date published:
April 28, 2003
The Isabella Stewart Gardner
Museum celebrates its centennial with the new exhibit The Making
of the Museum: Isabella Stewart Gardner as Collector, Architect
and Designer
by Scott Roberto
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Isabella Stewart Gardner and her museum, basking in the
limelight for more than a century, have spawned their fair
share of salient tidbits:
- Prominent Boston artist
and Gardner friend John Singer Sargent once had a studio in
the museum's Gothic Room.
- Many portraits of Mrs.
Gardner exist, 10 of which are on display at the museum,
including the Anders Zorn one above and the famous Sargent
painting that graces our cover. That particular image, due
to Mrs. Gardner's plunging neckline and forceful gaze, was
considered scandalous in Victorian-era Boston. At her
husband's request, it was not displayed to the public until
after her death, even though she outlived Mr. Gardner by
nearly three decades.
- The infamous Gardner art
heist of 1990 has yet to be solved, and to this day gaps
still exist where the 13 purloined masterpieces, including
Rembrandt's Storm on the Sea of Galilee (1633), were once
displayed.
- Mrs. Gardner was an avid
supporter of both the Boston Red Sox and the Boston
Symphony Orchestra. She once reportedly wore a headband
emblazoned with the slogan "Go You Red Sox" to a BSO
performance in 1918-the last year the Sox won a
championship.
NOTABLE QUOTES
Mrs. Gardner speaks:
- On gossip surrounding her
various escapades, often exaggerated by the press: "Don't
spoil a good story by telling the truth."
- On gambling on horse
races, a favorite pastime: "Win as though you were used to
it, and lose as if you like it."
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Before
iconoclastic Boston socialite and art collector Isabella Stewart
Gardner passed away in 1924, she decreed that her beloved
collection of art treasures was to forever remain as she had left
them. That means that nothing was to be added, not even the usual
museum labels standard at other institutions. Gardner-or "Mrs.
Jack," an affectionate nickname gleaned from her husband, John
Lowell "Jack" Gardner-wanted to provide a place "for the
education and enrichment of the public forever." She did so by
creating the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, which remains the
only art museum in which everything, from the building itself to
the arrangement of the numerous paintings, sculptures, tapestries
and architectural elements, are the vision of one individual.
In honor of the 1903 opening of
the museum, a year-long celebration is taking place. A
cornerstone of the festivities is the new exhibit The Making of
the Museum: Isabella Stewart Gardner as Collector, Architect and
Designer, on display until the end of the summer. It serves not
only as an account of the museum's creation, but also as a
tribute to its creator.
Believing that "the greatest
need in our country was art," as she wrote in 1917, Mrs. Gardner,
the recipient of a sizeable inheritance, undertook the task of
acquiring one of the finest private collections of her era.
Masterpieces by such giants as Botticelli, Rembrandt, Vermeer and
Titian, as well as works by contemporaries and friends John
Singer Sargent and James McNeill Whistler, were purchased in a
relatively short period of time, many with the help of trusted
advisor Bernard Berenson. When her Back Bay home could no longer
contain her voluminous holdings, she decided to build a museum in
order to share her collection with the public. After purchasing
several plots of land in the then-underutilized Fenway area of
Boston, she began the early stages of construction of the
Venetian palazzo-inspired "Fenway Court," as the museum was
originally called, in 1899.
The exhibit itself consists
largely of a multitude of documents that chronicle the building
of the museum from 1899 to 1902, including blueprints,
architectural drawings, journal entries and newspaper clippings,
some of which have never before been displayed to the public.
These artifacts show the integral role that the oft-demanding
Mrs. Gardner played in every aspect of the edifice's creation.
Also included are the sometimes humorous transcripts from the
diaries of architect Willard T. Sears, whose workmen often butted
heads with Mrs. Gardner-and vice versa. Not to be overlooked are
accounts from Mrs. Gardner's personal diaries, and even a few of
her watercolors, from travels to Italy, Egypt, Japan and
everywhere in between.
After a year of painstakingly
installing her collection throughout the galleries, which center
around the breathtaking, skylit garden courtyard (pictured left),
the building was finally ready in early 1903. The museum quickly
became a hub for intellectual and artistic life in Boston.
Friends and those admired and supported by Mrs. Gardner over the
years, such as writer Henry James, dancer Ruth St. Denis,
composer Charles Martin Loeffler and philosopher George
Santayana, at one time or another made appearances at Fenway
Court.
Mrs. Gardner's legacy as a
supporter of the visual, literary and performing arts is
continued today by the artist-in-residence program as well as
regular scholarly lectures and musical performances. Current
artist-in-residence Joseph Kosuth has created several text-based
pieces based on the correspondence of Gardner and her friends
that are on view inside, as well as on the outer wall of the
museum as a brilliant neon sign. Thanks to Mrs. Gardner's
consideration of every detail-not to mention her unbridled
generosity-visitors, be they artists or art admirers, can
continue to be inspired by her vision 100 years later.
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