Samuel A. Marx and Florene May Schoenborn

Samuel A. Marx and Florene May Schoenborn were collectors of European modern art, particularly Cubism, based in Chicago and New York. At its peak, their collection included at least forty-five paintings and twelve sculptures made between 1906 and 1949, by such artists as Pierre Bonnard, Georges Braque, Giorgio de Chirico, Jean Dubuffet, Juan Gris, Fernand Léger, Henri Matisse, Joan Miró, Amedeo Modigliani, Pablo Picasso, and Georges Rouault, among others. Between 1948 and 1996, the couple made a series of donations to art museums, ultimately dispersing their collection to four public institutions: the Art Institute of Chicago, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, The Museum of Modern Art, and the St. Louis Art Museum.

Marx studied architecture at Massachusetts Institute of Technology. After graduating in 1907, he spent a year and a half in Europe pursuing further training before returning to the United States, where he worked for a brief period in a Boston architecture firm before settling in Chicago. Marx soon started his own successful architecture practice and became well known for his distinctive interior designs. Schoenborn was born in Denver; her father was David May Sr., the founder of the May Department Stores. The couple met in Chicago and married in the spring of 1937. In 1939 they started building a modern art collection, filling the walls of their apartment designed by Marx at 1325 North Astor Street on Chicago’s Gold Coast. That year, they made their first purchase at San Francisco’s Golden Gate Exposition—Georges Braque’s La Nappe Jeune (The Yellow Tablecloth, 1935; private collection, Maeght cat. no. 109).

Consulting with curators such as Alfred H. Barr Jr. of The Museum of Modern Art, the couple became avid collectors and continued acquiring new works for another two decades through New York-based galleries and dealers such as M. Knoedler & Co, Pierre Matisse, Paul Rosenberg, and Justin K. Thannhauser, as well as directly from artists. After World War II, Marx and Schoenborn travelled regularly to Europe, staying for periods in London, Paris, and Venice, during which time they continued to build their collection. During this time they purchased Picasso’s Woman with Pears (1909; The Museum of Modern Art, New York) from Paris-based dealer Heinz Berggruen. By 1965, the collection boasted a significant group of paintings by Matisse, including The Moroccans (1915; The Museum of Modern Art, New York) and Woman on a High Stool (Germaine Raynal) (1914; The Museum of Modern Art, New York), in addition to Bonnard’s The Bathroom (1932; The Museum of Modern Art, New York); Constantin Brancusi’s Bird in Space (1923; The Metropolitan Museum of Art); six paintings by Braque, including Woman Seated at an Easel (1936; The Metropolitan Museum of Art) and Seated Nude (1926; Art Institute of Chicago); de Chirico’s Ariadne (1913; The Metropolitan Museum of Art); Gris’s Violin and Playing Cards on a Table (1913; The Metropolitan Museum of Art); Léger’s Woman with a Cat (1921; The Metropolitan Museum of Art); Miró’s Dutch Interior (III) (1928; The Metropolitan Museum of Art); fourteen paintings and at least one sculpture by Picasso, Head of a Woman (1909; The Metropolitan Museum of Art); and Chaim Soutine’s Man in a Green Coat (1921; The Museum of Modern Art, New York); among many others.

Beyond their collecting activities, both Marx and Schoenborn were involved in several arts institutions. Marx was a trustee of the Art Institute of Chicago from 1952 to 1964, while Schoenborn was a trustee of the Museum of Modern Art and a founding member of its International Council. After 1948, Schoenborn and Marx donated several works to the Art Institute of Chicago and the St. Louis Art Museum. Marx died in 1964; Schoenborn bequeathed most of the collection to The Metropolitan Museum of Art and The Museum of Modern Art in 1995.