A Daring Vision: Jewish Collectors and Contemporary Art

Collectors of Jewish-American heritage have long been at the forefront of collecting Modern and Contemporary art. Unsurprisingly, many of these audacious art lovers have also had strong Penn connections, including the Annenberg family and the Lauder family. This conversation between Ruth Fine and Gwendolyn DuBois Shaw examines these histories and the remarkable impact of Jewish collectors on the evolution of the Contemporary art scene since 1905 when Gertrude Stein and her brothers began collecting works by Picasso and Matisse.
A Daring Vision: Jewish Collectors and Contemporary Art is organized in conjunction with the landmark exhibition, , on view at the Arthur Ross Gallery, January 28 to April 12, 2026 and is generously co-sponsored by the Herbert D. Katz Center for Advanced Judaic Studies. Gwendolyn DuBois Shaw is the Inaugural Faculty Director of the Arthur Ross Gallery and the James and Nan Wagner Farquhar Professor of History of Art at the University of Pennsylvania. Ruth Fine, MFA'64, is the former Curator of Special Projects in Modern Art at the National Gallery of Art, Washington DC, where she organized dozens of exhibitions between 1976 and 2012.
This event will take place in the Kleinman Center for Energy Policy Forum located on the 4th floor of the Fisher Fine Arts Library Building. We invite you to view the exhibition in the Arthur Ross Gallery either before or after the conversation and to enjoy a light reception in the main lobby immediately following.

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Host or Publisher Arthur Ross Gallery, University of Pennsylvania