Art: Permanent Bliss

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The Bliss collection of modern paintings in Manhattan's Museum of Modern Art is one of the greatest of its kind in the world. It was bequeathed three years ago by the late Lizzie P. Bliss on condition the Museum raise an endowment fund of $1,000,000 (TIME, May 25, 1931). This sum was subsequently reduced to $750.000 by Lizzie's brother, Cornelius Newton Bliss (Metropolitan Museum of Art trustee and Metropolitan Opera director). Last week the Museum announced that its endowment fund had reached $600.000, that Brother Cornelius had accepted this as earnest of another $150,000 to be forthcoming. Thus did the Museum become permanent owner of the Bliss collection. Large single donor ($100,000) was the Carnegie Corporation. At Depression prices, the Bliss collection is worth about $750.000. It contains eclectic examples of all the modern French, a few of the modern U. S. painters. Only the Barnes collection in Philadelphia has more than its 23 Cezannes.