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As part of her patronage, she contributed financially to Davies’ now-famous Armory show of 1913 and was one of many art collectors who loaned
her own works to the show. Bliss also bought around 10 works at the Armory Show, including works by Renoir, Cézanne, Redon, and Degas.
After Davies died in 1928, Bliss and two other art collectors, Abby Aldrich Rockefeller and Mary Quinn Sullivan, decided to establish an
institution dedicated to modern art.
In 1931 Lillie P. Bliss died, two years after the opening of the Museum of Modern Art. As part of her will, Bliss left 116 works to the museum,
forming the foundation of the art collection for the museum. She left an exciting clause in her will, giving the museum the freedom to keep the
collection active, stating that the museum was free to exchange or sell works if they proved vital to the collection. This stipulation allowed for many
important purchases for the museum, particularly the famous Starry Night by van Gogh.

Dolores Olmedo: Diego Rivera Enthusiast and Muse

Dolores Olmedo was a fierce self-made Renaissance woman who became a great advocate for the arts in
Mexico. She is best known for her immense collection and friendship with the prominent Mexican muralist,
Diego Rivera.
Along with meeting Diego Rivera at a young age, her Renaissance education and the patriotism instilled
in young Mexicans after the Mexican Revolution greatly influenced her collecting tastes. This sense of
patriotism at an early age was probably her initial motivation to collect Mexican art and later advocate for
Mexican cultural heritage, as opposed to the selling of Mexican art abroad.
Rivera and Olmedo met when she was around 17 when she and her mother were visiting the Ministry of
Education while Rivera was there after being commissioned to paint a mural. Diego Rivera, already an
established 20th-century artist, asked her mother to allow him to paint her daughter’s portrait.
Olmedo and Rivera maintained a close relationship throughout the rest of his lifetime, with Olmedo
appearing in several of his paintings. In the last years of the artist’s life, he lived with Olmedo, painting several
more portraits for her, and made Olmedo the sole administrator of both his wife and fellow artist’s estate,
Frida Kahlo. They also made plans to establish a museum dedicated to Rivera’s work. Rivera advised her on
which works he wanted her to acquire for the museum, many of which she bought directly from him. With
close to 150 works made by the artist, Olmedo is one of the largest art collectors of Diego Rivera’s artwork.
She also acquired paintings from Diego Rivera’s first wife, Angelina Beloff, and around 25 works of Frida
Kahlo’s. Olmedo continued to acquire artwork and Mexican artifacts until the Museo Dolores Olmedo
opened in 1994. She collected many works of 20th-century art, as well as colonial artwork, folk, modern
and contemporary.

A portrait of Dolores Olmedo titled La Tehuana by Diego Rivera, 1955, in Museo Dolores Olmedo, Mexico City, via Google Arts & Culture

Countess Wilhelmina Von Hallwyl: Collector of Anything and Everything

Outside of the Swedish Royal family, Countess Wilhelmina von Hallwyl amassed the largest private art
collections in Sweden.
Wilhelmina began collecting at an early age with her mother, first acquiring a pair of Japanese bowls. This
purchase started a lifelong passion for collecting Asian art and ceramics, a passion she shared with Sweden’s
Crown Prince Gustav V. The royal family made it fashionable to collect Asian art, and Wilhelmina became
part of a select group of Swedish aristocratic art collectors of Asian art.
Her father, Wilhelm, made his fortune as a timber merchant, and when he died in 1883, he left his entire
fortune to Wilhelmina, making her independently wealthy from her husband, Count Walther von Hallwyl.
The Countess bought well and widely and collected everything from paintings, photographs, silver, rugs,
European ceramics, Asian ceramics, armor, and furniture. Her art collection consists of mainly Swedish,
Dutch, and Flemish Old Masters.
From 1893-98 she built her family’s home in Stockholm, keeping in mind that it would also serve as a
museum to house her collection. She was also a donor to several museums, most notably the Nordic
Museum in Stockholm and the National Museum of Switzerland, after completing archaeological
excavations of her Swiss husband’s ancestral seat of Hallwyl Castle. She donated the archaeological finds
and furnishings of Hallwyl Castle to the National Museum of Switzerland in Zurich, as well as designed the
exhibition space.
By the time she donated her home to the State of Sweden in 1920, a decade before her death, she amassed
around 50,000 objects in her home, with meticulously detailed documentation for each piece. She stipulated
in her will that the house and displays must remain essentially unchanged, giving visitors a glimpse into early
20th-century Swedish nobility.

The Countess by Julius Kronberg, 1895, via Hallwyl Museum Archive, Stockholm

Baroness Hilla Von Rebay: Non-Objective Art’s “It Girl”

Artist, curator, advisor, and art collector, Countess Hilla von Rebay played an essential role in the popularization of abstract art and ensured its
legacy in 20th century art movements.
Born the Hildegard Anna Augusta Elisabeth Freiin Rebay von Ehrenwiesen, known as Hilla von Rebay, she received traditional art training in
Cologne, Paris, and Munich, and began to exhibit her art in 1912. While in Munich, she met artist Hans Arp, who introduced Rebay to modern
artists like Marc Chagall, Paul Klee, and most importantly, Wassily Kandinsky. His 1911 treatise, Concerning the Spiritual in Art, had a lasting
impact on both her art and collecting practices.

26 Journal of Antiques and Collectibles