This article first appeared in the St. Louis Beacon: October 17, 2008 - Emily Rauh Pulitzer, whose commitment to the advancement of interest in modern and contemporary art brought international attention to her and to St. Louis, has taken her interest in modernism to a new level with the gift of 31 works of art and $45 million to the Harvard Art Museum, Cambridge, Mass.
Pulitzer's association with Harvard goes back to 1957 after her graduation from Bryn Mawr College and study in Paris. At Harvard, she worked with Agnes Mongan as assistant curator of drawings. She was at Harvard until 1964, when she came to St. Louis to be curator of the City Art Museum, now the St. Louis Art Museum. In 1963, she received her master's degree from Harvard. She left the museum in 1973 when she married Joseph Pulitzer Jr.
Her association with the university and and the Harvard Art Museum has been sustained, intense and creative. She has served as a member, and chair, of the Museum's Visiting Committee and its Collections Committee. She was elected to be a member of the university's Board of Overseers, on which she serves, and is a member of its Standing Committee on Humanities and Arts. She has also been an active member of the President's Advisory Committee on the Allston Initiative. The initiative represents a major expansion of Harvard's campus across the Charles River from the main campus in Cambridge into the Allston area of Boston.
After the announcement of the gift by Harvard on Oct. 17, Pulitzer said, "My experience at the Fogg Museum was life changing. I feel an enormous indebtedness to the museum for that experience and want to enable others to share it." (The Fogg Museum, with the Busch-Reisinger Museum and the Arthur M. Sackler form the Harvard Art Museum.)
The works of art in this gift represent a wide range of styles and cultural threads, and although Harvard's collections are comprehensive and celebrated, the Pulitzer gift strengthens it and adds new dimensions to it.
"I felt the works chosen are particularly meaningful in the context of Harvard's collections and its teaching," Pulitzer said.
The Pulitzer family's connections with Harvard University are deep and its generosity to the institution has been sustained over generations. Mrs. Pulitzer's late husband, Joseph, who died in 1993, was a 1936 graduate of Harvard College. Throughout his life, he served on various boards and was a generous contributor of works of art and money to the school and the Harvard Art Museum. His interest in modern art developed at Harvard, where he studied with the legendary Paul Sachs, who encouraged him to collect and to refine his eye. Pulitzer's knowledge of art, and his connoisseurship, was acknowledged in his lifetime, and as time passes, it becomes of even greater consequence.
He bought his first major work of art while an undergraduate. It was Amedeo Modigliani's 1919 painting, "Elvira Resting at Table," which is regarded as iconic in Modigliani's legacy. The painting now is in collection of the St. Louis Art Museum. The St. Louis museum has been beneficiary of the Pulitzer family gifts of works of art and financial resources.
In addition to the family's gifts to the St. Louis museum, Emily and Joseph Pulitzer made a major investment in the city of St. Louis when they founded the Pulitzer Foundation for the Arts. The Pulitzers commissioned and, under the supervision of Emily Pulitzer, saw construction of the landmark modernist foundation building, designed by Tadao Ando, in Grand Center. The building opened in 2001.
The Pulitzer Foundation is not a collecting institution. Rather, its emphasis is on eclectic exhibitions of works of art from prehistory to the present time, all curated with an eye to revealing the continuous thread of human achievement and creativity in the visual arts. The foundation also conducts scholarly research and symposia related to the shows, commissions publications related to them, and presents concerts that have stylistic and historic kinship to the art on display. Increasingly, the foundation has involved itself in the St. Louis community and has developed innovative outreach programs for schools and the general public.
In a statements released by the Harvard Art Museum on Oct. 17, Harvard president Drew Faust said she was especially appreciative of the gift "because it is the continuation of a lifetime of giving of art, financial support and time to the Art Museum and Harvard by Emmy and Joe. The arts are central to the academic life of Harvard University. Emmy's generosity will help ensure that they play an even more robust role on campus and in the lives of all our students, whether they are studying the arts, economics, law, medicine, physics or other disciplines."
Thomas Lentz is director of the museum that is beneficiary of the Pulitzer gift.
“Emmy's and Joe’s long commitment to our educational mission is evidenced by a half-century of dedication and vision in support of the Harvard Art Museum,” he said. “Emmy’s latest gift is critical to our success as we prepare to renovate our facilities, integrate the Art Museum more thoroughly into Harvard’s undergraduate experience, and educate new generations of students and scholars.”
Lentz said also, "Emmy has been the Art Museum's most active and dedicated benefactor," he said in a statement, "and her and
Joe's long-term, substantive support has enriched the experience of countless students, researchers and visitors. This current gift provides tremendous new strength in the museum's holdings of modern and contemporary art. Emmy and Joe's personal involvement and profound generosity stand as a model of institution-building and will advance scholarship in the visual arts for generations to come."
