Collection Information

Size: 9.1 linear feet

Summary: Correspondence, exhibition material, photographs, invoices, insurance records, and printed materials relating to the Wasserman's contemporary art collection and building at 180 Beacon St., Boston, Mass., and to the Wasserman family art collection. Reflected to a lesser degree are associations and financial contributions of the Wassermans to Boston area cultural institutions such as Brandeis University, the Fogg Art Museum, and MIT; and Max Wasserman's service on the MIT Art Committee which acquired major outdoor sculptures for the campus.

Among the nearly 140 artists represented in the 180 Beacon St. Collection are: Hannes Beckmann, Jim Dine, Friedel Dzubas, Robert Indiana, Ellsworth Kelly, Gyorgy Kepes, Kenneth Noland, Otto Piene, Larry Rivers, Varujan Boghosian, Louise Nevelson, George Rickey, Al Held, Lucas Samaras, Christo, David Hockney, Roy Lichtenstein, and James Rosenquist.

Biographical/Historical Note

Art collectors; Boston, Mass. Jeanne (1915- ) was a curator; Max (1913-1986), a businessman. The 180 Beacon St. Collection of Contemporary Art was assembled in the 1960s by the Wassermans, with the advice of a committee consisting of Dorothy Miller of the Museum of Modern Art, H. Harvard Arnason of the Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation, curator Sam Hunter, and Jeanne Wasserman, for the 17-storey apartment building built by the Wasserman Development Corporation. The committee's selections were primarily works by living artists done from the late fifties; slightly more than half were American. In 1975, the Development Corp. went bankrupt and the approximately 160 art objects were dispersed, chiefly at auctions. The Wasserman's personal art collection consisted of work by many of the same artists and included as well large-scale outdoor sculpture.

Provenance

Donated 1995-1998 by Jeanne L. Wasserman. Additions are expected.

Restrictions on Access

Use of original papers requires an appointment and is limited to the Archives' Washington, D.C., Research Center. Contact Reference Services for more information.

How to Cite This Collection

Jeanne and Max Wasserman papers, [ca. 1960-1975]. Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution.