Acquisition by the Art Institute of Chicago
When did the Art Institute of Chicago appoint Frederick Bartlett as trustee?
A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte
In 1923, Frederick Bartlett was appointed trustee of the Art Institute of Chicago. He and second wife, Helen Birch Bartlett, loaned their collection of French Post-Impressionist and Modernist art to the museum. It was Mrs. Bartlett who had an interest in French and avant-garde artists and influenced her husband's collecting tastes. "Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte" was purchased on the advice of the Art Institute of Chicago's curatorial staff in 1924. In conceptual artist Don Celender's 1974–5 book "Observation and Scholarship Examination for Art Historians, Museum Directors, Artists, Dealers and Collectors", it is claimed that the Institute paid $24,000.00 for the work). In 1958 the painting was loaned out for the only time – to the Museum of Modern Art in New York City. On April 15, 1958, a fire there, which killed one person on the second floor of the museum, forced the evacuation of the painting which was on a floor above the fire in the Whitney Museum which adjoined MOMA at the time.