OBSESSION: Nudes by Klimt, Schiele and Picasso at The Met Breuer: Review By Polly Guerin

The Met Breuer turns up the summer heat with a brilliant group of erotic and evocative watercolors, drawings, and prints by Gustav Klimt, Egon Schiele and Pablo Picasso whose subjects, except for a handful are nudes.  
OBSESSION: Nudes by Klimt, Schiele and Picasso from The Metropolitan Museum of
Art's Scofield Thayer Collection presents some fifty works in an exhibition opening Tuesday,
July 3 through October 7, 2018.  The exhibition is the first time these works are shown together and will provide a focused look at this important collection, it also marks the centenary of the deaths of Klimt who died at 55 of a struck and and Schiele who died at 28 during the Spanish flu epidemic. Image: Egon Schiele (Austrian, 1890-1918). Standing nude with orange drapery, 1914. Watercolor gouache, graphite on paper. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. Bequest of
Scofield Thayer, 1982.

 INTRODUCING AMERICA to MODERNISM   An aesthete and scion of a wealthy family, Scofield Thayer (1889-1982) was born in Worcester, Massachusetts. His family fortune accumulated in the textile business Scofield afforded Scofield opportunity to enlarge his passion for modernism He was co-publisher and editor of the literary magazine the DIAL and from 1920 to 1929 was an influential outlet for modernist literature in English. 
       The avant-garde journal introduced Americans to the writing of Ezra Pound, D. H. Lawrence, Arthur Schnitzer, Thomas Mann, E. E. Cummings, and Marc Proust, among others. The first publication of T. S. Elliot's "The Waste Land," appeared in the Dial and the poetry prize that accompanied it had enormous influence at the time. The roster of contributors represented the who's who of the most celebrated poets and writers of the era. 
       Then too, let's not forget the poet, Marianne Moore's affiliation with the DIAL The prolific Greenwich Village poet served as editor of the DIAL along with other luminaries in the literary and art world.
       Scofield often accompanied these writer's contributions with reproductions of modern art never seen in America..  Throughout his life he was a passionate friend of Picasso.
      Thayer assembled his large collection of some 600 works---mostly works on paper in London, Paris, Berlin, and Vienna Ebetween 1921 ad 1923. 
SCOFIELD THAYER While he was a patient of Sigmund Freud in Vienna, he acquired a large group of watercolors and drawings by Schiele and Klimt who at that time were unknown in America. When a selection from his collection was shown at the Montross Gallery in New York in 1924, five years before the Museum of Modern Art opened, it won acclaim.      

However, it found no favor in Thayer's native city, Worcester, Massachusetts, that same year when it was shown a the Worcester Art Museum.
     Incensed, Thayer drew up his will in 1925, leaving his collection to The Metropolitan Museum of Art. With ongoing illness and  psychological difficulties his mental condition became worse.  He withdrew from life in the late 1920s ad lived as a recluse on Martha's Vineyard and Florida until his death in 1921.
EXHIBITION CATALOGUE The exhibition is accompanied by a catalogue published by The Met.
An essay by James Dempsey, instructor at the Worcester Polytechnic Institute and an authority on Scofield Thayer discusses the collector's professional and private life. Sabine Rewald discusses
in depth the works of the three artists and also examines Thayer's purchases between l921 and 1023, as documented in invoices.The exhibition is featured on the Museum's website, as well as on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter using hashtag #MetObsession.
     Ta Ta Darlings!!! This is a steamy exhibition, most nudes. Visitors are advised that some images at this exhibitio contain explicit erotic content. Fan mail welcome, please contact
pollytalknyc@gmail.com. Visit Polly's Blogs on www.pollytalk.com and click on the Blog in the left column that resonates with your interest.