![\"\"](\"http:\/\/gertrudeandalice.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/06\/coneheads.jpg\" "\\"coneheads\\"")
<\/a>The Cone sisters with brother---NOT!<\/p><\/div>\n
The Cones are hot right now because a number of their paintings are both in THE STEINS COLLECT exhibition at San Francisco’s Museum of Modern Art and also in an exhibition at the Jewish Museum in New York City through September. The title of this post was inspired by the headline of a review of the Jewish Museum show in the Jewish Daily Forward<\/em> :<\/p>\n “Coneheads Conquer New York: A First-Rate Collection by Two Baltimore Sisters Goes on Display”<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n Pollack’s book is a quick read, written in a conversational style as if she’s sitting in one’s living room, sipping a glass of sherry and telling you all that she’s heard about those rich and eccentric Cone sisters who somehow become possessed by that other rich and eccentric Baltimore family, the Steins. You know those Steins who have been buying these outrageous paintings in Paris – an obsession that the Cones soon embraced, ultimately \u00a0far outspending the Steins and even acquiring works from the Stein collections.<\/p>\n Claribel (1eft) and Etta (right) with a portion of the tricycle of Sarah and Michael Stein's grandson, Daniel (circa mid 1920s)<\/p><\/div>\n The Cones were much wealthier than the Steins acquiring most of their money from the Cone Mills, one of the countries primary textile manufacturers with a focus on denim. Sales really boomed during World War I as they were a major supplier for the U.S. Army.<\/p>\n The mill’s legacy is carried on today and is represented by a very slick, stylish website:<\/p>\n http:\/\/www.conedenim.com<\/a><\/p>\n Though the two sisters were inseparable in their later years, ClaribelandEtta, much like GertrudeandAlice,\u00a0 Pollack\u2019s biography chronicles their lives as very independent women.\u00a0 Claribel initially made her mark as a physician at a time when there were few women admitted to medical schools, while Etta, who often assumed the role of housekeeper, could also be said to be the initiator of the Cone\u2019s art collecting.<\/p>\n One of Etta's first purchases-Robinson's "Mother and Child"<\/p><\/div>\n In 1896, Etta was given $500 by her older brother Moses to purchase whatever she wanted to make their home more beautiful.\u00a0 Etta decided to spend the money on four paintings by an American artist, Theodore Robinson, whose work she had seen in a museum a few months earlier. It was also a young Etta who learned about European art under the mentorship of Leo Stein during her first trips to Europe with some of her girlfriends.<\/p>\n It would be ten years later that Etta bought her first Picassos, a watercolor and an etching,\u00a0 for $20, while visiting his studio with Gertrude who was sitting for the famous 1906 portrait. \u00a0Claribel met Picasso a few weeks later and Etta bought\u00a0 an additional eleven drawings and seven etchings for about $2 apiece!\u00a0 (It was also during these pre-Alice days that Etta was typing the manuscript for Gertrude\u2019s book THREE LIVES<\/strong>.)<\/p>\n The sisters had met Matisse a few months earlier at Michael and Sarah Stein\u2019s home in Paris and\u00a0 by the fall of 1906, Etta had bought her first Matisse oil, Yellow Pottery from Provence.<\/em> Purchases continued throughout the years, but not only paintings. Lace, antique furniture, and 15th<\/sup> and 16th<\/sup> century Italian fabrics joined their shopping lists on European travels. By the end of the first World War, the sisters had decided that their acquisitions warranted the establishing of a museum, which they did in their Baltimore apartments!<\/p>\n Matisse's "Yellow Pottery from Provence"<\/p><\/div>\n The collecting craze also prompted Gertrude to write a letter to Etta in 1924, which may have permanently strained their more than three decade long friendship. Gertrude had heard that there was a market for writers\u2019 manuscripts, the one from Joyce\u2019s Ulysses<\/em> had sold for a sizeable amount, so she wrote Etta a letter:<\/p>\n \u201cIt seems that the latest passion of the art collectors in America is the buying of manuscripts\u2026Someone has suggested my selling the manuscript of THREE LIVES<\/strong> for a thousand dollars, I don\u2019t suppose you want to pay any such price for a manuscript but since you had a connection with that manuscript I want to tell you about it before I consider doing anything\u2026\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n <\/em><\/p>\n <\/em><\/p>\n <\/p>\n a later Modern Library edition, the manuscript no where in sight!<\/p><\/div>\n <\/em><\/p>\n <\/em><\/p>\n <\/p>\n Etta replied diplomatically:<\/p>\n \u201cI do appreciate your kind thought of me in realizing my personal pride and interest in your THREE LIVES<\/strong>.<\/em><\/p>\n <\/em><\/p>\n I simply have to face the truth and that is, I am seriously considering putting all of my income in a Renoir painting.\u00a0 This, and other expenses somewhat heavier than usual are handicapping me a bit this year.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n Whether Etta truly felt insulted by Gertrude\u2019s chutzpah to offer the manuscript that she had spent hours typing as an appropriate addition to the Cone collection isn\u2019t totally clear, however, this incident was repeatedly recounted by Etta to friends over the years.<\/p>\n By the time the sisters died, Claribel in 1929 and Etta\u00a0 twenty years later, their home-museum was worthy of a regular art museum. Their extraordinary collection of Matisses and Picassos as well as \u00a0other works including their two most expensive purchases, Cezanne\u2019s\u00a0 Mont Ste. Victoire<\/em> for which Claribel had paid $18,000 and Gauguin\u2019s Woman with Mango,<\/em> Etta\u2019s $15,000 purchase, were to go to the Baltimore Museum of Art \u201cif the spirit of appreciation of modern art should improve\u201d in that city. Apparently it did as the Cone Collection has its own wing at the museum \u00a0and remains a cornerstone of that institution\u2019s art holdings.<\/p>\n Big bucks for Cezanne\u2019s "Mont Ste. Victoire"<\/p><\/div>\n Etta's splurge Gauguin's "Woman with Mango"<\/p><\/div>\n Pollack\u2019s book ends with an anecdote about \u00a0Matisse\u2019s Blue Nude<\/em>, one of the paintings from the Steins that the Cones had purchased. Following Etta\u2019s death, a security guard was hired to watch their apartments because of the value of the collection.\u00a0 At one point a niece of the sisters\u00a0 was showing the guard some of the works and asked him if he wanted to see one of the most puzzling ones, The Blue Nude<\/em>: \u201cHe stood dumb-struck before it and finally muttered. \u201cThey don\u2019t need anybody to guard this place; nobody would steal that picture.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/a><\/a><\/a><\/a><\/a><\/a>