Eugene Victor Thaw (October 27, 1927 – January 3, 2018) was an American art dealer and collector. He was the owner of an art gallery on Madison Avenue in Manhattan, and a past president of the Art Dealers Association of America. With his wife, Clare, he donated over 1,000 works of art to the

Fenimore Art Museum The Fenimore Art Museum (formerly known as New York State Historical Association) is a museum located in Cooperstown, New York on the west side of Otsego Lake. Collection strengths include the Eugene and Clare Thaw Collection of American Indian ...

and the Morgan Library & Museum.

Early life

Thaw was born on October 27, 1927, in Washington Heights, Manhattan, New York City. His father was a heating contractor and his mother a schoolteacher. Thaw was educated at the

DeWitt Clinton High School , motto_translation = Without Work Nothing Is Accomplished , image = DeWitt Clinton High School front entrance IMG 7441 HLG.jpg , seal_image = File:Clinton News.JPG , seal_size = 124px , ...

Brooklyn Brooklyn () is a borough of New York City, coextensive with Kings County, in the U.S. state of New York. Kings County is the most populous county in the State of New York, and the second-most densely populated county in the United States, be ...

and St. John's College in Annapolis.

Career

Thaw opened an art gallery and bookstore on West 44th Street at the

Algonquin Hotel The Algonquin Hotel is a hotel at 59 West 44th Street in Midtown Manhattan, New York City, United States. The 181-room hotel, opened in 1902, was designed by architect Goldwin Starrett for the Puritan Realty Company. The hotel has hosted numer ...

in 1950. He moved the gallery to Madison Avenue in 1954, He sold artwork to private collectors like Paul Mellon and

Norton Simon Norton Winfred Simon (February 5, 1907 – June 2, 1993) was an American industrialist and philanthropist. He was at one time one of the wealthiest men in America. At the time of his death, he had amassed a net worth of nearly US$10 billion. ...

as well as institutions like the Art Institute of Chicago, the

Cleveland Museum of Art The Cleveland Museum of Art (CMA) is an art museum in Cleveland, Ohio, located in the Wade Park District, in the University Circle neighborhood on the city's east side. Internationally renowned for its substantial holdings of Asian and Egyptian ...

, the National Gallery of Art. Thaw was a co-founder of the

Art Dealers Association of America Art is a diverse range of human activity, and resulting product, that involves creative or imaginative talent expressive of technical proficiency, beauty, emotional power, or conceptual ideas. There is no generally agreed definition of wha ...

in 1962, and he served as its president from 1970 to 1972. He was an honorary trustee of the

Metropolitan Museum of Art The Metropolitan Museum of Art of New York City, colloquially "the Met", is the largest art museum in the Americas. Its permanent collection contains over two million works, divided among 17 curatorial departments. The main building at 1000 ...

. Thaw was also an art collector. Thaw's collection included drawings from modern and old masters, American Indian art, ancient Eurasian bronzes, early medieval jewelry, Native American art, architectural models, and eighteenth- and nineteenth-century oil sketches, French faience, in addition to paintings, sculpture, and furniture. He was the owner of drawings and paintings by

Paul Cézanne Paul Cézanne ( , , ; ; 19 January 1839 – 22 October 1906) was a French artist and Post-Impressionist painter whose work laid the foundations of the transition from the 19th-century conception of artistic endeavour to a new and radically d ...

Joseph Cornell Joseph Cornell (December 24, 1903 – December 29, 1972) was an American visual artist and film-maker, one of the pioneers and most celebrated exponents of assemblage. Influenced by the Surrealists, he was also an avant-garde experimental filmm ...

Salvador Dalí Salvador Domingo Felipe Jacinto Dalí i Domènech, Marquess of Dalí of Púbol (; ; ; 11 May 190423 January 1989) was a Spanish surrealist artist renowned for his technical skill, precise draftsmanship, and the striking and bizarre images in ...

Honoré Daumier Honoré-Victorin Daumier (; February 26, 1808February 10, 1879) was a French painter, sculptor, and printmaker, whose many works offer commentary on the social and political life in France, from the Revolution of 1830 to the fall of the second N ...

, Edgar Degas,

Eugène Delacroix Ferdinand Victor Eugène Delacroix ( , ; 26 April 1798 – 13 August 1863) was a French Romantic artist regarded from the outset of his career as the leader of the French Romantic school.Noon, Patrick, et al., ''Crossing the Channel: Britis ...

Jean-Honoré Fragonard Jean-Honoré Fragonard (; 5 April 1732 (birth/baptism certificate) – 22 August 1806) was a French painter and printmaker whose late Rococo manner was distinguished by remarkable facility, exuberance, and hedonism. One of the most prolific art ...

, Alberto Giacometti,

Vincent van Gogh Vincent Willem van Gogh (; 30 March 185329 July 1890) was a Dutch Post-Impressionist painter who posthumously became one of the most famous and influential figures in Western art history. In a decade, he created about 2,100 artworks, inc ...

