Patron Saints

May 4, 1992
In an arresting, gossipy, lavishly illustrated group portrait of visionaries who changed the cultural landscape of America, Weber depicts re-creates in previous review the interwoven activities of five arts patrons blessed with connections, money and a driving passion for the modern. Lincoln Kirstein and Edward Warburg, while students at Harvard, gave the public its first look at Bauhaus design and Calder's Circus ; they later brought George Balanchine to America and gave key support to Igor Stravinsky and Philip Johnson. Harvard art historian Agnes Mongan, an associate of Bernard Berenson, championed fine drawing and extended women's influence in the male-dominated museum world. James Thrall Soby, a ``paradigmatic New England gentleman,'' enlarged the audience for Balthus and de Chirico as curator of New York's Museum of Modern Art. A. Everett ``Chick'' Austin Jr., director of the Wadsworth Atheneum in Hartford, Conn., organized pioneering exhibitions of work by Picasso and the surrealists. Weber is director of the Josef Albers Foundation and author of books on Albers and Leland Bell.

May 15, 1992
Weber deftly interweaves the lives of five extraordinary individuals whose intelligence, wealth (despite the Depression), social ties, and courage revolutionized the cultural arts by bringing modernism to the American public. In 1928, as founders of the Harvard Society for Contemporary Art, undergraduates Lincoln Kirstein and Edward Warburg rented two rooms above the Harvard Coop and staged bold exhibitions of the works of Buckminster Fuller, Alexander Calder, Brancusi, and the Bauhaus School. They wreaked havoc in the established art world. Later, they brought Balanchine here to organize a ballet school. Agnes Mongan, a scholar at the Fogg Art Museum, gave new significance to drawings and paved the way for women to become art curators and directors. A. Everett Austin, the Wadsworth Atheneum's director, introduced Surrealism. James Soby was a discerning collector and curator of new art. A brilliant tribute to pioneers of our cultural history. Highly recommended.-- Joan Levin, MLS, Chicago

Copyright 1992 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

June 1, 1992
All five individuals discussed in this exciting study championed avant-garde artists who are today acknowledged as masters. These five seminal figures were Lincoln Kirstein and Edward Warburg, founders of the Harvard Society for Contemporary Art; their friend, Agnes Mongan, who worked at Harvard's Fogg Museum; Chick Austin, director of Hartford's Wadsworth Atheneum; and James Soby, a major collector who later became a director at MOMA. Weber's stimulating chronicle presents a lively history of events associated with bringing "new art" to the public. Whether mounting shows or providing other support afforded by their wealth and position, this select group of radical aesthetes contributed greatly to the acceptance of modern art in the U.S. ((Reviewed June 1, 1992))(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 1992, American Library Association.)