Date: Fri 25-Jun-1999

Publication: Ant

Author: SHANNO

Quick Words:

Robb-Whitney-Museum-Folk-Art

Full Text:

Folk Art Museum Received Gift Of Whitney's Baseball Player

(with cut)

NEW YORK CITY -- The Museum of American Folk Art has hit a home run. Its

permanent collection now includes the "Baseball Player," 1888-1903, a major

American sculpture signed by the important New York City trade figure carver

Samuel A. Robb.

Through the generosity of patrons William and Mildred Gladstone, ardent

collectors of art related to baseball and great supporters of the museum, this

outstanding shop figure has been purchased by them from the Whitney.

"This comes at a time of great expansion of the collection as significant

works of art are added through gifts and purchases in anticipation of the

opening of the museum's new building. Thanks to the generosity of our good

friends Bill and Millie Gladstone, this promised gift will delight the public

for generations to come," commented Gerard C. Wertkin, director.

Nearly 20 years ago the Whitney Museum redefined its collecting mission to

focus exclusively on Twentieth Century work. Since then, the Whitney has

deaccessioned those works prior to 1900 that did not contribute directly to

the presentation and understanding of its Twentieth Century collection.

Once part of the highly regarded Haffenreffer Collection, the "Baseball

Player" is a work that has always been of great interest to the Museum of

American Folk Art. Although it has been illustrated in several authoritative

publications on American folk sculpture, including books by Frederick Fried,

Robert Bishop, and Jean Lipman, it has only been exhibited twice, the first

time in 1978-9 in the Whitney's "Introduction to 20th Century American Art:

Selections from the Permanent Collection," and in 1986 in "Young America: A

Folk-Art History," an exhibition organized by the Museum of American Folk Art

for presentation at the IBM Gallery.

The jaunty 76 inch tall mustachioed figure will be the centerpiece of a

baseball exhibition planned as one of the inaugural shows in the museum's new

building on West 53rd Street.

In addition to their collection of baseball related folk art, paintings,

sculpture and other objects, Bill Gladstone is president and principal owner

of a minor league Single A team, the Pittsfield (Massachusetts) Mets, of the

New York-Penn League. A retired co-chief executive of Ernst & Young, he is a

member of the board of directors of the National Baseball Hall of Fame in

Cooperstown.

Millie Gladstone has been a Museum of American Folk Art docent and gift shop

volunteer for many years.