines in fawn brown against parchment white. The artist signed and dated the painting in the lower right corner, “G Braque 29.”](https://media.nga.gov/iiif/374e17bf-1016-44b2-ad61-6b23da603e5d/full/!140,/0/default.jpg)
Georges Braque, Still Life: Le Jour, 1929, oil on canvas, Chester Dale Collection, 1963.10.91
In the wake of the stock market crash of October 1929, many collectors curtailed their activities. Dale, however, remained undaunted, continuing to acquire significant works of art in the years that followed. Between May 15 and June 5, 1930, he purchased nine paintings from the famed Parisian art dealer Paul Rosenberg, including this one, a rare example of cubism in the Dale collection.
![Against a hilly landscape and on a patch of dirt, five people wearing tattered clothing gather around a bearded man who holds a violin in his lap in this horizontal painting. Most of them have pale skin. Starting from the left is a barefoot young woman holding a blond baby to her chest. She faces our right, and her chestnut-brown hair hides her profile. She wears a black shirt over a calf-length skirt streaked with slate and aquamarine blue. To the right two young boys face us. The boy on the left of that pair wears a loose white shirt tucked into tan-colored pants and an upturned wide-brimmed hat. The boy next to him has short brown hair and is dressed in a black and brown vest and pants over a bone-white shirt. His right arm, to our left, is slung across the shoulders of the blond boy and he looks off to our right with dark, unfocused eyes. The man who holds the violin is to our right of center. He sits on a stone with his body facing our left, but he turns to look at us with dark eyes under heavy brows. He has tan skin, dark gray, curly hair, and a trimmed silvery gray beard. A wrinkle under one eye suggests he may smile slightly at us. He wears a loose brown cloak with a ragged bottom hem, teal-blue stockings, and black shoes. He holds a violin on his lap like a guitar. One hand fingers a chord on the neck of the violin, which comes toward us, and the other hand holds the bow and plucks a string. A sand-colored bag with a strap lies at his feet. Two men stand to our right of the musician. One wears a tall black top hat, a brown cloak, gray pants, and black shoes. His face is loosely and indistinctly painted but he has a beard. Finally, the sixth person is a man who stands along the right side of the painting and is cut off by that edge. He wears a turban, a black polka-dotted scarf, and a long black cloak or coat. One hand clutches the scarf and the other rests on a wooden cane by his side. His chin and long, light-colored beard tuck back against the scarf, and he looks off to our left with dark eyes. There are loosely painted olive and forest-green leaves in the upper left corner. The landscape beyond is painted with indistinct areas of muted green, blue, and brown. Bits of azure-blue sky peek through puffy white and gray clouds overhead. The artist signed and dated the lower right, “ed. Manet 1862.”](https://media.nga.gov/iiif/8d7eff38-fff0-4f9b-9e36-9088b412864e/full/!140,/0/default.jpg)
Edouard Manet, The Old Musician, 1862, oil on canvas, Chester Dale Collection, 1963.10.162
According to his unpublished memoirs, Dale first saw this painting in Paris in 1927 or 1928. "It was a magnificent picture," Dale recalled, "and Mrs. Dale was wildly enthusiastic about it, as was I. I had no more thought of buying it than I did of buying the Palace of Versailles." In May 1930, he finally decided to acquire the work. After prolonged negotiations and a near calamitous oceanic crossing—the freighter carrying the painting collided with another vessel on the Atlantic and nearly sank—The Old Musician arrived safely in New York.
![A group of three men, two children, and one woman gather in an empty, dusky rose-pink landscape under a blue, cloudy sky in this nearly square painting. Most of the people have muted, peachy skin, and the woman and the youngest boy have cream-white skin. The woman sits on the ground to our right, apart from the rest of the men and children. She wears a coral-red skirt, a beige shawl, and straw hat, and she looks into the distance to our right. The others stand in a loose semi-circle on the left half of the composition. A man wearing a multicolored, diamond-patterned costume stands with his back to us to the left. He looks to our right in profile and holds the hand of a little girl who also stands with her back to us. She wears a pink dress and white stockings, and her right hand rests on the tall handle of a white basket. A portly man wearing a scarlet-red jester’s costume and pointed hat stands opposite this pair, facing us to our right. Next to him to our right a young man wears a tan-colored leotard with a black bottom. He holds a barrel over his right shoulder and looks over to our right. The sixth person is the youngest boy, who wears a baggy blue and red outfit, and he looks toward the woman. The eyes of all the figures are deeply shadowed.](https://media.nga.gov/iiif/e2c4aa2b-08e4-490a-9a15-2d1cbd48670f/full/!140,/0/default.jpg)
Pablo Picasso, Family of Saltimbanques, 1905, oil on canvas, Chester Dale Collection © 2012 Estate of Pablo Picasso/Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York, 1963.10.190
Family of Saltimbanques is one of Picasso's largest and most ambitious compositions. In his memoirs, Dale recounted that the painting had been locked away in a Swiss bank and that he had purchased it, sight unseen, based solely on a photograph and the strength of the recommendation from a dealer. It was an extraordinary gamble, but the risk paid off, allowing Dale to buy the work for a staggeringly low sum. Acquired just nine months after Manet's The Old Musician, a work of similar scale, theme, and composition, this painting quickly became one of the undisputed treasures of the collection.
