Fiske Kimball and the Arensbergs

One of the questions most frequently asked of me and my co-authors is: “Why Philadelphia?" This is shorthand for a variety of similarly-themed inquiries about how it came to pass that Louise and Walter Arensberg gave their collection to the Philadelphia Museum of Art, rather than to one of the numerous other institutions competing to acquire it. Often this question is tinged with a sense of loss, because the collection did not stay in California where it had lived for nearly thirty years. We tell this story briefly in Hollywood Arensberg but, thankfully, an even richer answer can now be found in John Vick's wonderful talk, “Architectural Imagination: Fiske Kimball's Modern Museum." …