The Philadelphia Museum of Art this summer will present “Adventures in Modern Art: The Charles K. Williams II Collection,” an exhibition of approximately 100 paintings, sculptures, watercolors and drawings from the early decades of the Twentieth Century. Organized by Innis Howe Shoemaker, the Audrey and William H. Helfand senior curator of prints, drawings, and photographs, the exhibition will be on view in the Dorrance Galleries July 12⁓eptember 13.
It is drawn from the collection of Charles K. Williams II, a distinguished archeologist and director emeritus of the Corinth excavations of the American School of Classical Studies in Athens.
The collection is marked by a passion for color, strong compositional designs and occasionally eccentric images, with an emphasis upon several favorite artists, among them Joseph Stella, Arthur Dove, Oscar Bluemner and Charles Demuth, each of whom is represented by several examples.
“The remarkable caliber of the works of art in the Williams collection reflects both his distinctive spirit of inquiry and his keen eye for excellence,” the museum’s Interim Chief of Curatorial Affairs Alice Beamesderfer said.
“The museum is honored to present these works together, and we are delighted that the Williams collection will eventually join and greatly enhance the museum’s fine representation of strong currents in American and European modernism.” All of the works in the exhibition are gifts or promised gifts or have been bequeathed to the museum.
Williams began collecting Nineteenth and Twentieth Century American and European prints in the 1980s. In 1990 he began seriously to acquire paintings, sculptures, watercolors and drawings by modern American artists.
In his collector’s statement in the catalog, Williams describes how growing up during the Great Depression allowed him to appreciate the populist messages in the work of Thomas Hart Benton, Ben Shahn, Isabel Bishop and Käthe Kollwitz. He traces the evolution of his collecting sensibilities from an instinctive reaction to the pure beauty of an object to a search for something more essential, or less immediately perceived.
In conjunction with the exhibition, the museum and Yale University Press will publish an illustrated catalog.
The museum is on the Benjamin Franklin Parkway at 26th Street. For information, www.philamuseum.org or 215-763-8100.
