Joanne Toor Cummings
Joanne Toor Cummings captured elegance and intelligence. Her eye for the genuine article brought remarkable people and things into her life. Then her energy forged great combinations among them, her style making unlikely combinations seem inevitable and easy.
She completed her art history major at Connecticut College a year early, graduating with the class of 1950. She then earned an M.A. from Columbia University's School of International Affairs and at one time was an Andrew Wellington Cordier Fellow of the school, establishing the other interest that rivaled art for the rest of her life. (She was a longtime member of the National Committee on American Foreign Policy and served as its Senior Vice President from 1991 until her death.)
She and her former husband, Nathan, donated the Joanne and Nathan Cummings Arts Center at Connecticut College, a building designed by Gordon Bunshaft of Skidmore, Owings and Merrill which is a centerpiece of the college's main green overlooking Long Island Sound.
As a trustee of Connecticut College from 1981 to 1991 she was most engaged in the Student Life Committee. The students, most of whom could not have known her exquisite taste in French furniture or her passion for Giacometti's Femme de Venise, recognized her admiration for their pursuit of excellence, especially their commitment to international studies and the arts.
Once, as I watched her draw two students into a robust description of their overseas summer internships at the Beaubourg and at Salomon Brothers Frankfurt office, I remember thinking that perhaps she saw in Matisse's Les citrons au plat d'étain the same freshness and vigor that she heard in these energetic young people -- their colorful adventures, their robust potential. It was clear that they could feel her interest. Her intelligence responded as quickly to them as to the dazzling beauty of her Louis XV chinoiserie commode or Gauguin's Nature morte à "L'Espérance".
What these young people could not completely appreciate was how the eye that saw quality in things saw it as well in people and sustained and enhanced it in both.
Joanne numbered among her friends a wide swath of New York's and the world's most influential people, along with many others including brilliant young musicians, dancers, faculty members and the young African American Olympic oarswoman who became the first American on the International Olympic Committee, Anita DeFrantz. She helped them all with connections and support. As shrewd as she was discerning, her habit of investing in excellence in art and people made her a dogged supporter of scholarships. She made things happen for people because she asked good questions and then moved impatiently and effectively into action.
Joanne loved simple elegance. "Let things and people speak for themselves." This brisk, direct manner appealed to the young; it betokened an approach to life with which Joanne made everything seem possible, plausible. In the silvery taupe setting of her home, the stunning quantity and quality of her collection of Impressionist and modern art seemed natural, pieces that sat as comfortably with each other as the young scholar interns had sat with her, their conversations as easy as those on foreign policy that might have been argued there the night before by those who had carried it out for the past forty years.
Joanne Cummings's beautiful collection of art, furniture and jewelry bears witness to exquisite personal taste and an understanding of fine things perfectly positioned to live in comfort together. Carefully chosen to set off an exceptional life, these pieces will keep on defining beauty and intelligence for centuries, but from their value and the generosity that characterized this great philanthropist, elegant potential in people will also continue to develop for centuries to come.
Claire L. Gaudiani, President, Connecticut College
GIACOMO MANZU (1908-1991)
Cardinale seduto
Details
GIACOMO MANZU (1908-1991)
Cardinale seduto
stamped with raised signature on the right side of the base 'MANZU'
bronze with golden brown patina
Height: 18½ in. (47 cm.)
Cast circa 1965; unique
Cardinale seduto
stamped with raised signature on the right side of the base 'MANZU'
bronze with golden brown patina
Height: 18½ in. (47 cm.)
Cast circa 1965; unique
Provenance
Acquired from the artist by Mr. Nathan Cummings before 1968
Exhibited
New London, Lyman Allyn Museum, Paintings and Sculpture from the Collection of Mr. and Mrs. Nathan Cummings, Jan.-Feb., 1968
Washington, D.C., National Gallery of Art, Selections from the Nathan Cummings Collection, June-Sept., 1970, p. 84, no. 68 (illustrated). The exhibition traveled to New York, Metropolitan Museum of Art, July-Sept., 1971.
Chicago, Art Institute, Major Works from the Collection of Nathan Cummings, Oct.-Dec., 1973, p. 91, no. 82 (illustrated)
Washington, D.C., National Gallery of Art, Selections from the Nathan Cummings Collection, June-Sept., 1970, p. 84, no. 68 (illustrated). The exhibition traveled to New York, Metropolitan Museum of Art, July-Sept., 1971.
Chicago, Art Institute, Major Works from the Collection of Nathan Cummings, Oct.-Dec., 1973, p. 91, no. 82 (illustrated)