060 http://www.AmericanArtCollector.com
could be found for about $125. Since their
home was near the Cincinnati Art Museum
and the Art Academy, they began to collect
the work of friends who worked there.
They graduated from their shotgun
house in Mount Adams and bought a
large Victorian house in nearby Covington,
Kentucky, where they lived for 40 years.
In a 1985 magazine article on their home,
she said that when they saw the house on
a house tour “My husband immediately
thought it was wonderful. I thought it was
a big, ugly monster.” He advises, “You do
it one room at a time. After six, eight, 10
years, you have a wonderful house.”
She notes, “The aesthetic of some
of the houses we’ve lived in made us
collect certain kinds of art.” Their home
in Covington was filled with art of the
period, some of which has found its way
to a special place in their home in Tucson.
The “Salon des Refusés” is a wonderful
Chinese red lacquered powder room off
the entry. Among other things, it houses
a gilt Chippendale mirror, two Goya
etchings, a Picasso, two Taos paintings
by Joseph Henry Sharp, a Worthington
Whittredge and a Thomas Cole. She
explained that it took her husband six or
seven hours to arrange and hang all the
art in the small room.
The collection of primarily contemporary
art contrasts with a large collection of
African art in their study. That collection
is complemented by an extraordinary
sculpture by Anna Hyatt Huntington
(1876-1973) and a small Head of Balzac by
Auguste Rodin (1840-1917).
She explains, “We went to a show of
African art at Closson’s, a furniture,
interiors and art store in Cincinnatti. A
dealer was selling a large collection of
African art he had purchased in the ’70s.
We bought a few things and eventually
began buying more. We went to Closson’s
almost every Saturday to look at their
model rooms and to look through their art.
We almost starved to death, but we always
paid cash.”
She continues, “In the ’90s, my husband
had friends who were art dealers. They
told him about a company that had put
together a collection of contemporary art
with the help of Marlborough Gallery in
New York. The new owners didn’t want the
collection and it was being sold. We walked
into the offices and there was fabulous art
everywhere. We bought three Auerbachs,
the Katz, a Larry Rivers.”
He notes that they have donated about
25 percent of their collection to the Miami
University Art Museum and have been able
to take advantage of the tax benefits of its34