New York: Asia Week New York, in partnership with The Winter Show, is delighted to present J.P. Morgan: A Collector’s Legacy, an online webinar, featuring a distinguished panel of scholars and experts including Charlotte Eyerman, Jean Strouse, Colin B. Bailey, Linda H. Roth, and Steven Chait, each of whom will explore a specific point of interest about the larger-than-life financial tycoon and collector. The presentation will be held on Wednesday, January 26 at 5:00 p.m. EST. To register: click here:
https://us02web.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_ZWKthfbMTeyQHD5uAB5Hww
John Pierpont Morgan was not only one of the most powerful figures in finance with his name atop one of the world’s leading banking and investment firms, but also a prodigious collector, whose legacy resides in the masterpieces from his extraordinary collection that are now highlights of important museum and private collections throughout the United States. The many facets of his passion for collecting, and the story behind his Asian, ancient, and Western art acquisitions will be discussed by our notable panel of scholars and experts.
About the Panel:
Charlotte Eyerman, who will moderate the discussion, is the Director and Chief Curator, JP Morgan Chase Art Collection in New York City. She brings over 20 years of experience and leadership in museums, the private and nonprofit sectors, and academia. A specialist in modern and contemporary art, with a significant exhibition and publication record, her expertise is in building collections, developing exhibitions, and forging relationships with artists, collectors, museums, and the trade nationally and internationally.
Jean Strouse is the eminent American biographer and author of Morgan, American Financier and Alice James, A Biography with many essays and reviews published in The New Yorker, The New York Review of Books, and other notable publications. Ms. Strouse will give a brief biographical sketch about J.P. Morgan in her discussion of Who Was J.P. Morgan? Acquiring art on an imperial scale at the turn of the 20th century, both for his own collections and for institutions he supported, Morgan seemed to want all the beautiful things in the world. His campaign reflected the voracious eclecticism of the American Gilded Age, a lifetime of organized self-indulgence, a personal and patriotic project, a sense of noblesse oblige. He was called an American Pharaoh, the Napoleon of Wall Street, a sphinx.
Colin B. Bailey is Director, The Morgan Library & Museum, a position he has held since 2015. Mr. Bailey will present Building the Bookman's Paradise, which will introduce J.P. Morgan as a collector, exploring his early collecting activities and his decision to commission Charles McKim to create the Morgan Library in 1906. Among the many initiatives Bailey has spearheaded are the exterior restoration of J. Pierpont Morgan’s Library, the architectural heart of the institution designed by the architectural firm McKim, Mead & White; the establishment of the endowed position of Sherman Fairchild Head of the Thaw Conservation Center; and the inauguration of the Belle da Costa Greene Curatorial Fellowships, created for promising scholars from historically underrepresented communities in the curatorial and special collections fields.
Linda H. Roth is the Director of Special Curatorial Projects and Charles C. and Eleanor Lamont Cunningham Curator of European Decorative Arts, Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art. In her segment titled, Objects of “Pleasure and Instruction:” J. Pierpont Morgan's Legacy in Hartford, Ms. Roth introduces the legacy left by J.P. Morgan to his native Hartford. His love for the city in which he was born and raised led to a transformative legacy. He orchestrated a major expansion of the Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art, and, in his will, directed his son, Jack (J. P. Morgan Jr.), to share his art collection with Hartford’s citizens.
Steven Chait is the President of Ralph M. Chait Galleries, Inc., which was founded by his grandfather, Ralph M. Chait, in 1910. It is the oldest specialist gallery dealing in fine antique Chinese porcelains and works of art in the United. States. In his talk, The J.P. Morgan Collection of Chinese Porcelains, Mr. Chait will discuss J.P. Morgan’s published collection of Chinese porcelains, which was housed at the Metropolitan Museum of Art until the estate sold it post 1913. He will give an overview of the types of porcelains in the collection, their history and what happened to them after Morgan’s passing.
About Asia Week New York
The collaboration of top-tier international Asian art galleries, the six major auction houses–Bonhams, Christie’s, Doyle, Heritage Auctions, iGavel, and Sotheby’s–and numerous museums and Asian cultural institutions, Asia Week New York is a week-long celebration filled with a non-stop schedule of simultaneous gallery open houses, Asian art auctions as well as numerous museum exhibitions, lectures, and special events. Participants from Great Britain, India, Italy, Japan, and the United States unveil an extraordinary array of museum-quality treasures from China, India, the Himalayas, Southeast Asia, Tibet, Nepal, Japan, and Korea.
Asia Week New York Association, Inc. is a 501(c)(6) non-profit trade membership organization registered with the state of New York. For more information, please visit www.asiaweeknewyork.com @asiaweekny #asiaweekny
About Songtsam, Presenting Sponsor
Continuing as Presenting Sponsor for Asia Week New York is Songtsam Hotels, Resorts & Tours, an award-winning luxury boutique hotel group with thirteen properties (four Linka resort hotels and nine lodges) located in the Chinese provinces of Tibet and Yunnan. Founded by Baima Duoji, in 2000, the hotel group is the only collection of luxury Tibetan-style retreats found across the Tibetan Plateau that strives to preserve and share the cultures and spirituality of its locale, all the while offering guests sophisticated elegance, refined design, modern amenities, and unobtrusive service in places of natural beauty and cultural interest. For more information, please visit www.songtsam.com
About The Winter Show
The Winter Show, an annual benefit for the East Side House Settlement, is the leading art, antiques, and design fair in America, featuring 69 of the world’s top experts in the fine and decorative arts. Typically, held at the historic Park Avenue Armory in New York City, in January, the fair highlights a dynamic mix of works dating from ancient times through the present day and maintains the highest standards of quality in the art market. Each object at the fair is vetted for authenticity, date, and condition by a committee of 150 experts from the United States and Europe.
All the revenues from the fair’s general admission and the net proceeds from the Opening Night and other special events support East Side House and contribute substantially to its private philanthropic budget. No part of sales made by exhibitors is received by East Side House.
The Winter Show will be announcing its new spring dates for the 68th edition of the fair shortly. For more information, please visit: https://thewintershow.org
About East Side House
East Side House Settlement is a community-based organization located in the South Bronx. Recognizing education as the key to economic and civic opportunity, East Side House works with schools, community centers, and other partners to bring quality education and resources to individuals in need, helping approximately 14,000 residents of the Bronx and Northern Manhattan improve their lives each year. For more information, please visit: https://www.eastsidehouse.org/
Captions (top to bottom)
J.P. Morgan & the J.P. Morgan Library and Museum
Court School of Charles the Bald, Lindau Gospels, jeweled upper cover of the Lindau Gospels, Switzerland, Abbey of St. Gall, late 9th century, ca. 880, the Morgan Library, purchased by Pierpont Morgan, 1901.
Master of the Saint Sebastian Martyrdoms (active in Vienna in the 1650s), The Fall of Man, probably Austrian, Vienna, c. 1650–60, ivory, Wadsworth Atheneum, gift of J. Pierpont Morgan, 1917.303