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Henri Fantin-Latour, Portrait of Sonia, 1890, oil on canvas, Chester Dale Collection, 1963.10.145
This portrait of the artist's niece, Sonia Yanovski, once belonged to another famous collector, Duncan Phillips. Although it is uncertain if the Dales ever visited the Phillips Collection in Washington, where the painting was on view, it was nevertheless a work they knew well: Maud included it in a retrospective exhibition she organized at the Museum of French Art in New York in 1932, the first ever devoted to Fantin-Latour's work in the United States. Four years later, the painting was in the Dale collection.
![Painted almost entirely in shades of cool blues, a little girl stands at a table holding a bowl and spoon in this vertical painting. The table comes into the scene from our left, and she faces it in profile facing our left. The table is covered with a cloth and comes up to her chest. She looks down into the bowl, which she tips toward her with the hand closer to us, and she holds a spoon inside, as if stirring, with the other. She has a high forehead, a snub nose, and a rounded chin. The vivid pink of her lips and cheeks and the tawny brown of her shoulder-length hair contrast with the icy blues of the rest of the picture. She wears a knee-length dress with a wide cloth wound around her neck with the ends trailing down her chest and back. Marine-blue socks come halfway up her otherwise bare calves, and she wears dark shoes. There are two more objects on the table: a mug, painted with a coral-orange and blue design, and a flax-yellow object that could be a piece of food. The girl's dress, the cloth around her neck, and the tablecloth are painted in shades of turquoise, sky, and cobalt blue. A brown wooden leg emerges from under the tablecloth. The floor around the girl is pale blue with a darker blue area indicating the shadow cast by the table. The shadow is streaked with a few lines of orange and light brown. Blue fields on the back wall behind the girl could be blue curtains next to a patch of brown wall, in the upper left corner. All of the objects and the girl’s features are outlined in royal blue. The artist signed the upper left corner, “Picasso.”](https://media.nga.gov/iiif/e19a2b28-639c-4d6a-848c-da253d5ee6b9/full/!140,/0/default.jpg)
Pablo Picasso, Le Gourmet, 1901, oil on canvas, Chester Dale Collection © 2012 Estate of Pablo Picasso/Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York, 1963.10.52
Dale first encountered this painting from Picasso's early, "blue" period in the collection of his friend Josef Stransky. Formerly a conductor of the New York Philharmonic, Stransky became an art dealer after his retirement from the podium. Dale was enamored of the canvas and repeatedly tried to buy it, but Stransky refused to sell. Only after Stransky's death in 1936 was Dale able to obtain the long-coveted work for his collection.
![A pale-skinned young girl with blond hair, wearing a blue dress, stands in a garden in this vertical painting. The girl and background are painted with blended strokes, giving the scene and especially the girl a soft look. She faces our right and stands in the middle of the composition. Her shoulder-length cloud of hair is topped with a red bow, and long bangs frame her round face. Under faint brows, her sapphire-blue eyes look to our right. She has a petite nose, and her coral-pink mouth turns up in a slight smile. Her cobalt-blue dress is trimmed with wide, blue-white lace on the neckline, across the bottom hem, and down the front to either side of a row of white buttons. The white edges her petticoats come down to just below her knees, peeking out from under the flaring skirt. She wears white socks over blue ankle boots, which also have a row of white buttons down the side we can see. Her near hand is raised with her index finger hooked in the handle of a green watering can, and she holds two daisies by her side in her other hand. She stands on a path flecked with ivory white, pale purples, greens, and pink that curves up and to her left. A bush with emerald and pine-green leaves dotted with pink blooms fills the lower left corner. Behind her, green grass runs back to meet a profusion of pink, purple, and poppy-red plants and flowers that run along the top edge of the composition. The artist signed and dated the lower right, “Renoir. 76.”](https://media.nga.gov/iiif/bcc517e0-84c3-4e21-8c08-c9a0181ced29/full/!140,/0/default.jpg)
Auguste Renoir, A Girl with a Watering Can, 1876, oil on canvas, Chester Dale Collection, 1963.10.206
Renoir was among Dale's favorite artists. Dale ultimately acquired a dozen paintings by the artist. In November 1941, he agreed to lend 25 of his 19th-century French paintings to the recently opened National Gallery of Art, which lacked representative works of this period. That display included many of the jewels of the Dale collection, including A Girl with a Watering Can—a work that soon became one of the most beloved in the museum.
