DOI Heft:
No. 192 (February, 1913)
DOI Artikel:De Kay, Charles: The Evans collection of American paintings at Washington
DOI Seite / Zitierlink: https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.43451#0453
The Evans Collection of American Paintings
SUNDOWN BY GEORGE INNESS, N.A. (DECEASED)
THE EVANS COLLECTION OF
AMERICAN PAINTINGS AT
WASHINGTON
BY CHARLES de KAY
Undoubtedly one of the most significant groups
of modern American paintings is the Evans gift to
the National Art Gallery, Washington, where they
are shown in the new museum which contains the
Smithsonian collections.
In number they do not yet reach two hun-
dred, but the idea they represent, the principle
they embody is of the highest value to the nation.
They are works by men of our time, as far as pos-
sible representative. They inaugurate the spirit
that looks about to see what is being done here in
America today, instead of ignoring what is close at
hand and considering only what is foreign or old.
They raise the question, why do we spend lav-
ishly on art made elsewhere or in the past, when
such beautiful things are being fabricated about
us ? They are a standing reproach for the neglect
of native work. They are a protest against the
crude colonial timidity which prefers a foreign art
it does not really understand to a native one ex-
pressive of our country, customs and ideals.
Mr. W. T. Evans began to collect pictures with
no fixed purpose, merely to please himself. After
he had filled his house with foreign works he
began to ask himself what it all meant. Having
come in contact with various artists, he realized
that art is not a matter of the past or of another
land, but of today and his own country. He was
surprised to find that better pictures were being
painted round about him in New York, in Phila-
delphia and Boston, in Chicago and other cities
of the United States than the foreign canvases on
his walls. As his children grew up he gave them
his taste for pictures and through them became
acquainted with a yet wider circle of painters.
Very soon he sold or gave away all his examples of
foreign work and devoted his leisure time—for he
is at the head of a very large and engrossing busi-
ness—to the study of the living American arts in
painting, water colors and stained glass. As he
assembled a new collection he became more exact-
ing, more critical, more the connoisseur, and dis-
covered that many pictures he once admired gave
him pleasure no longer. Of certain painters
whose work he greatly cherished, the examples he
had acquired seemed inferior to their best. There-
upon he resolved to make a clean sweep of his
collection and begin over again, so that the new
Evans Collection would represent something far
finer than the old.
Thus occurred the Evans Sale, which will be
remembered by artists, if not by laymen. It
marked a turning point in the public’s regard for
LXXXIX
SUNDOWN BY GEORGE INNESS, N.A. (DECEASED)
THE EVANS COLLECTION OF
AMERICAN PAINTINGS AT
WASHINGTON
BY CHARLES de KAY
Undoubtedly one of the most significant groups
of modern American paintings is the Evans gift to
the National Art Gallery, Washington, where they
are shown in the new museum which contains the
Smithsonian collections.
In number they do not yet reach two hun-
dred, but the idea they represent, the principle
they embody is of the highest value to the nation.
They are works by men of our time, as far as pos-
sible representative. They inaugurate the spirit
that looks about to see what is being done here in
America today, instead of ignoring what is close at
hand and considering only what is foreign or old.
They raise the question, why do we spend lav-
ishly on art made elsewhere or in the past, when
such beautiful things are being fabricated about
us ? They are a standing reproach for the neglect
of native work. They are a protest against the
crude colonial timidity which prefers a foreign art
it does not really understand to a native one ex-
pressive of our country, customs and ideals.
Mr. W. T. Evans began to collect pictures with
no fixed purpose, merely to please himself. After
he had filled his house with foreign works he
began to ask himself what it all meant. Having
come in contact with various artists, he realized
that art is not a matter of the past or of another
land, but of today and his own country. He was
surprised to find that better pictures were being
painted round about him in New York, in Phila-
delphia and Boston, in Chicago and other cities
of the United States than the foreign canvases on
his walls. As his children grew up he gave them
his taste for pictures and through them became
acquainted with a yet wider circle of painters.
Very soon he sold or gave away all his examples of
foreign work and devoted his leisure time—for he
is at the head of a very large and engrossing busi-
ness—to the study of the living American arts in
painting, water colors and stained glass. As he
assembled a new collection he became more exact-
ing, more critical, more the connoisseur, and dis-
covered that many pictures he once admired gave
him pleasure no longer. Of certain painters
whose work he greatly cherished, the examples he
had acquired seemed inferior to their best. There-
upon he resolved to make a clean sweep of his
collection and begin over again, so that the new
Evans Collection would represent something far
finer than the old.
Thus occurred the Evans Sale, which will be
remembered by artists, if not by laymen. It
marked a turning point in the public’s regard for
LXXXIX