TMC - Treasures, Art Dealers, Collections. The artistic Dialogue between Spain and America: 1850-1950

1. The flow of art works towards the US (manuscripts, books, paintings, sculptures, tapestries, furniture, architectural items, and so on) as a consequence of the changes caused by disentailments, wars, and the new organization of the art market.
2. American collections and collectors: Archer Milton Huntington, Henry Clay Frick, Henry O. Hevemeyer, John Pierpont Morgan, Isabella Stewart Gardner. These great American collectors emerged during the American industrial revolution, which gave rise to the Golden Age of American collecting (Gilded Age).
3. The world of art dealers and agents: Joseph Duveen, Bernard Berenson, Francis Lathrop, Natili Randolph, Arthur Byne, Mildred Stapley, Raimundo i Ricardo Madrazo, Josep Pijoan, José Gestoso, etc.
4. Collections: use and function. The history of collections revolves around the history of objects and their metaphors. A collection is, by itself, a system of symbols, which socializes artists and objects in new locations, outside their normal social use, in a new system that subordinates everything to the collection.
5. A mutual discovery: In the 19th century, American artists such as Samuel Colman, Mary Cassat, and John Singer Sargent admired the Spanish artists of the Golden Age, especially Velázquez, while the Spanish artists Joaquin Sorolla, Federico Madrazo, Ignacio Zuloaga, Miquel Viladrich and Ramon Casas, among many others, felt the pull of the rich American market.
6. Architecture and collecting: This section is divided into three parts. The first one deals with the relation between collections and the buildings that house them, as well as their relation with the collectors’ role and tastes (for example, the Hispanic Society, created by Archer M. Huntington, or Isabella Stewart Gardner’s Boston Museum). The second part focuses on the importance of the ‘Spanish Revival Architecture’ style and the role of architects such as Julia Morgan, George Washington Smith and Addison Minzer, and the subsequent demand for Spanish pieces – objets d’art, coffered ceilings, ceramics, furniture and grilles. And the third part deals with the export of architectural pieces towards the US, with Arthur Byne as one of the most important agents and his client, William Randolph Hearst.