frames

Works by Paul Gauguin, from left: Crouching Tahitian Woman Seen from the Back, c. 1902; The Queen (Te arii vahine), 1896–97; and Breton Girls Dancing, Pont Aven, 1888. All works from the Morgan Library & Museum, Thaw Collection.

“One distinct characteristic of the Thaw Collection is that each work is thoughtfully framed, a practice Thaw began early and continued well after the works he collected were no longer hung on the walls of his home and office but delivered straight to the vaults of the Morgan. For decades, he would choose the appropriate frames and decorative French mats, frequently from Jakob Guttman and Julius Lowy [antique frame dealers] and often at a cost commensurate with the prominence of the drawing—thus ensuring the drawings were presented to their best advantage. For this, Morgan curators and recipients of loans from the Thaw Collection remain profoundly grateful the visual effect is stunning, and the presentation signals the significance of the works to viewers more than a monotonous row of plain, matching standard museum frames ever could. Rarely do museum drawing departments have a budget for period frames, so this investment is something that resides within the collector.”

From Jennifer Tonkovich, “ ‘I can’t create the objects I crave to look at, so I collect them’: Eugene Thaw as a Collector of Master Drawings,” in Drawn to Greatness: Master Drawings from the Thaw Collection, ed. Jennifer Tonkovich (New York: Morgan Library and Museum, 2017), p. 23.