Rare Showing of Sargent Works Highlights Manoogian Exhibit
American Paintings To Be Shown at Island’s Grand Hotel Until October
By Karen Gould

Jane and Richard Manoogian pause in front of Garden Party, painted by Philip Leslie Hale, 1865-1931. This painting is one of 26 works from their private collection in this year’s exhibition, entitled “Summer Leisure in the Gilded Age.” The paintings capture American leisure activities during the late 1800s and early 1900s and will be on exhibit at Grand Hotel until October.

A rare showing of two John Singer Sargent original oil paintings is at Grand Hotel until October as part of an American paintings exhibit, “Summer Leisure in the Gilded Age.” All of the artwork, including the Sargent pieces, In a Garden, Corfu, 1909, and By The River, Femme En Barque, 1885, are from the Manoogian Collection.

“Sargent is probably the best portrait artist that ever lived,” said Marlee Brown, herself an artist and the wife of Grand Hotel President Dan Musser III. “He’s the Godfather of portraiture.”

Artist and Harbor Springs gallery owner Paula McNamara agreed. “The Sargent painting, In a Garden, is one of the best I’ve ever seen,” she said during the reception to open this year’s exhibit Monday, May 30.

For the 13th year, Jane and Richard Manoogian have collaborated with Grand Hotel to exhibit special pieces from their art collection. The Manoogians, who are summer West Bluff residents, began collecting artwork in the late 1970s.

Mr. Manoogian said, he and his wife love the Island and it is her favorite place to be in the summer. Through the warm months they spend a great deal of time at their Island cottage and he is able to enjoy the pieces more here than if they were at his office at MASCO Corporation, where many of them are on display the rest of the year. Mr. Manoogian is the CEO of the Detroit-based company and serves on the Mackinac Island State Park Commission.

This year’s exhibit contains 26 pieces that depict an era when America was developing a wealthy class of industrialists. With the Industrial Revolution came growth in urban living, and wealthy Americans would escape the city’s hot summer months by heading to the country, a practice of Europeans for centuries.

Mr. Manoogian said this year’s exhibit is a reflection on what was taking place on Mackinac Island during this era when many Chicago industrialists were building summer homes here and about the same time Grand Hotel was being built.

The Gilded Age comes from the title of Mark Twain’s first work in 1873, which he cowrote with Charles Dudley Warner, and was titled The Gilded Age. The novel is about a woman, who, while at the top of society, falls into emotional emptiness that cannot be fulfilled with money, love, or power.

Artists represented in this year’s Manoogian exhibit capture Americans as they seek happiness in their summer escapes. Some of the artists were trained in France, where they absorbed the influence of Impressionists.

Mr. Manoogian said the paintings in the exhibit are all favorites of his and his wife.

“There really is nothing we don’t like in our personal collection,” he said. The showing includes paintings by Irving Ramsey Wiles, Frank W. Benson, Childe Hassam, Rockwell Kent, William Glackens, and Edward H. Potthast, A. Wordsworth Thompson, Charles Sprague Pearce, and Edward Alfred Cucuel.

“It is the generosity of the Manoogians that is the story,” said Mr. Musser. “They share their artwork with visitors and the community. The Sargent pieces alone, are worth visiting the exhibit,” he said.

“Seeing the art in this setting allows a more intimate experience with the piece than at a museum or an institute,” noted Jennifer Bloswick, director of the Mackinac Island Community Foundation.

Mr. Manoogian said getting the artwork to Grand Hotel requires a bit a planning. The paintings are individually packed in special crates for the truck ride north, and the truck is ferried across from the mainland and unloaded right at Grand Hotel. The paintings are hung in the hotel gallery under the watchful eye of Mr. Manoogian’s curator, John Boos. Throughout the summer, the exhibit will receive 24-hour security.

“I like the feel of this exhibit,” said Trish Martin, who owns a bed and breakfast. “It is very Mackinac, what you think of in late 19th century life on the Island.”

Pieces from the Manoogian collection have been exhibited at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, the Detroit Institute of Arts, and the National Gallery of Art in Washington.