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Art Collecting--8

And, happily, our tax laws have been devised to encourage this activity. In America, if a work of art is purchased for a museum or other non-profit educational institution, it is a tax deductible item. I have many British friends who wish similar laws prevailed in England. Almost without exception in America, paintings in high price levels are either bought directly for or will ultimately find their way into museums. As a result, museum directors play an increasingly important role as advisers to American collectors, often persuading and guiding collectors to objects which they feel will enhance public collections.
     A third special and interesting aspect of the history of collecting in America is the fact that collecting has never existed on simply one line or followed one particular kind of taste. It has always been complex and many-leveled.
     Along with conservative taste, there has always been adventurous taste. I have pointed out how Americans were among the first to buy the Barbizon painters and the Impressionists. As a matter of fact, in contrast to the French, the American audience gave a warm reception to the Impressionists when they were first exhibited here in 1886 by thr intrepid dealer Durand-Ruel. There were some blasts. One critic went so far as to call these paintings ¨communism incarnate, with the red flag and the Phrygian cap of lawless violence displayed.¨ Most of the critics, however, were attentive and many of them were appreciative. Seven or eight paintings were sold. By 1891 and 1892 such a conservative and respectable--and glamorous--lady as Mrs. Potter Palmer of Chicago was buying four Renoirs, a Degas pastel, paintings by Pissarro and Monet--she proudly displayed them, along with her correct Corot, to the visitors whom, a head of the Board of Lady Managers of the World's Columbian Exposition of 1893, she entertained in her castle on Lake Michigan as head of the Board of Lady Managers of the World's Columbian Exposition of 1893,