The Collector: Katherine S. Dreier

28 February 2025

Katherine S. Dreier’s impact on modern art can’t be overstated. Born in Brooklyn to a family of socially progressive German immigrants, Dreier began her career as a painter of increasingly abstract works. In 1916, she co-founded the Society of Independent Artists alongside Marcel Duchamp, Man Ray, and others. Later, the trio founded the Société Anonyme Inc. to champion and collect avant-garde works. The educational and experimental organization has been described as ”New York's first museum of modern art."

Dreier had long treated her West Redding, Connecticut home as a gallery, hosting avant-garde works like Duchamp’s The Large Glass among floral wallpaper. In the late 1930s, she set out to transform the cottage she called “The Haven” into a proper country museum, merging the Société’s collection with her own. "It would be a wonderful thing to have this house become a Museum," she wrote in a letter to Duchamp, "for it would mean that all the work of Love which I put into it will be preserved."

She sold The Haven in 1942 and moved to a new home, Laurel Manor, in Milford, Connecticut, which included an elevator that Duchamp decorated with trompe l’oeil wallpaper.

All photographs by John Schiff (American, born Germany, 1907–1976). Yale University Art Gallery Purchase, Director's Discretionary Funds.

Image: Dreier and Duchamp in the living room. Duchamp's, "Tu m’" (1918) can be seen on the rear wall.

Authors: Tobias Czudej, Susan McDonough

The Collector

28 February 2025

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