So may night continue to fall upon the orchestra, and may I, who am still searching for something in this world, may I be left with open or closed eyes, in broad daylight, to my silent contemplation. Andre Breton, Surrealism and Painting, 1928

Suzanne Vincent Striped Pants 1997

hen the revolutionary poet and "Pope of Surrealism", Andre Breton, wrote his treatise in 1928, he emphasized the omnipotence of dream and fantasy in art. Surrealism for Breton required the artistic merger of two seemingly contradictory states-dream and reality-into an absolute reality or surreality. Although Arthur Goldberg has been collecting art with the true dedication of an "art addict" for over twenty years, only recently has he (following a trip to Peggy Guggenheim's surrealist dominated collection in Venice) recognized the prevalence of fantasy and illusion in his own collection of representational and figurative art. His paintings, drawings and sculpture, mostly by New England and New York-based artists, are infused with the spirit of Surrealism by their juxtapositions of dream and reality. "The art that I collect is about dreams; that is the key to my collection." The dreams represented are not always that of the sleeping or unconscious mind; many are lucid fantasies that leave behind impressions of being related to the daytime world. The bulk of the more than 150 paintings, works on paper and sculpture by renowned, little known and emerging artists in the Arthur S. Goldberg collection conveys a sense of solitude, enigma, and psychic intensity. The artists whom Goldberg prefers make consistently fine, highly articulated images of veristic fantasy that are reminiscent of the Magic Realism practiced by the great Belgian surrealist painter, Rene Magritte.

As in the best Magic Realism, Goldberg's artists depict ordinary scenes without any strange or monstrous distortions; the magic arises from the fantastic joining of elements and events that do not normally exist together. For example, Bertil Warnolf's Totem Pole, 1987, is a surreal still life painting in which a die, two sparrows, an alarm clock, matches, marbles, an apple core, clothespin, plastic cowboy, two staplers, a rock, and a water pistol balance totem-like atop an egg. Randall Diehl's eerie contemplative garden with pink plastic flamingos and Barry Rockwell's (tightly rendered) portrait of an Elizabethan aristocrat holding a package of Ruffles potato chips demonstrate a marvelous and quirky brand of neo-surrealism in the Goldberg collection. Their imagery differs from the often horrific stock imagery of historical Surrealism in post-modern juxtapositions of the urban landscape and popular consumer goods.

Bertil Warnolf Totem Pole 1987

Goldberg's predilection for hand-painted dream imagery reflects his own neo-surrealist personality. The dynamics of the personal vision that has shaped the growth of the Goldberg collection can be best understood by noting the dichotomies in the collector himself. An extremely systematic and practical businessman, he also has the romantic nature of an artist and dreamer. Although an accomplished musician, Goldberg admits that he cannot draw or paint. Rather, he chooses paintings drawings and sculpture that reflect his soul and fantasies. A rich crazy quilt of images-portraits, nudes, landscapes, still lifes, and interiors-- mirrors his temperament and his interests. "As an amateur writer and composer of music, I see the changes in my own life informing and changing my music, just as the mood of the artist informs the tone of his or her art." The collector and the artist ask many of the same questions and seek many of the same answers to life's complexities.

The Evolution of the Collection

rthur Goldberg never had any formal education or training in art; he has learned by osmosis: self-education and immersion in the Boston art scene. He began with a collection of figurative art whose themes were not particularly confrontational. In his early twenties, inspired by his mother Minnie's collection of representational paintings by North shore artists Martha Moore, Louis Burnett and Jane Peterson, Goldberg "began to frequent antique shops and bought some small, pretty pictures." He also subscribed to a Print Club. Among the monthly prints he recalls acquiring were some traditional Currier and Ives landscapes. But even at this early stage, an affinity for disturbing, enigmatic fantasies created with meticulous attention to detail guided Goldberg's purchase of three Dali prints.

Mary Ann Podolak Crossword Puzzle 1985 Joseph Piccillo E.70 1996

Hyperrealism and Realism

n the early 1980s, Goldberg's purchases began to exhibit an undercurrent of Hyperrealism, in which much of the psychic edge was suppressed in favor of accurate and immaculate rendering of the phenomenal world. His early collecting experiences with John Arthur, an expert on Realism and Hyperrealism and former Director of the Boston University Art Gallery, helped define this significant new direction in Goldberg's collecting style. His first important art purchase of this period, and association with a living artist involved the acquisition of an acrylic landscape by James Winn on the advice of John Arthur in 1982.