Francisco Goya Francisco José de Goya y Lucientes (; ; 30 March 174616 April 1828) was a Spanish romantic painter and printmaker. He is considered the most important Spanish artist of the late 18th and early 19th centuries. His paintings, drawings, and e ...

Lee Krasner Lenore "Lee" Krasner (born Lena Krassner; October 27, 1908 – June 19, 1984) was an American abstract expressionist painter, with a strong speciality in collage. She was married to Jackson Pollock. Although there was much cross-pollination be ...

Georgia O'Keeffe Georgia Totto O'Keeffe (November 15, 1887 – March 6, 1986) was an American modernist artist. She was known for her paintings of enlarged flowers, New York skyscrapers, and New Mexico landscapes. O'Keeffe has been called the "Mother of Ame ...

Pablo Picasso Pablo Ruiz Picasso (25 October 1881 – 8 April 1973) was a Spanish painter, sculptor, printmaker, ceramicist and Scenic design, theatre designer who spent most of his adult life in France. One of the most influential artists of the 20th ce ...

, and

Jackson Pollock Paul Jackson Pollock (; January 28, 1912August 11, 1956) was an American painter and a major figure in the abstract expressionist movement. He was widely noticed for his " drip technique" of pouring or splashing liquid household paint onto a hor ...

, Odilon Redon, Rembrandt, as well as

Native American art Visual arts by indigenous peoples of the Americas encompasses the visual artistic practices of the indigenous peoples of the Americas from ancient times to the present. These include works from South America and North America, which includes ...

. With his wife, he donated 870 art pieces to the

. They also donated more than 400 works to the Morgan Library & Museum. In 1985 and 1986 a group of small format paintings from the Thaw collection was exhibited at The Pierpont Morgan Library and the

Virginia Museum of Fine Arts The Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, or VMFA, is an art museum in Richmond, Virginia, United States, which opened in 1936. The museum is owned and operated by the Commonwealth of Virginia. Private donations, endowments, and funds are used for the s ...

alongside drawings, bronzes, objets de vertu and

faience Faience or faïence (; ) is the general English language term for fine tin-glazed pottery. The invention of a white pottery glaze suitable for painted decoration, by the addition of an oxide of tin to the slip of a lead glaze, was a major a ...

, to present an idea of their additional interests as collectors. In 2008, The

Cooper Hewitt National Design Museum Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum is a design museum housed within the Andrew Carnegie Mansion in Manhattan, New York City, along the Upper East Side's Museum Mile. It is one of 19 museums that fall under the wing of the Smithsonian Ins ...

held an exhibition titled "House Proud", that commemorated a substantial gift made by Eugene and Clare Thaw of eighty five nineteenth-century exquisitely detailed watercolors of domestic interiors, the largest collection of this subject matter in America. The selection was ultimately shown in Paris at

Musée de la Vie romantique The Musée de la Vie romantique (Museum of Romantic Life, or ''Museum of the Romantics'') stands at the foot of Montmartre hill in the 9th arrondissement of Paris, 16 rue Chaptal, Paris, France in an 1830 ''hôtel particulier'' facing two twin-stu ...

in 2012-2013. The Pierpont Morgan Library published a collection of his articles as ''Reflections of an Independent Mind'' in 1997. The book predominantly contains

book review __NOTOC__ A book review is a form of literary criticism in which a book is merely described (summary review) or analyzed based on content, style, and merit. A book review may be a primary source, opinion piece, summary review or scholarly revie ...

s from 1980 to 1995 (including a very negative review of Suzi Gablik's ''Has Modernism Failed?''), but also articles on collecting (1977-1995), museums and auction houses (1977-1990), and essays on Vincent Van Gogh (1980, 1984), Paul Cézanne (1984), Edgar Degas (1985), John Cheever (1982), Ralph F. Colin (1985),

Pierre Matisse Pierre Matisse (June 13, 1900 – August 10, 1989) was a French-American art dealer active in New York City. He was the youngest child of French painter Henri Matisse. Background and early years Pierre Matisse was born in Bohain-en-Vermandois on ...

(1989),

János Scholz János Scholz (December 20, 1903 – June 3, 1993) was a Hungarian-born American cellist and art collector. Early life Scholz was born in 1903 in Sopron, Hungary. He graduated from the Franz Liszt Academy of Music in Budapest. Career Scholz ...

(1993, 1995),

John Rewald John Rewald (May 12, 1912 – February 2, 1994) was an American academic, author and art historian. He was known as a scholar of Impressionism, Post-Impressionism, Cézanne, Renoir, Pissarro, Seurat, and other French painters of the late 19th c ...

(1994), and Lore Heinemann (1997). These articles originally appeared in periodicals such as ''

The New Republic ''The New Republic'' is an American magazine of commentary on politics, contemporary culture, and the arts. Founded in 1914 by several leaders of the progressive movement, it attempted to find a balance between "a liberalism centered in hu ...

