The Collection:
Katherine S. Dreier

The Collection02.28.2025

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.

1. Dreier in Laurel Manor’s elevator designed by Duchamp, Fernand Leger's painting, "Three Women by a Garden", 1913 is installed on the staircase wall center. Constantin Brancusi's "Yellow Bird (L'oiseau d'or)", 1919 is in the far left corner, photographed 1948.
2., Marcel Duchamp's "The Bride Stripped Bare by Her Bachelors, Even (The Large Glass)", 1915-1923 framing a view of the Milford, Connecticut garden.
3. Piet Mondrian, “Tableau I: Lozenge with Four Lines and Gray,” 1926, Oil on canvas.
4. Katherine Dreier and Marcel Duchamp in the living room. Marcel Duchamp's, "Tu m’", 1918 can be seen on the back wall.
5. Katherine Dreier in elevator, peering out from L window
6. Exterior view from Katherine S. Dreier's Milford home, "Laurel Manor", with Brancusi's Leda and trellises.

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

1/5

2/5

3/5

4/5

5/5