Global InformationOnya La Tour information
Onya La Tour | |
|---|---|
 Onya La Tour in 1963 (age 67) | |
| Born | April 7, 1896 Salem, Indiana |
| Died | June 2, 1976 (aged 80) Greenwood, Indiana |
| Nationality | American |
| Occupation(s) | Art collector and dealer; artists' model. |
| Known for | Advocacy for Modernism |
Onya La Tour (1896–1976) was an American art collector and dealer, artists' model, manager of art galleries in Puerto Rico, New York City, and Indiana, and an advocate for modernism and the appreciation of modern art. In the 1930s to 1960s, La Tour acquired hundreds of paintings and graphic art works by modernist artists, many of whom later became notable.[1][2][3][4] During the Great Depression, she was Director of the Federal Art Gallery in New York City, which supported artists under the auspices of the Work Projects Administration.[1][2] She also operated her own private Onya LaTour Gallery in New York. In 1939, she brought her collection of more than 400 works of art[2] from New York City to the artists colony in rural Brown County, Indiana, where she founded a short-lived Indiana Museum of Modern Art[5] (see #Homes). From 1948 to the 1960s, she designed and built three unusual and creative homes where she displayed her collection, often inviting diverse groups of people to mingle and experience modern art.[6] In 1972, a few years before her death at age 80, she donated over 100 paintings and graphic art works as well as her lifetime collection of papers to the Indianapolis Museum of Art, where an exhibit of selections from her collection took place October–April, 2014.[3][5] La Tour was "a woman of contradiction and mystery, some of which she created herself" and "a woman ahead of her time".[5] "While Onya, strictly speaking, was not an artist, her life was her art."[7]
- ^ a b Norling, Samantha. "Onya La Tour Papers, 1925–1978" (PDF). discovernewfields.org. Indianapolis Museum of Art Archives. Retrieved October 14, 2018. Extent: 13.8 linear feet. Includes a two-page biographical note.
- ^ a b c Cite error: The named reference
1940iuwas invoked but never defined (see the help page). - ^ a b Cite error: The named reference
ksander-pbswas invoked but never defined (see the help page). - ^ "Onya La Tour papers, 1928–1969". www.aaa.si.edu. Smithsonian Institution Archive of American Art. Retrieved October 12, 2018. These are microfilmed copies of documents held by the Indianapolis Museum of Art.
- ^ a b c Onya La Tour Objects Study Materials (Report). Indianapolis Museum of Art. October 12, 2014. A 22-page handout researched by Museum staff, including Anastasia Karpova Tinari and Sue Morreale, and provided by the Museum to accompany the exhibit The Onya La Tour Collection: Modernism in Indiana, organized by Tinari. The first two pages are a biography. Pages 3–22 describe paintings in the exhibit, and the artists who painted them.
- ^ Cite error: The named reference
swainwas invoked but never defined (see the help page). - ^ Edgren, Lee (October 4, 2012). "Frank and Onya's Gifts". INto Art Magazine. Oct–Dec: 32. Retrieved October 12, 2018.