Writer, Kate Walbert: Redon's Silence was a picture that Lillie Bliss bought in 1913 at the Armory Show. And it was a show that the New York Times editorial board wrote could, quote, “disrupt, degrade, if not destroy not only art, but literature and society as well.”
Curator, Romy Silver-Kohn: Modern art, because it was a rejection of the accepted rules of how art had been made in the past, was met with antagonism from day one. It was breaking down society's rules of quality, of beauty.
When the Armory Show opened in 1913, this introduced European modern art to American audiences. Bliss was a major funder of the Armory Show, though she did so anonymously. She visited the exhibition daily, she lent works of art, she purchased works of art from the Armory Show.
Kate Walbert: The Armory Show was really the turning point for her in terms of becoming quite serious about her collection. Bliss faced challenges collecting modern art, but I imagine as a woman, she had to have that backbone to ignore what was the general criticism of the day.
I find Redon's Silence so evocative. It sort of says, keep quiet. In some ways, I think Bliss moved in that silence. But here we are, almost a century later, recognizing all the ways in which her legacy continues.