'', ''

The New York Review of Books ''The New York Review of Books'' (or ''NYREV'' or ''NYRB'') is a semi-monthly magazine with articles on literature, culture, economics, science and current affairs. Published in New York City, it is inspired by the idea that the discussion of i ...

'', ''

The New York Times Book Review ''The New York Times Book Review'' (''NYTBR'') is a weekly paper-magazine supplement to the Sunday edition of ''The New York Times'' in which current non-fiction and fiction books are reviewed. It is one of the most influential and widely rea ...

'', ''

The Times ''The Times'' is a British daily national newspaper based in London. It began in 1785 under the title ''The Daily Universal Register'', adopting its current name on 1 January 1788. ''The Times'' and its sister paper '' The Sunday Times'' (f ...

'', ''

The Spectator ''The Spectator'' is a weekly British magazine on politics, culture, and current affairs. It was first published in July 1828, making it the oldest surviving weekly magazine in the world. It is owned by Frederick Barclay, who also owns ''The ...

'', ''

The New Criterion ''The'' () is a grammatical article in English, denoting persons or things already mentioned, under discussion, implied or otherwise presumed familiar to listeners, readers, or speakers. It is the definite article in English. ''The'' is the m ...

'', ''

Heritage Heritage may refer to: History and society * A heritage asset is a preexisting thing of value today ** Cultural heritage is created by humans ** Natural heritage is not * Heritage language Biology * Heredity, biological inheritance of physica ...

'', ''

ARTnews ''ARTnews'' is an American visual-arts magazine, based in New York City. It covers art from ancient to contemporary times. ARTnews is the oldest and most widely distributed art magazine in the world. It has a readership of 180,000 in 124 countr ...

'', and ''

The American Scholar "The American Scholar" was a speech given by Ralph Waldo Emerson on August 31, 1837, to the Phi Beta Kappa Society of Harvard College at the First Parish in Cambridge in Cambridge, Massachusetts. He was invited to speak in recognition of his gro ...

'', as well as book editions of art works in his collection.

Personal life and death

Thaw married Clare Eddy in 1954. They resided in

Cherry Valley, New York Cherry Valley is a town in Otsego County, New York, United States. According to the 2020 US census, the village of Cherry Valley had a population of 487. However, the town has a much higher population. Within the town of Cherry Valley is a vill ...

and

Park Avenue Park Avenue is a wide New York City boulevard which carries north and southbound traffic in the boroughs of Manhattan and the Bronx. For most of the road's length in Manhattan, it runs parallel to Madison Avenue to the west and Lexington Av ...

, as well as in Santa Fe, New Mexico from 1987 to 2013. They had a son, Nicholas. Thaw was predeceased by his wife in June 2017. Thaw died on January 3, 2018, in Cherry Valley, at age 90. Two hundred of his works were auctioned by Christie's on October 30, 2018.

Nazi-era restitution claims

In 2021 the estate of Eugene Thaw reached a settlement agreement with the heirs of

Margarete Eisenmann Margarete Eisenmann (1868-1942 in Treblinka concentration camp) was a Jewish art collector who was murdered in the Holocaust Life Eisenmann(1868-1942) was born in Berlin. Her father was de Wilhelm (Wolf) von Ledermann-Wartberg and her mother wa ...

concerning the painting by Lucas Cranach the Elder, ''The Resurrection.'' Eisenmann was deported to Theriesenstandt in September 1942 and killed at the

Treblinka concentration camp Treblinka () was an extermination camp, built and operated by Nazi Germany in occupied Poland during World War II. It was in a forest north-east of Warsaw, south of the village of Treblinka in what is now the Masovian Voivodeship. The camp ...

. Her estate was seized by Nazis and auctioned off. In 1949, the looted Cranach painting resurfaced in a

Sotheby's Sotheby's () is a British-founded American multinational corporation with headquarters in New York City. It is one of the world's largest brokers of fine and decorative art, jewellery, and collectibles. It has 80 locations in 40 countries, an ...

sale in London, where it had been consigned by dealer Hans W. Lange, whose auction house was known for forced sales of Jewish-owned property. Thaw bought it around 1968 after the Cranach had passed through the hands of New York dealers

Hugo Perls Hugo Perls (24 May 1886–1977 was an international art dealer, historian, philosopher and notable collector born in Rybnik in Upper Silesia. During his lifetime, he witnessed his homeland change from its German origins to Polish. He studied law, p ...

and the

Knoedler gallery M. Knoedler & Co. was an art dealership in New York City founded in 1846. When it closed in 2011, amid lawsuits for fraud, it was one of the oldest art gallery, commercial art galleries in the US, having been in operation for 165 years. History ...

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Thaw, Eugene V. 1927 births 2018 deaths People from Washington Heights, Manhattan People from Cherry Valley, New York People from Santa Fe, New Mexico DeWitt Clinton High School alumni St. John's College (Annapolis/Santa Fe) alumni American art dealers American art collectors