Modern
The internationally renowned Cone Collection of modern art is the crown jewel of the BMA. In the early 20th century, Baltimore sisters Claribel and Etta Cone visited the Paris studios of Henri Matisse and Pablo Picasso and began assembling one of the world’s most important art collections. They acquired an exceptional collection of approximately 3,000 objects, which were displayed in their Baltimore apartments. The highlight is a group of 500 works by Matisse, considered the largest and most significant in the world. The sisters also acquired masterpieces by Paul Cézanne, Paul Gauguin, and Vincent van Gogh, as well as a variety of textiles, jewelry, furniture, and African, Asian, and Near Eastern art. Their acquisitions also included a remarkable collection of modern prints and drawings. Learn more about how the Cone sisters assembled and lived with this extraordinary collection.
The BMA has outstanding examples by other European masters of modern art such as Juan Gris’ The Painter’s Window (1925), Joan Miró’s Portrait No. 1 (1938), and Piet Mondrian’s Composition V (1927), and a strong group of paintings by Surrealists André Masson, Matta, and Yves Tanguy. Russian artists Marc Chagall and Wassily Kandinsky, Italian artist Alberto Giacometti, and German Expressionists Ernst Ludwig Kirchner and Max Pechstein are also represented in the collection. Many of these works of art came from the collection of Saidie A. May, a generous patron of the Museum who was a forerunner in the collecting of avant-garde modern art.
French Drawings Online Collections
The Baltimore Museum of Art and the Walters Art Museum have catalogued their collections of 19th-century French drawings in a searchable online database that makes approximately 900 rarely displayed works accessible to scholars and the general public.
Friends of Modern and Contemporary Art (FoMaCA)
Join FoMaCA to explore the mysteries of viewing, collecting, and understanding contemporary art.
Print, Drawing & Photograph Society (PDPS) Join this group to learn more about the graphic arts and photography, both historic and contemporary.
