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<b>Bonhams:</b> MANDELSHTAM, OSIP. 1891-1938. Autograph Manuscript, 2 pp, [Petersburg,] January 1913, entitled

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The Art of the Collector: Paul Magriel - By Renee Roberts Paul David Magriel, Sr., and the author, 1967 by Renee Magriel Roberts As a bookseller involved in buying and selling rare books, I am naturally focused on the object itself-the book. Naturally, I'm also interested in my customers, and when I can I try to spend time finding out more about them and their interests, in order to provide better service and increase our company's sales. When I study, I am looking at the books-whether to learn more about bindings, editions, the fine points of the books' historical contexts, the life of the authors. So, it is rare for me to study collectors themselves, collectors as the object of my interest. When I was young, however, due to an early marriage into a very interesting family, I got to spend time with one of the country's premier art collectors, Paul David Magriel, Sr. At the time I met him, in the early 1960s, Paul had already established his reputation among the wealthy, museums across the United States, and the cognoscenti on Madison Avenue, as having one of the finest eyes in art collecting. Paul lived on the Upper East Side in Manhattan, striding distance from his favorite haunts in the galleries and the Metropolitan Museum of Art. He had decorated his ground-floor apartment to be a veritable gallery, and whenever I visited with his son, Paul (the backgammon player, not to be confused with Paul Sr.) there was always something interesting to see. Paul began his career working for Lincoln Kirstein, established the dance and theatre archives at the Museum of Modern Art and authoring what are still the standard biographies of Pavola, Nijinsky, and Isadora Duncan, as well as the bibliography of dance published by the New York Public Library. During World War II Paul managed to continue his work collecting - putting together a book on soldier's art at Keesler Field. After the war, ever fascinated with the human body he collected images and ephemera related to boxing, now housed at Columbia University library, and authored what is still the standard bibliography on the subject. Paul did not just collect; he was a scholar as well.
The Art of the Collector: Paul Magriel - By Renee Roberts Raphaelle Peale: Blackberries, circa 1813. From there Paul's collecting really took off. He became interested in Renaissance bronzes. In a telling interview with Paul Cummings, in 1970, Paul describes his collecting and studying frenzy: I forget the sequence of events relating to these bronzes: French & Company were moving from 57th Street to their new place uptown. They were liquidating. I just walked in there one day and I saw these Renaissance bronzes for $800, $1,200, $1,600. Well, I just bought them all. I bought about ten pieces. Beautiful bronzes! Beautiful bronzes! One after the other. Two of them were part of the original J.P. Morgan Collection which were published in the big Bota catalogues. I went to Florence to the Bargello and spent weeks and weeks and weeks there where the great collection is, you know, of the Pollaiuolos. Then I went to Modena. Then I went to every Italian city and saw every bronze, every private bronze and every public bronze. In London I went to the Victoria and Albert and spent days and days and days. I went to the Ashmolean to see the Salton Collection of bronzes. I saw all the bronzes. I saw Linsky's bronzes, Untermeyer's bronzes. I saw them all.... When Paul got tired of the Renaissance bronzes he dumped the collection and started anew, this time with American still lifes. I've had three different still-life collections. I had the great pictures. For instance, today if you were to walk into John D. Rockefeller's apartment at 1 Beekman Place you'll see a great big beautiful table. You walk in, there's nothing here and nothing there and then on this table there's my little picture, my Raphaelle Peale, which is an absolute gem that I bought in the late 1940s or early 1950s. And the Mellons have my still-lifes. And so have the Rockefellers. The Metropolitan Museum has some. That was the first collection I formed and it has been disassembled. And that was a superior collection. A lot of the stuff in the Randenstein book came from me. The Haberle on the cover of Art News was my picture. Mrs. Norman B. Woolworth, a rich lady in Maine, got twenty-two of my pictures through Wildenstein. One of his most famous collected works was, as Paul mentions, Raphaelle Peale's painting, Blackberries, now in the Getty Museum, a work which I vividly remember hanging in Paul's living room.
The Art of the Collector: Paul Magriel - By Renee Roberts none Paul routinely had very valuable work in his collections, but he did not collect for money. He was a purist-collecting for the sake of it. He would expend endless energy in amassing collections, and when he decided to move on to something else, the collection would be sold outright, or handed off to a dealer, given away, and, I'm told, that occasionally art ended up literally on the street. Paul did a famous Art Nouveau show at Finch college; another on American Realism. He collected American drawings and watercolors, setting standards and tastes for art through his selections. Many of his shows traveled widely. In fact, one of his key "marketing" techniques for his collections was to place paintings both in shows and as loans in small museums around the country, and then use those shows to add value to the collection. When asked by Cumming about collectors, Paul had definitive opinions: No one can define the word collector. That's a very loose term which has nothing to do with anybody today. The only real collector I've ever known or heard about in my lifetime was J. P. Morgan. He was a collector. The Wrightsmans are not collectors. They're agglomerators and they accumulate certain gold boxes and a few pieces of French furniture. Linsky is a collector, he buys lovely things. But the term 'collector' is a very loose one. I don't think Ben Heller is a collector. I mean he accumulated a certain number of pictures. But J. P. Morgan was a serious collector. I think Andrew Mellon was a collector, a mint collector, not because he put money into things but he collected vast, vast things. Kress was a collector from the word go, from the minute he could breathe he was collecting and buying. And of course the Europeans had a great tradition of collecting... I suppose Paul Sachs was a collector, too, but with a view in mind. And Lessing Rosenwald, of course, is a supreme example of a distinguished American collector. Perhaps after Kress, Widener and Mellon the collector in America. A collection was more than a group of amassed expensive objects, Paul said. It had to have depth, it had to have intent, and it had to be informed with the knowledge of the collector.