In addition to supporting the arts, Mrs. Pulitzer's philanthropic activity extends to the world of journalism, where her husband's family left an indelible mark on American culture. She is a supporter and board member of the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting in Washington, which commissions reports and investigations on international affairs, and this publication, the St. Louis Beacon.
Here is an inventory of works of art given by Emily Rauh Pulitzer to the Harvard Art Museum
- 1. Emile-Antoine Bourdelle, Mask of Beethoven, c. 1905. Bronze with brown patina, partially gilded, hollow mask form (sand cast); 42.1 x 29.8 x 15.2 cm.
- 2. Constantin Brancusi, Sleeping Muse II, 1926. Polished bronze, 16.5 x 19.1 x 29.2 cm.
- 3. Constantin Brancusi, Torso, 1909. Plaster, 25.4 x 15.6 cm.
- 4. Aime-Jules Dalou, Portrait of Georgette Dalou, 1876. Bronze with dark brown/black patina (lost wax); h.: 37.6 cm; h. w/ base: 51.6 cm.
- 5. Andre Derain, Sailing Ships, c. 1905. Oil on board (unvarnished), 25.2 x 34 cm.
- 6. Mark di Suvero, Ariel, 1970. Raw steel, partially painted yellow, 96.5 x 99.1 x 109.2 cm.
- 7. Alberto Giacometti, Portrait of David Sylvester, 1960. Oil on canvas, 116.2 x 88.9 cm.
- 8. Alberto Giacometti, Tete qui Regarde, 1930. White marble, 41 x 29.5 x 7.9 cm.
- 9. Michael Heizer, Untitled # 2, 1967-72. Three joined panels cotton duck; top and bottom painted with black pigment, aluminum powder and PVA; middle panel left raw, 221 x 444.5 cm.
- 10. Donald Judd, Stack, 1970. Stainless steel, violet Plexiglas; 10 boxes; Overall h.: 320 cm.
- 11. Roger de La Fresnaye, Still Life with Set-Square on Black Disk, c. 1913. Oil on canvas, 64.5 x 65 x 54 x 54 cm.
- 12. Roy Lichtenstein, Sleeping Muse, 1983. Bronze, 65.4 x 86.4 x 10.2 cm.
- 13. Jacques Lipchitz, Still Life with Musical Instruments, 1918. Stone relief, 60 x 74.9 cm.
- 14. Jacques Lipchitz, Gertrude Stein, 1921. Bronze, 34.3 x 19.1 x 25.4 cm.
- 15. Joan Miro, Woman in the Night, 1945. Oil on canvas, 129.5 x 162.6 cm.
- 16. Amedeo Modigliani, Head of a Woman, 1941. Limestone, h.: 66 cm.
- 17. Bruce Nauman, Henry Moore Bound to Fail, 1967-70. Cast iron; 64.8 x 58.4 x 8.9 cm.
- 18. Barnett Newman, Untitled, 1949. Oil on canvas, 60.3 x 15.9 cm.
- 19. Claes Oldenburg, Baked Potato, 1963. Exterior skin and two pieces of butter: burlap soaked in plaster, painted with enamel; interior: jersey stuffed with kapok, 17.6 x 35.1 x 24 cm.
- 20. Pablo Picasso, Harlequin, 1918. Oil on canvas, 147.3 x 67.3 cm.
- 21. Pablo Picasso, Landscape, 1909. Oil on canvas, 39.1 x 47.3 cm.
- 22. Pablo Picasso, Portrait of Dora Maar, 1938. Pastel and ink on commercially pre-primed canvas with sand texture, 58.4 x 49.8 cm.
- 23. Richard Pousette-Dart, Imploding Light, 1967. Oil on canvas, 203.2 x 203.2 x 5.1 cm.
- 24. Medardo Rosso, Carne Altrui, 1883. Wax over plaster, 23.5 x 22.2 x 17.1 cm.
- 25. Medardo Rosso, Ecce Puer, 1906. Bronze (with investment), 43.8 x 24.8 cm.
- 26. Richard Serra, Untitled (Corner Prop Piece), 1969. Lead plate and lead pole rolled around one-inch steel pipe; plate: 121.9 x 121.9 cm; pole: 151.8 cm, diam.: 7.6 cm.
- 27. Joel Shapiro, Chasm, 1976. Cast iron, 30.5 cm.
- 28. Rebecca Salsbury Strand, Devout Woman (Painting of Saint), 1932. Painting on glass, 25.1 x 20 cm.
- 29. Richard Tuttle, Untitled, 1967. Tintex dye on shaped, hemmed, unstretched canvas; 130.8 x 142.9 cm.
- 30. Jacques Villon, Portrait of Joseph Pulitzer, 1955. Oil on canvas, 61 x 46 cm.
- 31. Edouard Vuillard, Self-Portrait, c. 1892. Oil on canvas, 38.4 x 45.9 cm.