Lillie P. Bliss: Collector, Advocate, and Visionary Benefactor of the Museum of Modern Art (Contextualizing Art Markets)

She helped found MoMA and pioneered the promotion of work of American and French modern artists at the turn of the 20th century, but until now, her life and legacy remain woefully under examined. An early pioneer and patron of French and American modernism, Lillie P.Bliss (1864-1931) was one of three female cofounders of MoMA in 1929, and went on to furnish the museum with one of the finest collections of modern art in the world.Presenting case-studies alongside data-driven analysis drawn from original research into the American art market, this book reconstructs Bliss's influential career in rich and compelling detail.It weaves together extensive archival material related to the art and the artists that Bliss collected and patronised - such as Paul Cezanne, Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Edgar Degas, Georges Seurat, and Odilon Redon - the art market of the time and the evolution of the New York museum ecosystem, and highlights the importance of private collecting in the development of America