The Lay Family Collection

Every family collection tells a story. The Lay Family Collection consists of an admirable group of works by some of the most renowned American artists. Betty and Kenneth Lay, from Toledo, Ohio, collected with dedication and commitment, and demonstrated true stewardship – starting with an early interest in Edmund Osthaus in the 70s, they grew their collection to include great examples of Impressionism, including works by Mary Cassat, and Realism, as well as significant works from art historically-significant schools, among them the Hudson River School and the Association of Advancement of Truth in Art. The Lays also collected the American PreRaphaelites, including Henry Roderick Newman, John Henry Hill, John William Hill, and Henry Farrer. The Hudson River School is represented by three David Johnson drawings and an oil by James Renwick Brevoort. From the late 1970s until their passing, the Lays worked with Hirschl and Adler Gallery, Spanierman Gallery, Martha Parrish,

MP Naud, Richard York, Paul Worman, Berry Hill Gallery, Jill Newhouse, Clyde Newhouse, Christie’s, Sotheby’s, Stalker and Boos, DuMouchelle’s, and Wolfe’s. The couple were longtime supporters of the Toledo Museum of Art and belonged to the Apollo Society, a high-level fundraising circle. In the 1980s, they donated to the museum one of the most significant works in their collection, a print of George Bellows’ well-known painting, Stag at Sharkey’s.

The collectors’ interests seem to lie in frank, thoughtful representations of nature, children, and people at work, all important social, familial and economic facets of life in America.

They were also interested in the artistic process, as evidenced by several etchings in the collection made before or after better-known paintings by their respective artists: a unique, previously-unrecorded state of Mary Cassatt’s Sketch for the Bath and Winslow Homer’s Eight Bells , as well as Chalfant’s Study for the Shoemaker are great examples.

Kenneth and Betty Lay were lifetime appreciators of art and would be excited to know that their collection will be cherished by a new generation of collectors, who will recognize the works’ importance and help preserve them. Their continuous efforts to build a well-rounded collection of 19th and 20th century American Art have allowed for the appreciation and safekeeping of these paintings and created wonderful opportunities for them to be shared with the public, including loans to a Mary Cassatt exhibition at the Academy Art Museum in Easton, Maryland, and several interviews and articles.

Mary Cassatt was an American painter and printmaker who lived most of her life in France. As a member of the Impressionist movement, Cassatt’s paintings often featured mothers and children in intimate domestic settings. The artist’s use of nuanced color, combined with delicate brushwork created a timeless combination. As an advocate for women’s rights and supporter of Suffrage, Cassatt became known as one of few American artists associated with the Impressionists. Even though she wasn’t a mother herself she often depicted maternal love as well as children frequently; showing the complexity of women’s roles within society.

Mary Cassatt was born in 1844 in Allegheny City, Pennsylvania to a wealthy family. She received her early education at home and quickly displayed an aptitude for drawing. In 1865, she entered the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts in Philadelphia to study with renowned American artist Thomas Eakins. After four years, she left PAFA, with the goal of traveling abroad. Cassatt moved to Paris in 1866 and studied under Jean-Leon Gerôme, as women were not permitted to enroll at Ecole des BeauxArts then. While studying under Gerôme, Cassatt was deeply inspired by the works of European masters she saw displayed in museums throughout Europe. As many artists of her generation, her life was profoundly shaped by wars: the Civil War had just ended as she was growing up; her early professional development as an artist in Paris was interrupted by the Franco-Prussian War of 1870; and towards the end of her life, she was required to flee her countryside estate north of Paris when World War I broke out. Scholars and viewers may characterize Cassatt’s vibrant yet subtle colors, naturalistic lighting, and psychological complexity as sentimental; in many ways, this was revolutionary at the time.

