The Art of Acquiring: A Portrait of Etta & Claribel Cone

What the Book Is About

• The book profiles Claribel and Etta Cone, wealthy sisters from Baltimore who, over more than four decades, built an extraordinary collection of modern art through travels to Europe and deep personal involvement with artists and the Paris art world.
• Despite their outwardly conservative Victorian manners, the Cones developed a passionate commitment to avant-garde art that was controversial in its day, acquiring works by artists such as Henri Matisse, Pablo Picasso, Paul Czanne, Edgar Degas, Pierre-Auguste Renoir, and others long before these artists were widely recognized.

Themes and Focus

• Gabriel explores how these two unlikely collectors Claribel trained as a physician and Etta a devoted caregiver and enthusiast came to form a private museum-worthy collection in their Baltimore apartments.
• The narrative places the sisters within the broader cultural and historical context of early modernism, touching on their friendships (including with Gertrude Stein) and their experiences in the vibrant artistic circles of Paris.
• The author also tries to understand what motivated two seemingly conventional women to champion art that was avant-garde and often misunderstood in their own society.

Legacy

• The Cone sisters lifetime of collecting ultimately resulted in one of the most significant modern art collections in the United States. After Ettas death, nearly 3,000 works were bequeathed to the Baltimore Museum of Art, forming the foundation of what is now known as the Cone Collection, valued in the modern era at roughly billions of dollars.

Style and Appeal

• The Art of Acquiring blends biography, art history, and social history, offering both a personal portrait of the Cone sisters and insight into the world of early 20th-century modern art collecting.
• It includes reproduced artwork from the Cone Collection and draws heavily on letters, diaries, and other archival materials to illuminate the sisters lives and personalities.

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