On Loan

Richmond art collector Jane Joel Knox’s ‘Gypsy Boy’ at the Smithsonian American Art Museum

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Richmond art enthusiast Jane Joel Knox has always appreciated and collected beautiful images — advancing from picture postcards to works by local Richmond artists in her youth. Once she had the means to do so, she focused on acquiring art by late 19th-century American and European artists, paintings that a museum might want in its collection. On Oct. 8, 2021, “Gypsy Boy,” a portrait by American artist Frank Duveneck (1848-1919) from Knox’s collection, made its national debut as part of “Sargent, Whistler, and Venetian Glass: American Artists and the Magic of Murano,” on view at the Smithsonian American Art Museum through May 8.

R•Home spoke with Knox about “Gypsy Boy” and her journey from novice to seasoned collector, and with the exhibition’s curator, Crawford Alexander “Alex” Mann III. The former curator for prints and drawings at the Smithsonian American Art Museum, Mann is now the chief curator and director of curatorial affairs at Telfair Museums in Savannah, Georgia.

R•Home: Who was Frank Duveneck?

Crawford Alexander Mann: I wanted to showcase works of art that were not already going to be well known to our audiences, looking not just at Sargent and Whistler but at some of their talented colleagues who you might fall in love with once you get to know their work a little bit.

Frank Duveneck is one of those artists — he worked in so many different media, and I think that’s one of the fun things about having him as a major figure within this show.

R•Home: What is special about Duveneck’s “Gypsy Boy”?

Mann: In this drawing, you can see his mark-making so beautifully. Pastel can eventually add so much character to the medium, in terms of the richness of the color, but also sometimes that little bit of graininess that the chalk, the pastels can contribute, and the way that can be used by a very smart artist in order to build texture on things is fantastic. “Gypsy Boy” is an excellent pastel that is fun to share with an audience.

R•Home: You’ve said you were skeptical about “Gypsy Boy” when you first saw it. What changed your mind?

Jane Joel Knox: The person that came to me with it was someone I only knew by name, so I was skeptical. He wasn’t a real dealer. He wasn’t really in the art field. I loved the portrait, but I had to figure him out. So I went back to the books and found that [Duveneck] had a symbol that he used on paintings, and I found it on this portrait. His name was not known to me before.

R•Home: How did you launch your career as an art collector?

Knox: I thought … “Well, the thing to do is to go to New York and figure out what you can afford.” So I asked a Richmond dealer to go to New York with me and help me look at a couple of collections. We got there, and we looked at the first collection. We didn’t like anything that was alike. What he liked, I couldn’t stand. What I liked, he didn’t think was worthwhile. … I just decided that I would be on my own.

I would go up quite often to visit the dealers and Sotheby’s to look and learn. I also decided to subscribe to Sotheby’s magazine. And that was a big thing, because that way I could see a lot of paintings, and they would have descriptions, they would have ages and so on. Then I started buying.

R•Home: What advice would you give to others just getting into collecting?

Knox: I would say no to any advice anybody ever gave you. I would say go and look. If you find yourself gravitating back to something and back to something, give that some thought. Then do some research. And then if you still like it, get it.

Editor’s note: Jane Joel Knox’s collection is promised to the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts.