An Inventory of Their Art Collection in the Art Collection at the Harry
Ransom Center
Creator:
Romansky, Alvin and Ethel
Title:
Alvin and Ethel Romansky Art Collection
Dates:
1768-1987 (bulk 1834-1987).
Extent:
12 boxes, 54 flat file folders (725 items)
Abstract:
The Alvin and Ethel Romansky Art
Collection is a collection of works on paper, consisting mainly of prints and
drawings from the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. A number of the works reflect
Romansky's interest in the political upheavals in France during the nineteenth and
early twentieth centuries. The bulk of these are satirical depictions of the
characters and events of the Franco-Prussian War of 1870-71 and the Paris Commune
of
1871. Other works concern the Revolution of July 1830, the Revolution of February
1848, and a few works relate to World War I.
Call Number:
Art Collection AR-00229
Language:
English, French, and German.
Access:
A minimum of twenty-four hours is required to pull art materials to the Reading
Room.
Alvin Sylvan Romansky, an art collector and patron, was an active figure in the
cultural affairs of Houston and one of the founders of the Contemporary Arts Museum,
Houston.
Romansky was born March 15, 1907, in Houston, Texas, to Joseph L. Romansky and Kate
Flaxman. He attended the University of Pennsylvania, the University of Texas at
Austin, and the Houston Law School, where he received a law degree in 1929. He
practiced law in Houston and was involved in the political scene, serving as state
chairman of the Young People's Committee supporting Democrat Al Smith for President
in 1928, and as an aide to Governor Miriam Ferguson between 1933 and 1935.
Romansky was also a painter and ceramicist; in 1943 he took courses at the Houston
Fine Arts Museum.
In 1948 Romansky was a part of the group that chartered the Contemporary Arts
Association; with the building of a small facility in 1950 the Association became
the Contemporary Arts Museum, Houston. He was the Museum's vice president from
1948-1952, and organized the exhibits Contempora in
Cotton (1950) and Rufino Tamayo (1952).
Romansky was also a major donor to the Houston Museum of Fine Arts; in addition to
gifts of art he provided funds for the Alvin Romansky Gallery for Prints and
Drawings, and for the printmaking studio of the Museum's Glassell School. He donated
art works to the University of Houston and to Baylor University, for whom he also
established the endowed Alvin Romansky chair of biochemistry.
Romansky donated large collections of art to the University of Texas Art Museum and
to the Harry Ransom Center. In 1971 the University Art Museum
exhibited Ashanti gold weights loaned by Romansky.
Alvin Romansky's wife, Ethel Hays Romansky, died in January 15, 1986. Alvin Romansky
died March 14, 1994.
Sources:
Johnson, Sally. "Contemporary Arts Museum."Handbook of Texas Online. The Texas State Historical
Association, http://www.tsha.utexas.edu/handbook/online/articles/CC/klc2.html
(accessed 6 June 2001).
Paris: Siege and Commune, 1870-1871. An Exhibition in Honor of
Alvin Romansky and in Memory of his Wife, Ethel Hays Romansky. Austin,
Tex.: Harry Ransom Center, The University of Texas at Austin,
1988
Scope and Contents
The Alvin and Ethel Romansky Art Collection is a collection of works on paper,
consisting mainly of prints and drawings from the nineteenth and twentieth
centuries. The collection is organized into two series: I. Graphic Arts, 1768-1987,
and II. French and German Works, circa 1800-1915.
Series I., Graphic Arts, has 132 works (ninety-one prints, seven drawings, three
paintings, and thirty-one posters) by seventy-five named artists and a few unnamed
artists. The bulk of this group is prints by twentieth century artists. Well-known
names include American artists Alexander Calder, Man Ray, and Andy Warhol; European
artists Salvador Dali, Käthe Kollwitz, Joan Miró, and Jacques
Villon; and Mexican artists Jose Ignacio Aguirre, Jose Clemente Orozco, and David
Alfaro Siqueiros. Miró's works include his gouache and oil painting La Poétesse and thirty exhibition posters.
Depression-era artists include Charles Henry Alston, Peggy Bacon, William Hicks,
Leon Foster Jones, and Seymour Fogel. There are prints by Pre-Raphaelite artists Sir
John Everett Millais and Holman Hunt. Portrait subjects include Charles Baudelaire
(12.7), Georges Braque (11.15), Marcel Duchamp (8.29), and Jacqueline Kennedy
Onassis (12.8).
Series II., French and German Works, consists of 593 works (231 drawings, 332 prints,
four watercolor paintings, one collage, two broadsides, and twenty-three
reproductive prints) by ninety-three named artists and several unnamed artists.
These works primarily reflect Romansky's interest in the political upheavals in
France during the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. The bulk of these are
satirical depictions of the characters and events of the Franco-Prussian War of
1870-71 and the Paris Commune of 1871. Other works concern the Revolution of July
1830, the Revolution of February 1848, and a few works relate to World War I,
including a group of works by the German artists Max Lieberman and Emil Orlik. Other
artists represented by several works in the collection are Cham, Honoré
Daumier, Theodore Faure, Faustin, Paul Gavarni, Paul Klenck, Maximilien Luce,
Hippolyte Maissin, G. de Marcilly, Moloch, and Georges Pilotell. The works are
arranged alphabetically by artist. An index of persons depicted in this series
appears at the end of the finding aid.
Related Material
The Ransom Center also has Alvin and Ethel Romansky Collection materials in its
Library, its Manuscripts Collection, and its Photography Collection.
