PHILADELPHIA — Of all of the essential non-public artwork collections in america, the Neumann household’s coffers will be the most original. Amassed by 4 generations throughout the previous seven a long time, this treasure chest of practically 3,000 Twentieth- and Twenty first-century artworks swells with considerable examples by little-known newcomers and celebrated elders akin to Man Ray, Keith Haring, Hannah Höch, and Claes Oldenburg. After Modernism: Picks from the Neumann Household Assortment, at the moment on view on the College of Pennsylvania’s newly renovated Arthur Ross Gallery, presents 56 works from this distinctive, not often exhibited trove.
Stationed close to its threshold, a VR headset whisks wearers to the five-story Eastside Manhattan townhouse owned by Hubert Neumann, the gathering’s voluble skipper. This digital tour confirms that the Ross set up technique displays the house’s eccentric aesthetic of horror vacui, a “fear of empty space.”
Nina Chanel Abney, “I Dread to Think” (2012), acrylic on canvas, put in at Penn Stay Arts (courtesy the Neumann Household Assortment)
Hubert Neumann’s late mother and father, Morton and Rose, started amassing in 1948. They acquired Picasso, Matisse, and their contemporaries on view in After Modernism. Over time, their son added newer artwork to the household assortment. In lots of instances, he’s befriended artists at first of their careers and bought a number of of their works.
One in every of Joseph Beuys’s signature felt fits, from 1970, unnervingly arrests consideration within the tiny entryway to the Ross’s sizable gallery. Massive, flamboyant work of latest classic nuzzle small gems by iconic masters within the gallery, a mingling not totally lined by the present’s blanket title.
Figuring out pictures that conjure the Beuys (albeit horizontally, right here) is as legitimate a manner as any to enter into this extensively various choice. One such evocation is Xavier Veilhan’s “Le Gisant” (1994), a sculpture of a clothed, supine man that exerts a magnetic pull towards the middle of the ground. Positioned alongside the size of a pedestal, his physique references the medieval custom of recumbent tomb figures. On a close-by wall, Tom Sanford’s commanding “Dead Michael Jackson” (2009) envisions the pop idol in certainly one of his iconic stage costumes resting on his again inside a glass coffin. Signage talked about Hans Holbein the Youthful’s “The Body of the Dead Christ in the Tomb” (1521) as a supply for the pose.
Set up view of After Modernism: Picks from the Neumann Household Assortment at Arthur Ross Gallery, College of Pennsylvania ({photograph} by Eric Sucar)
Noticing covert visible cognates is one reward of shut wanting. Points of the mirror-topped self-importance in Audrey Flack’s resplendent “Chanel” (1974) resurface within the reflective panels of Richard Estes’s “Escalator” (1971) and enliven the TV screens in Michael van den Besselaar’s “The Time Machine Series #1” (2007). Elsewhere, the figures in Paul Klee’s delicate monochrome “Harlequin” (1923) and Hannah Lupton Reinhard’s huge, luridly coloured “Lost Angel” (2023) are grouped close to different artworks portraying individuals with equally crooked appendages.
The identical form is in plentiful provide within the gallery nicknamed “the elbow room” at one other Philadelphia artwork establishment, the Barnes Basis. Intently spaced, its Picasso, a Soutine, eight works by Matisse and two by Modigliani all show a bent arm. Albert Barnes, a collector and artwork educator, designed such ensembles to assist college students perceive artworks with out contemplating the time and place of their making.
Hubert Neumann, who admires Barnes, likewise regards his assortment as an academic software. Through the Ross’s week-long set up, Neumann was on web site with Gwendolyn Dubois Shaw, the gallery’s inaugural college director. Their discussions in regards to the spacing and relationships between the items helped decide the presentation of After Modernism.
Patricia Renee’ Thomas, “Smart Shopper” (2022), oil, spray paint, acrylic, collage on canvas (courtesy the artist and Kravets Wehby Gallery)
This chance for lively involvement possible buttressed his choice to favor a one-room kunsthalle relatively than a spacious museum as a venue for his extremely prized assortment. A Penn graduate (he attended the Wharton College), Neumann esteems the college’s artwork historical past division the place Shaw co-teaches a course titled The Artwork of Artwork Gathering along with her colleague Peter Decherney.
On a number of events lately, Shaw has taken undergrads on area journeys to Neumann’s townhouse. These outings have allowed them to interact with each a group and an exhibition. Underneath her supervision, college students participated in After Modernism’s curatorial course of, which included researching and writing the artwork labels, which they’ve signed. However the collector’s excessive regard for Shaw solely partially explains his rationale for selecting the Ross. The sooner historical past of the household assortment has additionally influenced this choice.
In 1980, the Nationwide Gallery of Artwork in Washington, DC, and the Artwork Institute of Chicago organized the gathering’s first and final main surveys. Neumann stays suspicious of museum courtiers, perceiving their curiosity in his artwork as a method to safe future items that he has no intention of creating. This mistrust of curatorial admirers calls to thoughts W.B. Yeats’s cautious honey-blond heroine Anne Gregory, who doubted her suitors’ motives, wishing that they’d “love me for myself alone/ And not my yellow hair.”
The uncertainty of the gathering’s future however, the exhibition has confirmed that Neumann’s collaborative experiment with the Ross is successful.
Set up view of After Modernism: Picks from the Neumann Household Assortment at Arthur Ross Gallery, College of Pennsylvania exhibiting a 1971 felt swimsuit by Joseph Beuys close to the doorway ({photograph} by Eric Sucar)
Allison Zuckerman, “Hillside Promenade” (2017), acrylic and archival CMYK ink on canvas (courtesy the artist and Kravets Wehby Gallery) 
Set up view of After Modernism: Picks from the Neumann Household Assortment at Arthur Ross Gallery, College of Pennsylvania ({photograph} by Eric Sucar)
After Modernism: Picks from the Neumann Household Assortment continues on the Arthur Ross Gallery (College of Pennsylvania, 20 South thirty fourth Road, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania) by April 13. The exhibition was curated by Gwendolyn DuBois Shaw, with help from the scholars in The Artwork of Artwork Gathering, co-taught with Peter Decherney.
