SESSION: Embracing the World: East European Women Art Collectors as Social Influencers (19th-21st Century)

Women art collectors have frequently been overshadowed by their husbands or fathers, with their contributions relegated to a lesser-known aspect of a shared familial pursuit. The proposed session seeks to transcend mere acknowledgement of female contributions to the history of art collecting, which have gained increased recognition in recent decades. We aim to highlight the importance of female collecting as a catalyst in the development of Eastern European societies during the last two centuries. The creation of art collections served as a means for Eastern European elites to interact and synchronise with the culture, lifestyle, and values of their Western counterparts, particularly from the 19th century onwards. What is the role of women in this process? What was the impact of female agency on the establishment of family and personal collections? What drove them, what were their standards, and how aware were they of the importance of their endeavours? We aim to examine the social influence of these women, who, in European countries oscillating between modernity and traditionalism and thereafter governed by authoritarian and isolationist political regimes, have altered perspectives and fostered novel kinds of cultural consumption.

The session will feature a documentary video screening that includes interviews with prominent women collectors in Romania nowadays. The film serves as the initial framework for the debate. Additionally, individual presentations will focus on the historical instances of women from Eastern Europe who curated private art collections during the 19th and 20th centuries.

Session Convenors:

Ioana Ciocan, University of Bucharest

Daniela Zaharia, University of Bucharest

Speakers:

Miłosz Kargol, Jagiellonian University in Kraków); The Princes Czartoryski Museum (National Museum in Kraków)

Dux femina facti – Princess Izabela Czartoryska (1745–1835) as a collector, dreamer, and founder of the first Polish museum (Online)

Princess Izabela Czartoryska, née Flemming (1746–1835), was one of the most important figures of the Polish Enlightenment and a pioneer of museology in Poland. Her collecting activity began in the late 1780s, when she began gathering historical mementoes related to the history of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth and its heroes. At first, this initiative had a sentimental and patriotic character, but it soon evolved into a conscious project aimed at preserving the national heritage. The tragic political events: the second and third partitions of Poland and the fall of the Kościuszko Insurrection, gave her undertaking a profound patriotic and moral dimension. In the face of the loss of statehood, the princess resolved to preserve the memory of the nation’s past in material form. In 1801, the Temple of the Sibyl was opened in Puławy, regarded as the first Polish museum. Its motto, The Past for the Future, symbolically expressed the idea of linking history with the hope for the rebirth of the homeland. The collection included relics of monarchs and military leaders, forming a kind of pantheon of national memory. A few years later, in 1809, the Gothic House was built, a second museum building inspired by the Romantic fascination with the Middle Ages, chivalry, and Gothic art. There, the princess displayed works related to European culture and art in the broadest sense, such as Shakespeare’s chair and numerous other memorabilia. Izabela Czartoryska’s activity represented an innovative, Europe-wide attempt to combine collecting, patriotism, and education.

Aušra Vasiliauskienė, Vytautas Magnus University (Lithuania)

Countess Maria Tyzenhauz-Przeździecka (1823–1890) as an artist and patroness

The purpose of the paper is to reveal Countess Maria Tyzenhauz-Przeździecka (1823–1890) as a talented artist and an important patroness, a highly educated cultural figure in Lithuania and Poland, both then part of the Russian Empire. Countess M. Tyzenhauz-Przeździecka was a bright and respected figure. She received an excellent upbringing and education in her parents’ home in Postawy, and in 1842, she married the Polish historian, Count Aleksandr Przeździecki. She actively participated in Warsaw’s cultural life and travelled extensively throughout Europe with her family, gaining knowledge and experience. After the death of her husband, the countess devoted herself to patronage and philanthropic activities. Upon inheriting the Rokiškis manor (in Lithuania), she focused on the well-being of her native lands. M. Przeździecka contributed to the construction, reconstruction, and furnishing of many churches. She also established and maintained hospitals, schools, and shelters for the poor. The countess was also gifted in art and initiated several significant publications – gifts to the popes. The countess oversaw the creation of the album “Terra Mariana,” conceived as a gift to Pope Leon XIII. The calligraphic transcription and illustration of the Polish translation of the bull Ineffabilis Deus is one of M. Przeździecka’s most mature works. The research reveals that Countess was a prominent representative of 19th-century aristocracy, a woman whose merits, activities, and talents extended beyond caring for her family to include those beneficial to society.

Ilinca Damian, National Museum of Art of Romania

Subtle Ladies That Shaped Collection Making

This presentation analyzes several women from modern Romania, consorts of famous collectors in pre-war Bucharest, active and influential in the period between the War of Independence and the First World War (1977-1916). Women’s actions and intentions regarding the formation of art collections can be identified in the contributions to the collections of their husbands, as consorts, advisors and sometimes “shadow authors”, due to the specific culture of the era, in which women could not undertake many actions independently. During this period, the first museums in Bucharest were established and there was an obvious trend towards Occidentalizing and importing Western traditions, such as preserving art or collection making. Aside from Queen Elizabeth of Romania, who by her very position is influential in shaping artistic tastes, through her preferences and acquisitions, we will note the actions of woman relatives of influential men, such as Elena Simu, wife of politician Anastase Simu, the sisters Emilia and Zettina Perster-Wirth, married to General Dona, respectively to the historian V. A. Urechia, and, from the younger generation, Emilia Dona, the wife of the doctor Iosif Dona. Unlike other ladies in similar positions, these women have contributions as patrons: they commission portraits from emerging artists, influence the acquisitions of their husbands, contribute with their personal inheritances to acquisitions, donations, artistic scholarships, organize events and even choose to remain in occupied Bucharest during the First World War to protect their art collections.

Jana Farská Hájková, Palacký University (Olomouc) and the Institute of Art History of Czech Academy of Sciences

Collecting Across Borders: Meda Mládek and the Czechoslovak Modernism in the Cold War

During the Cold War, private art collecting often functioned as an alternative form of cultural diplomacy, particularly for exiled intellectuals from Central and Eastern Europe. This paper examines Meda Mládek’s (1919–2022) collecting practice as a case study of how a woman collector helped shape transnational narratives of Czechoslovak modernism. Her first acquisitions of František Kupka’s paintings in 1950s Paris led her to promote him as a key figure of European abstraction, while her encounter with the Czechoslovak art scene in the 1960s developed into a lifelong advocacy for Czech modern art in the USA. Both pursuits culminated in the 1975 Guggenheim exhibitions of Kupka and Jiří Kolář, organized in collaboration with the museum’s Czechoslovak-born director, Thomas Messer—illustrating how exile patronage contributed to the circulation and recognition of postwar art. Mládek also organized numerous other exhibitions and supported artists confined to occupied Czechoslovakia through acquisitions and personal networks. Her involvement in the upper echelons of American society allowed Czech national art to endure and gain visibility beyond political borders. Through biographical and archival analysis—drawing on correspondence, catalogues, personal papers, and press coverage—the paper situates her collecting within the framework of Cold War cultural exchange. A cultural-historical approach connects the individual narrative to broader geopolitical and institutional structures. The paper argues that Mládek’s activities exemplify a distinctly gendered form of cultural agency, in which collecting served both as a private act of preservation and as a public gesture of advocacy.