![About three dozen men and women sit, stand, or stroll along a sandy beach beneath a sunset-streaked sky in this horizontal landscape painting. The people are small in scale within the landscape, taking up about a quarter of the canvas's height. The scene is loosely painted so many of the facial features are indistinct, but the faces we can see have pale or olive-toned skin. The area closest to us is a strip of sand, and, a short distance away, a brown and white dog sits facing away from us to our left of center. The women all wear dresses with long sleeves, tight bodices, and ankle-length hoop skirts in shades of baby blue, smoke gray, butter yellow, chocolate brown, crimson red, black, or white. Some wear jackets, capes, or shawls, and veils flutter off some of their hats and bonnets. The men wear suits with long tails and rounded hats. Most of the people sit in wooden chairs, and a few stand or walk along the beach. The walking women carrying long sticks or canes. Smudges of ruby red, slate blue, and a touch of straw yellow could be the form of a child crouching in the sand, to our left. Two ladderback chairs sit near the crowd to our right. The horizon comes less than a quarter of the way up the composition. Thin screens of pale gray clouds above are touched on the undersides with petal pink, and they break to show peeks of soft yellow along the horizon and topaz blue a bit higher up.](https://media.nga.gov/iiif/b94db39d-9c08-4e31-9373-a042b662ead6/full/!140,/0/default.jpg)
Eugène Boudin, The Beach at Villerville, 1864, oil on canvas, Chester Dale Collection, 1963.10.4
Although Dale acquired art only modestly in the 1940s and 1950s, his passion for collecting did not vanish entirely. "Today I buy only when I find a picture that I feel will improve the collection," he once remarked. Eugène Boudin's The Beach at Villerville, purchased in 1951, is indicative of Dale's ongoing commitment to the acquisition of great works of art.
![Seven people with cream-white skin crowd together, sitting at or standing among tables in an interior space in this vertical painting. The composition is dominated by shades of blue and pale green. On the right side and closest to us, a woman sits opposite a man at a butter-yellow table, both facing our left in profile. The table extends in from the right, almost halfway up the canvas. The pair are shown from the knees up and span most of the height of the painting. The woman wears a long, teal-blue jacket over a peanut-brown skirt and a frilled cap topped with a pine-green bow. The man wears an olive-green bowler and cinnamon-brown coat, and rests one arm on the table. Two glasses sit on the table in front of them. In the center of the painting, a woman wearing a long, black coat stands on the far side of the table, her head nearly reaching the top edge of the composition. Her body is angled slightly to our right and she gazes off in that direction. Beyond her is another table with two men partly obscured by the couple in front of us. One sitting at the table has flame-red hair topped with a round cap, and a portion of his aqua and peacock-blue striped jacket is visible. Near him, another person in a dark garment with a high collar stands with their back to us, most of the head cropped by the top edge. Along the left side, two women stand one behind the other with their backs to us. The woman closest to us looks away, wearing a short, parchment-white jacket over an aquamarine-blue skirt. The jacket is belted at the waist and the collar, upper back, and long cuffs are rust red. The woman beyond her turns her head to our right in profile, and wears a light blue jacket and pale green skirt. The features and clothing of each person in the scene is outlined in charcoal gray. The artist signed the painting in the upper right corner, “HTLautrec,” with the H, T, and L interlocking to make a monogram.](https://media.nga.gov/iiif/5f555497-c954-433e-b2b4-dd26a412c9ed/full/!140,/0/default.jpg)
Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, A Corner of the Moulin de la Galette, 1892, oil on cardboard, Chester Dale Collection, 1963.10.67
In May 1925, Dale bought three works on paper by Toulouse-Lautrec. In the years that followed, he augmented the collection with 22 additional works by the artist in a variety of media, including posters and paintings. A Corner of the Moulin de la Galette was his final acquisition of the artist's work. Purchased in 1951, it was among the most expensive paintings Dale ever acquired.
