A critical reappraisal of a classic collection’s modernist legacy for women artists

Taking as its point of departure the art collection at Kykuit—the former home of the Rockefeller family, now a museum—Inspired Encounters asks: if exclusively women-identifying artists remained in this legendary modernist collection, what would be revealed? Essentially the product of three people whose lives intertwined around MoMA—Alfred H. Barr Jr., Dorothy Canning Miller and Nelson A. Rockefeller—Kykuit's holdings include work by Anni Albers, Mary Bauermeister, Lee Bontecou, Mary Callery, Valerie Clarebout, Dorothy Dehner, Grace Hartigan, Louise Kruger, Marisol, Louise Nevelson and Lenore Tawney. The book augments this group with works by Louise Bourgeois, Elizabeth Catlett, Lin Emery and Fanny Sanín to expand the possibilities of a “closed” collection. Commissioned works by Sonya Clark, Maren Hassinger, Elana Herzog, Melissa Meyer, Barbara Takenaga and Kay WalkingStick reflect on the collection.