Quick Take
- Narration: Laura Jennings brings warmth and period-appropriate poise to Mary Gabriel’s account of the Cone sisters, a narration that suits the intimate, biographical register of the story.
- Themes: Female patronage and autonomy, early Modernism, the act of collecting as self-expression
- Mood: Richly atmospheric, affectionate toward its subjects, quietly revelatory
- Verdict: An absorbing portrait of two visionary women whose contribution to American art history has never received the prominence it deserves.
I had been to the Baltimore Museum of Art exactly once before I listened to this book, and I remembered the Cone collection vaguely, the Matisses and Picassos, the replica apartment, the particular quality of afternoon light in that wing. What I had not retained, and what The Art of Acquiring restored with considerable force, was the full strangeness of what Etta and Claribel Cone actually did. Two sisters from Baltimore, wealthy and unmarried, traveling through Europe in the early decades of the twentieth century and acquiring work by artists who would define Modernism, before most of the world understood what Modernism was.
Mary Gabriel’s account of the Cone sisters is, at its heart, a story about the particular freedoms that money, education, and a refusal of conventional feminine ambition made available to two women at a specific historical moment. It is also a story about taste, what it means to have it, how it is developed, and what the acquisition of art meant to women who had few other avenues for expressing their intellectual and aesthetic authority.
Claribel and Etta: Two Collecting Temperaments
One of Gabriel’s most useful contributions is her insistence on the differences between the two sisters rather than treating them as a unit. Dr. Claribel Cone was the more imperious collector, larger in personality, slower to purchase, but decisive once committed. Etta was more modest in manner but arguably more consistent in her collecting, maintaining the relationship with Henri Matisse over decades in a way that gave their collection its particular depth in his work. Gabriel traces how the sisters’ complementary temperaments produced a collection that neither could have assembled alone.
The relationship with the Stein siblings, Leo, Gertrude, and Michael, is central to the story, and Gabriel handles it with appropriate complexity. The Cones and the Steins moved in the same Paris circles and shared some of the same early convictions about Picasso and Matisse, but they were not the same kind of collectors. Understanding the differences between them illuminates both groups.
Matisse at the Emotional Center
Reviewers consistently note the depth of the Cone collection’s Matisse holdings, and Gabriel’s account of how those holdings came to be is among the book’s most absorbing sections. Etta Cone’s friendship with Matisse, sustained over forty years, through both world wars, through his marriages and personal crises, is treated as the emotional core of the book as much as the biographical or art historical record. The intimacy of that relationship, the way it shaped what Etta chose to acquire and how she came to understand the work, is handled with real care.
The decision to give so much weight to the Matisse relationship does occasionally mean that other areas of the collection receive thinner treatment. Picasso is present but somewhat at the margins of the narrative, and the broader context of how the collection compares to other major American acquisitions of the same period is gestured at rather than developed.
Laura Jennings and the Biographical Register
Laura Jennings’s narration suits the material well. She brings warmth to Gabriel’s writing about the sisters’ inner lives and a suitable composure to the more art historical sections. The synopsis is notably brief for a book that received strong reviews from readers who clearly found it substantive, and Gabriel’s research appears to have been thorough, one reviewer described being in awe of how well she researched. Jennings honors that research with a performance that takes the material seriously without making it feel scholarly in the dry sense. At six hours and forty-two minutes, this is a compact audiobook that feels appropriately sized for the biographical scope it covers.
Who Should Listen and Who Should Skip
Listen if you have any interest in the history of American art collecting, the personal histories of early Modernism’s most significant patrons, or the particular freedoms and constraints that shaped educated women’s lives in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. This works equally well as art history and as biography. Skip it if you are looking for a comprehensive art historical analysis of the collection’s individual works or a critical account of Matisse and Picasso’s development, the book is biographical in focus and treats the art primarily in relation to the women who collected it.
Frequently Asked Questions
Do I need to know Matisse and Picasso’s work to appreciate The Art of Acquiring?
No prior art historical knowledge is required, though familiarity with Impressionism and Fauvism will enrich the experience. Gabriel writes for an intelligent general reader and contextualizes the significance of specific works as she discusses them. Art lovers will find additional texture, but the book works as pure biography as well.
How much does the book cover the Cone sisters’ personal lives versus their collecting activity?
Gabriel integrates both throughout rather than separating them. The collecting is presented as an expression of the sisters’ personal values, social position, and aesthetic sensibility, so the biographical and art historical dimensions of the book are consistently intertwined rather than alternating.
Can this audiobook serve as preparation for visiting the Cone Collection at the Baltimore Museum of Art?
Yes, the book contextualizes the collection’s significance and the conditions under which the sisters eventually donated it to Baltimore, which makes it excellent preparation for visiting the BMA’s Cone Collection. Several readers have noted discovering the book through a visit and wanting more context.
Is Laura Jennings’s narration appropriate for a book with significant art historical content?
Yes. Jennings reads with enough warmth for the personal biographical sections and enough composure for the art historical material. She handles period terminology and French names with confidence, which matters in a book that moves frequently between Baltimore, Paris, and other European settings.