![Four yellow apples, a lime, and a ceramic pitcher are loosely arranged across a tabletop covered with a carnation-pink cloth patterned with white flowers in this almost square, stylized still life painting. The scene is loosely painted with visible brushstrokes in saturated colors throughout. We look slightly down onto the front corner of the table, where the canary-yellow apples sit in the folds of the tablecloth. The apple closest to us at the corner of the table has a scarlet-red patch on the side facing us. Between the two rightmost apples, the lime is painted in shamrock and fern green. The cloth is bunched up just behind the apples to partially obscure the pitcher sitting near the back of the table. The pitcher is painted with swipes and patches of white, aquamarine blue, and silver gray with gold highlights along its spout. Daubs of pine green, rose pink, and flame red suggest a floral decoration on its side. The wall beyond the table fills the height of the composition, and is scattered with white flowers layered over an aquamarine-blue background. The blossoms seem oversized, each the size of a blown-up balloon. Other leafy forms painted with sapphire blue and plum purple could be more flowers or leaves. Two vertical stripes to the left and right behind the table are made up of strokes and daubs of caramel brown over honey yellow. The artist signed the lower right, “Henri-Matisse.”](https://media.nga.gov/iiif/9ce56bcb-b6de-4030-adb5-a22f00aaeccd/full/!140,/0/default.jpg)
Henri Matisse, Still Life with Apples on a Pink Tablecloth, 1924, oil on canvas, Chester Dale Collection, 1963.10.169
In November 1952, Dale placed 59 of his finest 20th-century paintings on indefinite loan at the National Gallery of Art. Among the 22 artists shown was Matisse. He was represented by five paintings, including this vibrant-colored still life executed when the artist lived in Nice in the south of France.
![From under an elevated train track, we look at a cluster of people hammering and working on the far side of a wooden fence, all against a silvery-blue building that fills most of the background in this horizontal painting. The scene is loosely painted mostly in tones of hazy and saturated blues, so many of the details are indistinct. About a quarter of the way in from the right edge of the composition, a thin iron column holds up the train platform. The column nearly spans the height of the painting, and the track it supports runs across the top edge of the canvas. At the foot of the column, along the bottom edge, are two parallel tracks embedded in an area otherwise painted with short, diagonal strokes in topaz blue, olive green, and straw yellow. Just beyond the tracks, the split-rail wooden fence runs across most of the painting, though there is an opening at the left edge of the canvas. A man sits with his back to us on the railing to our right of center. He wears a dark cap, a lapis-blue shirt, and navy-blue pants. Several men work on or near a mound-shaped form, perhaps a piece of machinery, just beyond the fence, near the center of the painting. One man holds a hammer high overhead while another reaches down or strikes the mound with his feet planted wide. More people work together to our left, and a man to our right stands near a crane. The people and these areas are painted with broad strokes and touches of cobalt blue, charcoal gray, khaki brown, and a few swipes of shell pink and bright white. A puff of white smoke billows up behind the central group, before the land drops precipitously away. The chasm is painted with shimmering tones of aquamarine and cerulean blue. A sky-blue, rectangular building perches at the far edge. A few windows are outlined in royal blue to our left but the rest of the building is loosely painted with long, vertical strokes so no architectural details can be made out. Behind this structure are more city buildings, suggested with strokes of muted rust red, parchment and bright white, and cobalt blue. The ice-blue sky fills the band between the top of the buildings and the train track running overhead. The artist signed his name near the lower left corner, “BELLOWS.”](https://media.nga.gov/iiif/acc96e3f-6b67-443a-b2af-6d6ba7d1b664/full/!140,/0/default.jpg)
George Bellows, Blue Morning, 1909, oil on canvas, Chester Dale Collection, 1963.10.82
George Bellows was known for his bold and unromanticized paintings of urban life, depicting unconventional subjects such as this view of New York framed by the tracks of an elevated train. Dale deeply admired Bellows' work, describing him as "one of the greatest painters this country ever had." He acquired a number of paintings and lithographs by Bellows, including this canvas purchased from the artist's widow in 1956. The following year, it was included in the first retrospective exhibition of Bellows' work at the National Gallery of Art. The exhibition was also the first to be devoted to a single painter at the museum.
