Lorette

his exhibition represents the first time that selections from the T. Catesby Jones Collections of the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts and the University of Virginia had been shown together since those works were bequeathed to the two institutions in the late 1940s. The bequest was made by T. Catesby Jones, a Virginia native who made a succesful career as a maritime lawyer in New York City until his death in late 1946. In addition to his work in law, he was a progressive collector of early 20th-century painting and sculpture. Jones acquired most of the pieces between 1924 and 1939. Through connections in New York and trips to Paris, he purchased works ranging from paintings by André Lhote, Raoul Dufy, Georges Braque, Jacques Villon, and Maurice de Vlaminck to prints by Marc Chagall and Pablo Picasso and portraits by Henri Matisse and Amedeo Modigliani. In addition to collecting the pieces and lending them to galleries in New York, he also befriended and supported some of the artists, including Jacques Lipchitz and Marc Chagall who came to New York as refugees in the 1940s.Jones began donating works to VMFA in 1941 and with his final bequest in 1947, put VMFA at the forefront of American museums with collections of contemporary European work. Likewise, he directed that the majority of his prints be given to the University of Virginia. People across the Commonwealth will have an opportunity to judge these works for themselves over the next year. After the exhibition leaves Charlottesville on April 24 it will appear at the Museum of the Shenandoah Valley in Winchester where it will be on display from August 25 to November 29, at the William King Regional Arts Center in Abingdon from December 11 to February 21, 2010, and finally at VMFA in Richmond in spring 2010 The book, Matisse, Picasso, and Modern Art in Paris: The T. Catesby Jones Collections at the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts and the University of Virginia Art Museum, published by VMFA and distributed by UVA Press, is available for sale at the UVAM and VMFA gift shops, and by phone at 804.340.1525.