A portrait of its collector

There was a fair amount of hype over this show but my initial reaction was one of disappointment. Phillip Bruno’s gift of more than 70 works, representing the important postwar period in American and international art, was condensed to 14 pieces assembled in a small, windowless room at the Hunterian.

What looked to be a Dubuffet was, in fact, an exhibition flyer, albeit signed and dedicated by the artist. Jacques Villon’s Still Life aquatint from 1923, created with Georges Braque, seemed tired and faded. Tom Otterness’s bronze Maquette for Crying Giant (2002) was whimsical and simply stirred memories of that artist’s stunt in 1977 when he tied a dog to a tree and shot it to death, filmed it and called it art.

There’s no doubt that Bruno himself is an engaging character, erudite and full of integrity. His commitment to art, as a dealer and collector, was for all the right reasons. He simply believed that artists should be supported. He played an important part in the Manhattan art scene for several decades when running galleries. In 1955, as a 25-year-old in Paris, the city of his birth, he organised a show by the Mexican José Luis Cuevas.

Two of Cuevas’s ink drawings are here: Portrait of David Siqueiros (1953) and Seated Child (1954). The former has a dedication from the painter to Bruno and the latter was given in memory of Bruno’s father. It’s at this point that the collection begins to make sense: almost all the works have a personal connection to Bruno himself and they can be read as a kind of visual autobiography and memoir. Despite (or because of) its eclecticism, the collection, though uneven, is a welcome gift.

Until January 12, 2020