Soon Goldberg began to attend openings at galleries such as Sherrie French and O.K. Harris in New York, that specialized in New Realism, Photo Realism and Hyperrealism, where he met many of the artists. By the mid-1980s, his collection included (meticulously detailed and) hard-edged photo realist prints of banal urban scenes by Robert Cottingham and Richard Estes, (immaculately rendered) graphite on paper still-life by James Valerio depicting bananas, apples and pears on a satin cloth, and a still life painting by West Coast artist Norman Lundin.

Henry Schwartz Symphony with Harp 1965

In Boston in the mid-1980s, Goldberg frequented galleries such as Thomas Segal and Alpha, which featured realist works of art. From Thomas Segal, he purchased a landscape painting by Ralph Hamilton, White Urban Rafter on the Penobscot River (Snell Library, Northeastern University Collection). Gradually, he became interested in the narrative paintings and drawings by Cambridge artist Michael Mazur, and purchased the large pastel drawing, Running Man, 1979 (Snell Library, Northeastern University Collection), which depicts the artist jogging at Fresh Pond. He purchased four works by Valley Realist Scott Prior - a still-life drawing of a desk in which figurines of Mickey and Minnie Mouse are neatly arranged among a Coke bottle, shell, paperweight and artist's tools; two self-portraits; and a large-scaled, (precisely rendered) Nude in an Interior.

Szeto Keung Old Brush 1988

Prior's Motel Room, 1986, features Nanny Vonnegut, the artist's wife, posed nude against the knotty pine wall of a sea-side motel room. Beautiful, seductive, and self-reflective, she stands beside a large picture window whose shade is drawn open to reveal a serene oceanfront scene. Goldberg recalls, "a reviewer once said of this piece by Prior, that the mood and the reflective quality of the figure makes the viewer look into his own world. That is what I love about it."

Scott Prior Motel Room 1986

Expressionist Fantasy: Comprehensive Collecting

s he became increasingly attuned to his own inner world, Goldberg began to collect bolder, more expressionist fantasy art with strong narrative undercurrents. Many of the artists whom he began to collect in the mid and late 1980s were part of the stable of the Stux Gallery, then on Boston's Newbury Street. Among Stux's artists whose work favored a bolder psychological edge and thick expressionist brushwork were Doug Anderson, Gina Fiedel, Morgan Bulkeley and Gerry Bergstein.

An early supporter of Gina Fiedel's dreamy portraits, Goldberg is extremely fond of a monumentally scaled canvas by her called Portrait and Jack. In the heavily textured tonal painting, a young woman leans her statuesque head on her left arm. Posed before a group of eerie blue obelisks and buildings, she seems entranced, as if lost in a memory. Goldberg explained that the metaphysical-looking architecture in the background represents the ruins of the 1936 World's Fair in Queens, New York, near where the artist spent her childhood. "This is a portrait of Gina dreaming about the times in New York when she used to amuse herself playing jacks."

Gina Fiedel Portrait and Jack 1986

Goldberg's art collecting tastes took a more definitive shift towards expressionist fantasy in 1989, when he attended a lecture given by the artist Henry Schwartz at the DeCordova Museum in Lincoln, held in conjunction with the exhibition, "The Surrealism of Everyday Life: Paintings by Gerry Bergstein". Schwartz, Bergstein's former teacher at the School of the Museum of Fine Arts, gave his audience advice on how to look at a piece of art. "I was totally impressed by Henry's mesmerizing speech about Gerry Bergstein. He really dissected the subtleties of some of the works on exhibit and taught me a new word, trompe l'oeil." Soon after listening to his DeCordova lecture, Goldberg bought Schwartz's ORGAZ!, 1988-89, a small panel painting parodying El Greco's severe Burial of Count Orgaz, 1586, where angels copulate, and cantors and rabbis replace the archbishops and priests. Other works by Henry Schwartz purchased by Goldberg at this time are The Combat Zone: the Sweets of Sin, 1975 and Symphony with Harp, 1965. The latter is a visionary symphony depicting an elongated figure conducting an orchestra at Boston's Symphony Hall. An ever faithful admirer of this senior master of fantasy illustration, Goldberg comments, "I was especially impressed with the love and knowledge of music in Henry's work, which not only was important to his art but has been important to me since I've been four or five years old." The persistence of memory, music and literature in Henry Schwartz's expressionistic and surreal paintings are well documented in the Goldberg collection.