Page 52 - Studio International - January 1965

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because. quite erroneously, it has been thought pro­
hibitively expensive, has been slighted during recent
years. Until 1956. Mr. Baker had never considered sculp­
ture a possibility, but at that time Richard Bellamy, now
director of the Green Gallery, showed him a small iron
forging by Richard Stankiewicz, for the incredible price
of one hundred twenty-five dollars. That Stankiewicz,
already one of America's ablest younger sculptors,
could still command only such prices seemed at once
unjust and ironic to Baker. He bought the work and.
subsequently, two more by the same artist. More impor­
tant than these specific acquisitions was Baker's
change in attitude: it occurred to him (as it has been
occurring to an increasing number of New York
collectors) that sculpture was not only economically
accessible. but spatially feasible if installed with
intelligence.
While space has been a constant bugbear. Baker has
applied certain practical solutions. Since it is his con­
viction that a collection grows moribund if it is not
continually augmented. ways must be devised to house
it where it is accessible to viewing, but not necessarily
installed. Baker had one room fitted with museum style
racks where works are easily withdrawn and returned
within the most compact possible area. Mr. Baker is
constantly reinstalling his collection. and one senses
his pleasure in rediscovering works that have been put
away for weeks or months. Furthermore. Mr. Baker has
been among the most generous lenders to museum and
university exhibitions. sometimes permitting as many
as eighty of his paintings and sculptures to travel for
extensive periods of time. When I visited him last a few
weeks ago fifty-five paintings. some very large. were
on loan to the Rhode Island School of Design Museum.
I confess that I was conscious of no impoverishment
as I perused the walls.
If Mr. Baker has favoured American art in recent years
it is not. one may be certain. for chauvinistic reasons;
indeed. his collection is rather more international in
flavour than those of most of his New York con­
temporaries. His more or less recent acquisitions include
works from: Austria. Belgium. Germany. Italy, France.
Switzerland. England. Columbia. Scotland. Japan.
Spain, Chile. Canada. Holland. Mexico. Poland. and
Greece. Nonetheless. Americans predominate. parti­
cularly Americans living in the immediate environs of
New York. Apart from the obvious reason of availability
there is another factor involved: Baker particularly
enjoys the act of discovering. Where others have been
content to buy 'names', he has sought out the small
gallery, the unheralded group show. He has climbed
countless stairways to lofts and studios to find further
examples of work by unknowns. He has sought out the
new not for its own sake, but for the joy of discovery.
In a recent catalogue preface he has observed that one
1 approaches a Rembrandt or a Cezanne with certain
Richard Diebenkorn predispositions already present. certain visual references
Girl and Three Coffee Cups, 1957 embedded in the unconscious. In approaching the
59 X 54 in. new the response is fresh. the vision unimpaired.
Historical knowledge. then. is abridged or extended;
2 one's view of the past is broadened to include its
Kurt Schwitters
1887-1947 inheritors. Thus it is natural that a man of sensibility
Poco-Poco. 1947 should be guided by the daily experience of discovery.
Collage 8¼ x 6 in. In this sense New York is Mr. Brown's laboratory, his
personal tabula rasa to be inscribed anew each day.
3 The Richard Brown Baker Collection is. quite
Jack Tworkov
Drawing No. 3958, 1954 unabashedly, a vanguard collection. It is based not on
26½ X 20 in. a World Market Report. but on its owner's taste and
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