The Collector: Nelson Rockefeller

The Collector10.17.2024

In early 1938, Nelson Rockefeller, working with designer Jean-Michel Frank, commissioned Henri Matisse and Fernand Léger to paint murals that would surround the two mantels in the living room of his 810 Fifth Avenue penthouse in Manhattan. Alberto Giacometti was commissioned to make the pair of gilt bronze and iron andirons.

“Matisse did the mural in Paris from full-scale drawings of the fireplace, but Léger came over to New York and actually did the painting in the apartment. I used to watch Léger with fascination as he painted and the details of the mural unfolded,” Rockefeller reflected in “The Nelson A. Rockefeller Collection: Masterpieces of Modern Art” (New York: MoMA, 1978).

Images courtesy of the New York Times, Ezra Stoller/Esto/Courtesy of Rockefeller Foundation; Galerie Gmurzynska; Will Michels/The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston; The Lewis Collection; ©️ 2017 Succession H. Matisse / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York

Image: Henri Matisse, “Le chant” (1938) and Alberto Giacometti, “Pair of Andirons,” designed c. 1933, executed 1939.