Cassatt was an accomplished printmaker renowned for her drypoint etchings. Cassatt was drawn to etchings for their delicate lines and subtle tonal variations, which suited her painting style. These powerful images capture the emotional bond between mothers and children beautifully. Cassatt and her work are notable for their influence over printmaking, as she was one of best-known female artists working in this medium during her lifetime. Cassatt often made monochromatic etchings, as well as pioneering color prints created through the aquatint technique. Additionally, she often hand-colored her drypoints. Influenced by Japanese woodblock printmaking (ukiyo-e), she devised an elegant method of producing seamless color fields in her etchings using the a la poupée method. Cassatt was inspired by the stark geometric simplicity and bold use of color found in Japanese art, and she adopted these elements into her own artwork, fusing bold compositions with Japanese aesthetic innovations. Her etchings and aquatints became permanent fixtures in major museums throughout America during her lifetime and are celebrated and exhibited globally for their remarkable demonstration of her skill.

Cassatt’s work is often described as sentimental, intimate, and focused on women’s worlds - qualities which made her a groundbreaking artist in her day. Her depiction of women in everyday settings as well as children as individuals were important developments in art history. Mary Cassatt’s daring personality and defiance of convention allowed her to achieve perfection in her art, furthering Modernism both internationally and in America. Today, her work can be found in numerous prestigious museum collections around the globe. Notable institutions that house her work include the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, the National Museum of Women in the Arts in Washington D.C., The Art Institute of Chicago in Chicago, Boston’s Museum of Fine Arts and The National Gallery of Art.

Mary Cassatt (1844 - 1926)

Study for the Bath , c. 1890

Drypoint on laid paper

Plate: 10 3/4 x 7 3/4 in.

Sheet: 15 3/8 x 9 3/8 in.

Signed Mary Cassatt on recto, in excellent condition

Cassatt’s interest in Japanese woodblock printmaking (ukiyo-e) is noticeable in some of her greatest paintings. The etching on the left was a study Cassatt made prior to embarking on her 1893 oil painting, The Child’s Bath, and Cassatt only made one impression of this state. The flat yet circular composition, achieved through the depiction of the arms of the mother around her child, bears resemblance to the pictorial plane of a traditional Japanese print. Cassatt uses a total of six different decorative patterns in the painting, creating a harmonious but dynamic backdrop to the intimate, nurturing moment that appears in the foreground. The etching, which does not include any of the patterns, colors, or the background, is an interesting counterpart. Often, due to the laborious process of printmaking, an etching takes several progressive states, color trials, and even burnishing to complete. The Bath, however, signifies an exploration before Cassatt moves on to her canvas.

It is not difficult to imagine the artist at work on this etching, wondering whether her vision for the scene would bear fruit. Once deciding that she should develop the sketch into a piece, she conjures the same quiet, intimate moment in the drastically different medium of oil painting: the receded lighting she conveys through the soft definition on the child’s right shoulder in the etching translates into tones of rosy brown,

Provenance: juniper, mauve and ashen blue in the painting. The pronounced linework forming the subjects’ features and especially the child’s body marks the beginning of a simple inverted pyramid composition, and develops into the subjects’ flushed cheeks, shiny dark hair, and downturned gaze towards the child’s feet. The painting is an Impressionist triumph, as it favors the dimly-lit room and beautifully recalls soft voices, the occasional splashing of water, and the rustling of fabric. The piece is also significant because it likely pictures a middle-class woman who fulfills domestic duties on her own. The beautiful, striped dress Cassatt adorns her with in the painting indicates that she is not a domestic worker. The etching has its own unique qualities, as the absence of color and background allows the viewer to focus exclusively on the mother and child. It is thought that Cassatt only pulled one impression from the plate.

Roger Marx, Cleveland, Ohio; Hirscl and Adler Galleries; Mr. and Mrs. Kenneth J. Lay, Sr., to the estate of Kenneth J. Lay, Sr.

Cassatt was known for her skill in creating drypoints, as she was masterful dynamic textures and well-toned figures through the medium. She utilized printmaking techniques to experiment with different compositions, color combinations, and subject matters. She would often make preparatory drawings and create several versions (states) of her etchings, adjusting and refining the compositions as she went, and would sometimes use the final versions of her etchings as the basis for her oil paintings. This allowed her to transfer the spontaneous and fluid qualities of her printmaking into her painting, resulting in an insightful visual language.

$20,000 - 30,000