Kandinsky & Other Art For $110

In January 1937, Katharine Kuh was fortunate enough to attend an art sale in Chicago where the auctioneer had "no idea what he was doing," as she put it. That day she bought two Kandinskys, two Man Rays, a Gabriele Muenter and a Bonnard lithograph - for a grand total of $110. Rothko, Leger, Brancusi, Mies van der Rohe, Franz Kline, Edward Hopper -- Kuh knew them all. Her insights into their characters are striking. Rothko, she wrote, had thrived on neglect and may have been undermined by success. Hopper told her that he had never tried to paint the American scene: "I'm trying to paint myself," he said. Later, as an art critic, Kuh aroused the fury of President Richard Nixon by branding two Chinese ceramics that his daughter Tricia had loaned to the Museum of Fine Art in Boston as "shoddy little tourist items." Though they were withdrawn, Kuh's income-tax returns were audited for some years "with a ferocity and tenaciousness" more appropriate for the filings of Al Capone. (For full source and article click the Headline). Irish Art