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 The Fine Art of Giving
July-Aug 2007
Gifts in the form of works of art can make a great museum collection even greater. Two major paintings have recently come to The Huntington, one the work of a towering British portrait artist, the other by a progressive American painter. Both were gifts from longtime Huntington donors.
Overseer Maurice Katz has led the Art Collectors’ Council for many years and helped the institution acquire many important works of American art. He and his wife, Margery, have also donated a number of paintings, prints, drawings, watercolors, and pastels from their own collection. The couple first encountered the work of Edwin Dickinson 25 years ago in New York when an art dealer showed them the American painter’s 1928 work Toward Mrs. Driscoll’s. They were immediately captivated by the modernist’s remarkable draftsmanship. Dickinson (1891-1978) often is referred to as a “painter’s painter” and is known for his psychologically charged self-portraits and landscapes.
The Katzes bought Toward Mrs. Driscoll’s that same day, and it hung for many years in their art-filled Los Angeles home. In 2005 they announced their intention to donate this monumental painting to The Huntington. Toward Mrs. Driscoll’s will go on public display in spring 2009, when the American art collection is installed in the Erburu Gallery. “We believe it will serve as a centerpiece within the collection,” says Katz.
 When Sir Joshua Reynolds painted a portrait of his friend Samuel Johnson in 1775, he portrayed his subject squinting closely at the pages of a book. Johnson, displeased to have his poor vision captured for posterity, told a friend that he “would not be known by posterity for his defects only,” adding, “Reynolds may paint himself as deaf if he chuses . . . but I will not be blinking Sam.”
Loren Rothschild and his wife, Frances, jumped at the chance to buy Reynolds’ “Blinking Sam” portrait in 1987. Rothschild, a member of the Board of Overseers, is a Samuel Johnson collector and expert. In 2006, the couple gave the painting to The Huntington, where it now hangs in the Erburu Gallery. “Johnson would be pleased to know that his picture now resides with other portraits by his friend Joshua and near one of the great collections of his own manuscripts and first editions,” says Rothschild. The great lexicographer’s Dictionary of the English Language (1755) and A Journey to the Western Islands of Scotland (1775) are among the rarities of the Library’s holdings. “The Huntington is the perfect place for the painting,” Rothschild believes. “And we can visit it as often as we want.”
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