Bancroft Press in the MediA

Cone Sisters Rescued from Obscurity
BALTIMORE Long-time residents of Baltimore City and visitors alike are often awestruck by the Baltimore Museum of Art's Cone Collection: an amazing amalgamation of Matisse, Cezanne, Picasso, as well as many of their lesser-known contemporaries. Baltimore, oft-described as a "small town described as a city," is perhaps an unlikely place for these masterpieces of art, now valued at $1 billion.

Etta and Claribel Cone, two independently wealthy spinster sisters, collected this art for forty-five years and donated it to their adopted hometown. Two women who devoted their lives to supporting the artists they loved, and who loved art with unparalleled passion, they've been largely ignored in twentieth-century literature. Baltimore's Bancroft Press, a trade publisher of fiction and non-fiction, is changing that with the release of Mary Gabriel's The Art of Acquiring: A Portrait of Etta and Claribel Cone (1-890862-06-1 $35.00 hardcover), which makes it the only book in-print on the sisters.

"I knew upon my first reading that we had to do this book, " says publisher Bruce Bortz, "because it's an incredibly important piece of both art history and women's history. Etta and Claribel are remarkable role models for young women, and Gabriel resurrects them beautifully."

Gabriel, author of Notorious Victoria: The Life of Victoria Woodhull, Uncensored, a 1998 New York Times Notable Book, has a talent for rescuing women from obscurity. She began writing The Art of Acquiring because, as an art student studying Matisse and Gaughin, she was struck by a display in the BMA depicting the interiors of Etta and Claribel's apartments. Painting, sculptures, and marvelous textiles filled every corner, and Gabriel saw that these women not only bought art they lived in a virtual museum; they lived in their paintings. Desiring more information about the eccentric sisters, Gabriel set out to do research, but found nearly nothing.
"They were obscured by Gertrude and Leo Stein," points out Publisher Bortz. "General history points to the Steins as collectors and the Cones as shoppers, and this conception is clearly wrong. Our book ensures the sisters of their rightful place in history. "

The story of the Cones is engrossing and romantic, yet the sisters never engaged in relationships. They had affairs, instead, with their art. Addicts, obsessed, these women essentially discovered Matisse, and bought from both the Frenchman and Picasso before either was respected in the art world.

The Art of Acquiring's release in September 2002, coincides with the BBC's documentary, Michael Palin on the Cone Sisters, which features both Mary Gabriel and her book. The book also comes complete with a 24-page, full color photo and art insert, including many important works of art that are rarely available in books. Like its subject, The Art of Acquiring is somewhat indulgent, slightly decadent, and amazingly beautiful.