The Art of the Collector: Paul Magriel

- By Renee Roberts

Paul David Magriel, Sr., and the author, 1967

by Renee Magriel Roberts

As a bookseller involved in buying and selling rare books, I am naturally focused on the object itself-the book. Naturally, I'm also interested in my customers, and when I can I try to spend time finding out more about them and their interests, in order to provide better service and increase our company's sales. When I study, I am looking at the books-whether to learn more about bindings, editions, the fine points of the books' historical contexts, the life of the authors. So, it is rare for me to study collectors themselves, collectors as the object of my interest.

When I was young, however, due to an early marriage into a very interesting family, I got to spend time with one of the country's premier art collectors, Paul David Magriel, Sr. At the time I met him, in the early 1960s, Paul had already established his reputation among the wealthy, museums across the United States, and the cognoscenti on Madison Avenue, as having one of the finest eyes in art collecting.

Paul lived on the Upper East Side in Manhattan, striding distance from his favorite haunts in the galleries and the Metropolitan Museum of Art. He had decorated his ground-floor apartment to be a veritable gallery, and whenever I visited with his son, Paul (the backgammon player, not to be confused with Paul Sr.) there was always something interesting to see.

Paul began his career working for Lincoln Kirstein, established the dance and theatre archives at the Museum of Modern Art and authoring what are still the standard biographies of Pavola, Nijinsky, and Isadora Duncan, as well as the bibliography of dance published by the New York Public Library. During World War II Paul managed to continue his work collecting - putting together a book on soldier's art at Keesler Field. After the war, ever fascinated with the human body he collected images and ephemera related to boxing, now housed at Columbia University library, and authored what is still the standard bibliography on the subject. Paul did not just collect; he was a scholar as well.

The Art of the Collector: Paul Magriel

- By Renee Roberts

Raphaelle Peale: Blackberries, circa 1813.

From there Paul's collecting really took off. He became interested in Renaissance bronzes. In a telling interview with Paul Cummings, in 1970, Paul describes his collecting and studying frenzy:

I forget the sequence of events relating to these bronzes: French & Company were moving from 57th Street to their new place uptown. They were liquidating. I just walked in there one day and I saw these Renaissance bronzes for $800, $1,200, $1,600. Well, I just bought them all. I bought about ten pieces. Beautiful bronzes! Beautiful bronzes! One after the other. Two of them were part of the original J.P. Morgan Collection which were published in the big Bota catalogues. I went to Florence to the Bargello and spent weeks and weeks and weeks there where the great collection is, you know, of the Pollaiuolos. Then I went to Modena. Then I went to every Italian city and saw every bronze, every private bronze and every public bronze. In London I went to the Victoria and Albert and spent days and days and days. I went to the Ashmolean to see the Salton Collection of bronzes. I saw all the bronzes. I saw Linsky's bronzes, Untermeyer's bronzes. I saw them all....

When Paul got tired of the Renaissance bronzes he dumped the collection and started anew, this time with American still lifes.

I've had three different still-life collections. I had the great pictures. For instance, today if you were to walk into John D. Rockefeller's apartment at 1 Beekman Place you'll see a great big beautiful table. You walk in, there's nothing here and nothing there and then on this table there's my little picture, my Raphaelle Peale, which is an absolute gem that I bought in the late 1940s or early 1950s. And the Mellons have my still-lifes. And so have the Rockefellers. The Metropolitan Museum has some. That was the first collection I formed and it has been disassembled. And that was a superior collection. A lot of the stuff in the Randenstein book came from me. The Haberle on the cover of Art News was my picture. Mrs. Norman B. Woolworth, a rich lady in Maine, got twenty-two of my pictures through Wildenstein.

One of his most famous collected works was, as Paul mentions, Raphaelle Peale's painting, Blackberries, now in the Getty Museum, a work which I vividly remember hanging in Paul's living room.

The Art of the Collector: Paul Magriel

- By Renee Roberts

none

Paul routinely had very valuable work in his collections, but he did not collect for money. He was a purist-collecting for the sake of it. He would expend endless energy in amassing collections, and when he decided to move on to something else, the collection would be sold outright, or handed off to a dealer, given away, and, I'm told, that occasionally art ended up literally on the street.

Paul did a famous Art Nouveau show at Finch college; another on American Realism. He collected American drawings and watercolors, setting standards and tastes for art through his selections. Many of his shows traveled widely. In fact, one of his key "marketing" techniques for his collections was to place paintings both in shows and as loans in small museums around the country, and then use those shows to add value to the collection.

When asked by Cumming about collectors, Paul had definitive opinions:

No one can define the word collector. That's a very loose term which has nothing to do with anybody today. The only real collector I've ever known or heard about in my lifetime was J. P. Morgan. He was a collector. The Wrightsmans are not collectors. They're agglomerators and they accumulate certain gold boxes and a few pieces of French furniture. Linsky is a collector, he buys lovely things. But the term 'collector' is a very loose one. I don't think Ben Heller is a collector. I mean he accumulated a certain number of pictures. But J. P. Morgan was a serious collector. I think Andrew Mellon was a collector, a mint collector, not because he put money into things but he collected vast, vast things. Kress was a collector from the word go, from the minute he could breathe he was collecting and buying. And of course the Europeans had a great tradition of collecting... I suppose Paul Sachs was a collector, too, but with a view in mind. And Lessing Rosenwald, of course, is a supreme example of a distinguished American collector. Perhaps after Kress, Widener and Mellon the collector in America.

A collection was more than a group of amassed expensive objects, Paul said. It had to have depth, it had to have intent, and it had to be informed with the knowledge of the collector.