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Property from the Collection of Preston H. Haskell
While some collections simply reflect their collector's eclectic tastes, others reveal groupings of objects acquired with deep passion and focus. Such is the case with the collection of Preston H. Haskell, chairman of the Haskell Company, an international building design and construction firm based in Jacksonville, Florida. His personal and corporate collections consist of 300 works of art - paintings, sculptures, drawings and prints.
Preston Haskell graduated with honors from Princeton University in 1960 with a degree in civil engineering, received a MBA with distinction from Harvard University in 1962, and attended Massachusetts Institute of Technology for graduate study in building engineering and construction. With this impressive educational background, he founded The Haskell Company, which has been responsible for projects as diverse as office complexes, courthouses, and manufacturing plants. In 1994, the firm performed the Herculean task of tearing down the antiquated Gator Bowl and constructing a state-of-the -art, 75,000 seat football stadium in only 19 months, now the perfect home for Jacksonville's new NFL team, the Jaguars, of which Mr. Haskell is an owner. Mr. Haskell's civic presence includes the boards of universities, hospitals, orchestras and museums.
Mr. Haskell's commitment to the arts is clearly evident in his own art collections. When he began collecting 30 years ago, his motivation was pure and simple - 'my personal love for the energy, mystery, and excitement of abstract art, a passion that is often as difficult to rationalize as that art itself.' The Haskell Collection benefits both from his zeal and his keen and sensitive eye.
Bold and dynamic or contemplative and sublime, the collection's abstract works hold a certain mystery for him - he says that abstract pictures 'don't give up all their secrets in a single look'. It takes a certain patient sensibility to enjoy their pleasures. What he finds especially intriguing is that 'the energy coursing through these works is boundless'.
This notion is reflected in the Richter, Untitled, 1986, a large monumental abstract painting that barely contains its energy of exuberant dynamism. The combination of pure, bright color and unfettered gestural brushstrokes is a heady one. This combination can also be seen in Joan Mitchell's Sunflowers, 1990, where forceful brushstrokes act as a substitute for the vital growth of the flowers under the Provencal sun.
The collection also boasts abstract pictures that exist in the other direction of static color and form. Rothko's Untitled painting from 1968 is pure drama in red. The suffused light of the dense pigment reveals the magic of Rothko's quiet brushstrokes. Stella is also occupied with geometry in his Double Scramble, 1978, a major example from his Concentric Squares series.
The personal and corporate collections of Preston Haskell celebrate the human spirit, with all of its imaginative and creative beauty.
Property from the Collection of Preston H. Haskell
Joan Mitchell (1926-1992)
Sunflowers
Details
Joan Mitchell (1926-1992)
Sunflowers
signed 'Joan Mitchell' (lower right)
diptych--oil on canvas
overall: 51 x 76½ in. (129.5 x 194.3 cm.)
Painted in 1991.
Sunflowers
signed 'Joan Mitchell' (lower right)
diptych--oil on canvas
overall: 51 x 76½ in. (129.5 x 194.3 cm.)
Painted in 1991.
Provenance
Robert Miller Gallery, New York
Acquired from the above by the present owner, 1992
Acquired from the above by the present owner, 1992
Literature
The Haskell Collection, Jacksonville, 1997, no. 55, p. 31 (illustrated)
Exhibited
Raleigh, North Carolina Museum of Art; Jacksonville, The Cummer Museum of Art and Garden; Knoxville Museum of Art; Birmingham Museum of Art, Sign and Gesture: Contemporary Abstract Art from the Haskell Collection, March 1999-May 2000, p. 30, no. 13 (illustrated in color)