“My role is not to posess, it is to conserve.” — Leonard A. Lauder

The Connoisseur: Leonard A. Lauder

It has been just under a month since the hammer fell in Sotheby’s Breuer headquarters, marking the sale of Klimt’s Portrait of Elisabeth Lederer (1914-16) for $234 million.1 The piece belonging to Leonard A. Lauder, a cosmetics tycoon and former chief executive of Estee Lauder, broke the record for the most expensive work of modern art ever sold. Alongside the Portrait of Elisabeth Lederer, (pictured) one of the Viennese artist’s full-length portrait commissions depicting the daughter of his most influential patron, 24 additional works by Matisse, Munch, and others were put up for sale. The auction came six months after the collector’s death in June.

While Lauder is best known for his work transforming his mother’s company into the multinational behemoth it is today, his real passion lay not in selling lipstick but in collecting Picassos and other masterpieces. Centered in New York City, Lauder’s collection traces the evolution of modern art, from Monet’s Impressionist landscapes to abstract expressionist works by Agnes Martin. However, rather than seeking to acquire them solely for ownership, Lauder made it his mission to develop his collection for the sake of curation and, most importantly, preservation.

During his time as the chairman of the Whitney Museum’s board of trustees, Lauder personally worked on the acquisition of over a thousand individual works out of a collection of just over twenty thousand.2 He put a special emphasis on caring for American artists and supporting their work. His commitment to the art industry began when he was only a child. Born and raised in NYC, visiting the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the myriad of other world-class institutions the city has on offer, Lauder was made keenly aware of the value of having the world’s crown jewels on public display. He later demonstrated his gratitude with donations worth hundreds of millions of dollars and by gifting his entire Cubist collection, valued at over a billion dollars, to the MET upon his death. It is his devotion to serving the public through art that made him who he was: one of the foremost collectors, connoisseurs, and devoted philanthropists of his generation.

The Serious Collector

I had the opportunity to visit Lauder’s Cubist collection at the MET earlier this month. The collection, now housed in the museum’s Modern and Contemporary Art department, includes over eighty paintings and spans multiple galleries. Moving from Léger’s perplexing still lifes and landscapes to Delaunay’s “La Tour Simultanée” and Braque’s “Mandolin and Fruit dish,” I considered and explored the role of the collector. Here were dozens of museum-grade paintings, cumulatively worth the equivalent of a mid-sized corporation that had belonged to one man alone. Rather than being kept in museum spaces where the public could appreciate their undeniable beauty, they were hung in living rooms, except when on loan.

And yet, the public owes Lauder for his incessant search. Without his commitment to searching for the best, or in his own words, the works that merit an “oh my god” exclamation, they may not have remained in their pristine conditions or have been conserved for posterity.3 The collector is ultimately the guardian of the pieces he chooses to acquire. In the words of Amor Towles in his short story, The Didomenico Fragment, “the essential role of the serious collector [is] the preservation of cultural heritage.”4 Thus, the true collector must be a knowledgeable curator, attuned to the complexities of art history, to be a capable steward of the treasures within their care.

But we must not neglect the personal utility of collecting. At its core, for those in the industry who collect out of genuine interest rather than greed, the process is one of self-discovery and expression. For connoisseurs like Lauder, each acquisition is made out of love for the artist and the distinct perspective that manifests in their creations.5 By spending hours every day lounging beside what they deem to be masterpieces, strokes of genius, collectors nourishe their souls. Ownership is a means of protecting the perspective, the unique means of seeing and understanding the world, present in each work, from fate’s injustices.

Conclusion

While marvelling at the exorbitant prices of the pieces from Lauder’s collection sold at auction may be understood by many as a testament to his success as a collector, his donation to the MET is far more representative of what he stood for. Lauder understood, as Robert Lehman before him, that collecting and an appreciation for the arts must be joined by philanthropy. For while “the serious collector dedicates his life to the hunt for works of beauty, especially those that have been forgotten or forsaken,…[after his passing]…he donates the paintings to a museum where…[they] will hang in a carefully controlled environment so that…[they] can be appreciated by lovers of art for generations to come!”6

Image Credit: New York Times

Beginning in the 19th century, African Americans began looking to the Ancient Egyptian civilization for inspiration and as evidence for rich African cultural identity. The movement began an effort to reclaim an identity stripped from the community through years of oppression in the West. Pictured below is Fred Wilson’s Grey Area (Brown version), where the artist places racial complexion front and center through a series of busts of Nefertiti, an Egyptian queen of the 18th dynasty.

