Cone Sisters - Career of The Sisters

Career of The Sisters

The Cone sisters were friends of literary illuminati like Gertrude Stein and Alice B. Toklas. Their social circle included Henri Matisse and Pablo Picasso.

It was Etta who began purchasing art in 1898, when she was given $300 to decorate the family home by an older brother. Her start with five paintings by Theodore Robinson became a lifetime of collecting. Her tastes at first tended toward the conservative, but one day in 1905, while the Cone sisters were on a European holiday, they visited the Steins in Paris. Etta was introduced to Picasso and then to Matisse the next year, marking her lifelong love of his art. Etta made small acquisitions to help up-and-coming artists like Matisse, Picasso, and at home, students of the Maryland Institute College of Art. She also bought at very low prices from the Steins, who were perpetually in need of money and were known to get discarded drawings in Picasso's studio for $2 or $3 apiece.

Claribel, by contrast, purchased much more avant-garde works. She purchased Matisse's Blue Nude (Souvenir de Biskra) (120,760 francs) and Paul Cézanne's Mont Sainte-Victoire Seen From the Bibemus Quarry (410,000 francs) for their collection. Etta was much more conservative and commonly spent an average of 10,000 francs for a painting or a group of drawings. The Cone sisters had a special interest in Matisse's Nice period. However, after Claribel's death, Etta became more adventurous in her purchases, for instance, purchasing Matisse's "Large Reclining Nude" ("The Pink Nude") in 1935.