Extensions of the Artist: Lydia Winston Malbin Collects Modern Art

What is a collector’s responsibility to the artwork, to the artist, and to the public? This question drove Lydia Winston Malbin (1897–1989) to become one of her era’s most important and unusual collectors of modern European art. In this lecture, Frances Jacobus-Parker, the Lydia Winston Malbin Scholar of Modern and Contemporary Art at the Yale University Art Gallery, explores Malbin’s trailblazing activities, from organizing exhibitions in her hometown of Detroit to tracking down elusive artists and artworks across Europe. Drawing on Malbin’s remarkable archives, now at the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Yale University (https://archives.yale.edu/repositories/11/resources/1498), it considers what her groundbreaking approach to collecting offers us today. The event includes a conversation with Stephanie Wiles, the Henry J. Heinz II Director of the Gallery.