Art collector donates 70 works for exhibition at the Hunterian
A WELL-KNOWN art collector whose distinguished career included a stay with the Van Gogh family in Holland has donated more than 70 works to a city gallery.
Phillip A Bruno, who played a pivotal role in the New York art scene for 60 years, has presented the collection to Glasgow University’s Hunterian Art Gallery.
A Gift to Glasgow from New York: The Phillip A Bruno Collection, which opens tomorrow, includes a range of paintings, sculptures, drawings and prints formed in New York over a period of seven decades.
It features American artists such as William Dole, Lee Gatch, Red Grooms, David Levine, Leroy Lamis, Robert Andrew Parker and Tom Otterness, as well as international figures such as the Mexican painter José Luis Cuevas and the Japanese sculptor Masayuki Nagare.
Phillip spent the majority of his illustrious career as co-director of the Staempfli Gallery, and later, the Marlborough Gallery, both important venues for contemporary art.
He was born in Paris and studied art history and architecture at Columbia.
His career in the arts began after encountering Vincent van Gogh’s paintings at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York in 1948 and he went on to develop a relationship with the van Gogh family, staying with them in 1950. He was also acquainted with Henri Matisse, Alberto Giacometti, and other prominent artists.
This is the first part of the Bruno collection to go on display at The Hunterian. A second selection will be on show in early 2020.
Hunterian Director Steph Scholten said: “Phillip A Bruno played a pivotal role in the New York art world for 60 years 1950-2010, working with some of the most important artists, collectors and museum directors of the period.
“The collection provides a
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Phillip said: “I am so looking forward to seeing my gifts on a Scottish wall!”
A Gift to Glasgow from New York: The Phillip A. Bruno Collection is at the Hunterian Art Gallery until January 12.