ART REVIEW : Tweed Collection Awaits Rediscovery in Long Beach

Following the lead of industrialistP. Morgan and Henry Frick, Minnesota tycoon George P. Tweed did what every respectable self-made millionaire did in the ‘20s--and still does today: He amassed an impressive cache of art.

From 1920 until his death in 1946, Tweed collected about 300 15th- to 19th-Century paintings by major and not-so-major Italian, French, German and Spanish artists.

On his death, his wife donated the collection to the University of Minnesota and funded the Tweed Museum of Art where the collection was stashed until a recent cleaning prompted the 50-piece “A Collection Rediscovered: European Paintings From the Tweed Museum of Art,” on view at the Long Beach State Art Museum through Sept. 18.

Like any undertaking dedicated to a benefactor, the show works a little too hard to substantiate its historical significance. In catalogue essays, scholars tell us that Dutch artist Cornelis Ketel (1548-1616) will eventually be recognized as a master of the first rank, and that Gerrit de Wet (1616-1674) was the brother of one of Rembrandt’s acknowledged pupils.

Without all this, “Collection Rediscovered” is an intriguing look at a wealthy man’s personal tastes and surprisingly astute buying decisions. The show walks us through history--not with the huge works of slide surveys, but with the appeal of infrequently seen, intimate house-size pieces.

Vestiges of Gothic art are seen in an anonymous 15th-Century gilt-haloed Christ. Barefoot street folks made saints by the roguish Caravaggio find their way into a formidable “The Scourging of Saint Blaise,” tentatively attributed to Bartolomeo Manfredi. The High Renaissance comes in the form of a competent-but-wan “Madonna and Child” by Johann Nepomuk Ender. Adriaen Thomasz Key’s “Bust Portrait of a Man” with its dramatic light flickering over an old nobleman’s small, troubled eyes is a testimony to the Netherlands’ contribution of unidealized, expressive portrait painting. Neoclassicism is at its sappiest in Narcisse Virgile Diaz de la Pena’s “The Death of Love.” “The Midday Meal” with its voluptuous, poor-but-noble farm girl is quintessential Jean Millet.

Though they don’t outnumber other works in quantity or quality, Tweed’s landscapes are touted as the high point of the exhibition. Of the 19th-Century Barbizon painters, two sultry late-career panoramas by Charles Francois Daubigny and a contemplative autumnal clearing by Pierre Rousseau should not be missed.