With its proximity to the cultural hub of New York City and its quieter suburban and rural landscapes, Connecticut was fertile ground for artists and writers in the period of Modernist movements between 1913 and 1979. Many of these cultural figures are well known through biographical and critical studies. Creative Places seeks to show how place played a significant role in creative work, and how in turn the artists and writers influenced communities in Connecticut.
Burton and Emily Tremaine
Patronage
1902 – 1991
Residents of Madison, the Tremaines were important patrons and collectors of 20th century European and American modern art, beginning in 1944. Emily (1908-1987) was a distant cousin of Chick Austin, first director of the Wadsworth Atheneum, by marriage. The artwork the couple assembled was among the most important corporate collections in the country. After their deaths, some works were bequests, such as Alexander Liberman’s ‘Untitled’ sculpture at the Yale A&B Building, and much was sold at auction.
- Biography/Description of Work
Emily Hall (1908-1987) began collecting art through her relationships with members of the art community in Santa Barbara, California, when she was in her twenties and thirties. A socialite through her first marriage to Baron Maximilian von Romberg (1928 until his death in 1938), she was the “original It Girl” during the Nazi era. When she moved to New York City in the 1940s, she met fellow aesthete Burton Tremaine (1901-1999), president of the Miller Company in Meriden (lighting manufacturer). They wed, lived in his house in Madison CT, and began acquiring artwork together beginning in 1944 with “Victory Boogie Woogie” by Piet Mondrian. As art director of her husband’s company, she began a corporate art collection. Together the couple amassed some 400 objects by artists in the forefront of new movements, from Braque, Kandinsky and Picasso to DeKooning, Johns and Warhol. In 1947-48, they selected work from the corporate collection for a traveling exhibition: “Painting Toward Architecture.” As the title suggests, the Tremaines also had an affinity for design and modern architecture. At the Miller Company, Burton turned to Philip Johnson for periodic expansions (1951,1965-66), and at their Madison home, Johnson was retained to expand and renovate the house and create an outdoor space for sculpture (1951-1955).
- Sources view
- http://articles.courant.com/1991-11-03/entertainment/0000210010_1_tremaines-juan-gris-art-market, http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/works-of-art/2000.434, http://www.tremainefoundation.org/Content/Our_Origins.asp, https://www.artdesigncafe.com/emily-hall-tremaine, https://connecticutmills.org/find/details/miller-co
- Associated Resource(s)