Page 48 - 2021 April 1, ART OF THE ISLAMIC AND Indian Worlds Including Oriental Rugs, Christie's London

PROPERTY FROM THE COLLECTION OF BONNET HOUSE MUSEUM & GARDENS

Frederic Clay Bartlett’s studio
This magnificent Qajar painting has hung for almost a century at Bonnet House in the studio of Frederic Clay Bartlett (1873-
1953), a Chicago born artist and collector. Frederic graduated from Munich’s prestigious Royal Academy in 1895, and returned
to a prolific and prosperous career in the United States. He worked on mural projects in conjunction with American architects
and his easel work remains on permanent display in American museums including the Carnegie Institute and the Art Institute of
Chicago. He was also was committed to promoting the work of fellow contemporary artists and was a founding member of the
Arts Club of Chicago, a pioneering organisation dedicated to the advancement of Modern Art.
Frederic built Bonnet House, a plantation-style home, in 1920 on South Florida oceanfront land which was given to him and
his second wife, Helen Louise Birch, as a wedding present by her father Hugh Taylor Birch, a prominent Chicago attorney, real
estate investor and naturalist. Frederic and Helen led a cosmopolitan lifestyle, travelling regularly to Europe where they acquired
a collection of French Impressionist and Modern art including works by André Derain, André Dunoyer de Segonzac, André
Lhôte, Amedeo Modigliani, Henri Matisse and Georges Seurat. When Helen died in 1925, Frederic presented their impressive
collection to the Art Institute of Chicago in honour of his wife – a portion of the Helen Birch Bartlett Memorial Collection has been
permanently displayed in the museum ever since. When the collection was unveiled, soon after Helen’s death, one newspaper
called it “the best and most representative collection in the United States, if not in all Europe” (Art Institute of Chicago Museum
Studies, vol.12, no.2, The Helen Birch Bartlett Memorial Collection, 1986, p.94)
After Helen’s death, Frederic’s visits to Bonnet House became more sporadic until 1931 when he married Evelyn Fortune Lilly,
also an artist (1887-1997). Together they embellished Bonnet House with the decorative elements that delight visitors to this
day. Frederic died in 1953, but Evelyn continued to return each winter. In 1983, Evelyn gave Bonnet House to the Florida trust for
Historic Preservation. Her contribution – at the time, the largest charitable gift in Florida history – ensured that the site would be
preserved for the enjoyment and education of future generations.
In 1902, when Frederic was barely thirty, he was asked by a reporter whether he should be called an artist or a collector. His
response was “I am a collector. It is a habit –a disease with me. I cannot help buying curios, antiquities, and works of art, even when
I have no place to put them…I store some, I weed out about half in favour of better pieces. I exchange, I sift, I sell and then –well
then I go to work and collect more” (Art Institute of Chicago Museum Studies, op.cit.,p.85). We do not have the precise details of
Frederic’s acquisition of this important painting, although museum records suggest it was purchased at auction in New York
before 1920. Perhaps it was his interest in the art of the mural that originally drew him to it, but whatever the reason it was clearly
the case that this was a work that meant something to him. It was not one that he ‘weeded out’ but one that sat in pride of place in
his studio for the rest of his life.

Frederic Clay Bartlett and his second wife,
Helen Birch Bartlett
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