![Shown from about the knees up, a young woman sits in a chair angled to our right but she turns her face to look at us in this loosely painted, vertical portrait. Her chair has a rounded back and arms made from what looks like bent, woody vines, and the background is a solid field of pale aqua. Her dark hair is parted in the middle and tied at the nape of her neck with a red ribbon. Dark eyebrows curve over brown eyes, and she has a rounded nose, and her petal-pink lips are slightly parted. Her pale peach skin is tinged with green on her face and hands. Her right arm, on our left, rests along the arm of the chair. In her other hand, which rests in her lap, she holds a sprig of blooming oleander, with light pink flowers and green leaves. The bodice of her high-necked dress is striped with brick red and royal blue, and is lined with a row of round gold buttons down the front. The sleeves come down to her forearms and the cuffs and collar at her neck are white. Her full skirt is royal blue with pumpkin-orange dots. The brushwork is loose throughout and individual brushstrokes are visible, especially in the stripes of her bodice and the patchy peach tones that make up her skin.](https://media.nga.gov/iiif/a2e6da57-3cd1-4235-b20e-95dcaefed6c8/full/!140,/0/default.jpg)
Vincent van Gogh, La Mousmé, 1888, oil on canvas, Chester Dale Collection, 1963.10.151
Dale, who died in 1962, bequeathed to the National Gallery of Art the core of his still-substantial collection of modern art. Comprising 228 paintings, 7 sculptures, and 23 works on paper, this gift was among the single most valuable ever given to the Gallery. As a result of Dale's generosity, the Gallery's permanent holdings of 19th-century French paintings nearly tripled in size. Works by Cassatt, Gauguin, Monet, Toulouse-Lautrec, and Van Gogh (Dale donated four paintings by this artist, including this celebrated picture) all entered the collection for the first time.
![Shown from the thighs up, a light-skinned man stands facing us in front of a harvest-yellow background in this loosely painted vertical portrait. The man’s body faces us, and he looks out with dark, heavy-lidded eyes under low, angular brows. His skin is pink on his full cheeks and streaked with light green on his forehead. A wide brown moustache droops over a prominent, square chin. His short brown is neatly combed over his head. His collared, long-sleeved white shirt is painted with mostly vertical strokes. A short vivid red tie falls about halfway down his chest, and he wears dark pants. His right arm, to our left, is planted on that hip, and his other arm hangs by his side. The man’s features and his clothing are outlined with teal green. The name “PETRVS MANACH” is painted in forest-green letters in the upper left corner of the rich yellow background. The artist also signed the work in the lower right corner, “Picasso.”](https://media.nga.gov/iiif/3e5f21f2-9ad2-4675-8bf4-21abaab59142/full/!140,/0/default.jpg)
Pablo Picasso, Pedro Mañach, 1901, oil on canvas, Chester Dale Collection © 2012 Estate of Pablo Picasso/Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York, 1963.10.53
The impact of Dale's gift on the National Gallery of Art was especially profound in the area of 20th-century art: Braque, Léger, Matisse, Modigliani, and Picasso were but a few of the artists who entered the Gallery's collection for the first time. Picasso had become a particular favorite of the collector, who had purchased five of his paintings in 1930 alone. Dale gave the Gallery 11 paintings by Picasso, including this portrait of the industrialist Pedro Mañach, a friend and supporter of the aspiring young artist. Purchased by Dale in 1954, it was the last work by Picasso he acquired.
This exhibition is no longer on view at the National Gallery.
Overview: 83 paintings selected from the Chester Dale Collection at the National Gallery of Art were shown in this exhibition, which was on view while West Building main floor French galleries were being renovated. This was the first exhibition in 45 years devoted to works donated by the collector. The exhibition was organized by subject to emphasize areas the Dales focused on in their collecting, including portraits and figure painting, landscapes, and still lifes.
An opening-day lecture, "Three Perspectives on the Chester Dale Collection," was given by Maygene Daniels, chief of Gallery Archives, Ann Hoenigswald, senior conservator of paintings, and Kimberly A. Jones, associate curator of French paintings, National Gallery of Art. A book signing of the exhibition catalog followed. From Impressionism to Modernism: The Chester Dale Collection, a documentary film produced by the National Gallery of Art, ran continuously in the West Building Project Room while the exhibition was on view in the nearby Central Galleries. The music of Chester Dale's friend George Gershwin and other 20th-century American composers was performed at several concerts while the exhibition was on view. The Garden Café became the Garden Café Français, offering a menu of French cuisine.
Organization: The exhibition was organized by the National Gallery of Art. Kimberly A. Jones, associate curator of French paintings, was curator.
Sponsor: The exhibition was made possible by United Technologies Corporation. The documentary was supported by the HRH Foundation.
Attendance: 977,371
Catalog: The Chester Dale Collection, by Kimberly A. Jones et al. Washington: National Gallery of Art, 2009.
Brochure: From Impressionism to Modernism: The Chester Dale Collection, by Kimberly A. Jones. Washington: National Gallery of Art, 2010.
- Ex Libris: Chester Dale
- January 31 – July 18, 2010