The queen consort appears repeatedly throughout the exhibition, “royalty [of course] connotes power and cultural value after all.” Most astonishingly, curators display a disco ball made in Nefertiti's likeness from Beyonce’s private collection, highlighting a continued appetite from African American pop stars for work inspired by Ancient Egyptians. Pictured below is Meta Vaux Warrick Fuller’s Ethiopian Awakening. The plaster sculpture personifies the term “Ethiopia,” used to refer to the African continent in the early nineteenth century. The sculpture represents the global African diaspora adorned with a pharaonic nemes headdress. Art historians regard Ethiopian Awakening, a symbol of self-knowledge, as the first Afrocentric work of art.

Does the racial classification of Ancient Egyptians as "Black" or "Caucasian" hold significance? Even with uncertainty from the global community, the legacy has promoted a tremendous African cultural identity. Culture holds the power to unify a population. This capability is exemplified most vividly in the role of Ancient Egypt and its pivotal role in uniting the African diaspora to confront injustice.

The war in Kosovo that began in 1997 loomed large in Halilaj’s upbringing, where drawing served as an outlet for the fear he felt and the trauma he endured. His time in a refugee camp in Albania is especially salient. While there, the camp psychologist, Giacomo Poli, “gifted [him] white papers, A4 and simple pens.” Reflecting on his experience, Halilaj says the ability to express himself artistically saved his life. He described his experience of being homosexual within Kosovo-Albanian culture as closely aligned with the struggle of the Kosovan State to be recognized.

The installation features graffiti art, including birds atop ledges symbolizing freedom and dreams of a better future. The main attraction, however, is a massive spider wrapping its arms around the New York City skyline. What I found to be most unique is the inclusion of sculptures representing global icons like Lionel Messi and their juxtaposition with the brutal realities of war exemplified through the NATO symbol seen in the first image. The veneer of naivete present within the sketches hides generational trauma. The use of art to bring attention to historical and contemporary conflicts brings new understanding, especially when displayed at an institution like The Met. Abetare, named after the book Halilaj used to learn the alphabet, is certainly a must-see.

Throughout his work in “Introspection,” now on display at the Museum Fotografiska through the ninth of March, one can see how Frank Ockenfels 3 utilizes everything from the distortion of a human figure to the use of vivid red paint to make his vision a reality. The work of the American photographer is often praised for its novel use of light and found elements.

Ockenfels constantly pushes the boundaries of what’s possible by using a wide array of cameras, lenses and lighting instruments. Every one of his portraits is an experiment. Much like a scientist, Ockenfels records his findings in journals he keeps in stacks around his Los Angeles studio. What began as a physical record of the camera and technology he had used to capture his subjects became a way for Ockenfels to document his mental state during his many hours of shooting. In “Introspection,” many of his journals are presented alongside his more “traditional” works. (Pictured on the left-hand side are a few dozen of Ockenfels’ journals on display as part of the exhibition.) What was made clear during my visit to the exhibition is Ockenfels’ lack of “style” in the traditional sense.  

“That’s why my style is all over the place because I like that it mixes up.” 

Ockenfels is keen on allowing each of his portraits to stand out, attracting the onlooker with their unique elements and composition. Rather than stick to his medium, he regularly brings in elements of collage and illustration. In some of his works, Ockenfels frames his portraits using thick packing tape, a first in the world of photography. His work, however, isn’t limited to bold portraits. His most recent exhibition includes illustrations resembling those of the late cultural icon Jean-Michel Basquiat. The exhibition includes original works on everything from newspaper clippings to skateboards. As the Pennsylvania-born portrait photography icon nears his 65th birthday, I am eager to see in what other ways he will challenge the definition of traditional photography.