Found in the Allentown Art Museum’s collection are more than 400 works Paul Kania has donated since 1996. In 2017, the Museum curated A Collecting Spirit: Gifts of Paul Kania to showcase his passion for art’s aesthetic, emotional, and spiritual impact, and an even greater passion for sharing it.
“I believe art belongs primarily to the public.” —Paul Kania
With a sensitive eye and a generous spirit, Paul Kania has built a substantial art collection, spanning the mid-nineteenth to the twenty-first centuries, the collection features paintings, photography, and ceramics, with its focus and strength in American and European works on paper.
Kania began purchasing art in the late 1960s, when he was a young teacher in the Bronx. One Saturday morning in the summer of 1971 he was struck by a piece he saw in the window of the Morris Gallery in Greenwich Village. It was Ce sera la dernière, petit-père! (This will be the last time, father!) from Georges Rouault’s Miserere portfolio, a series defined by the artist’s experience of World War I and the parallels he saw in Christ’s sacrifice for humanity. With the purchase of pair of prints from the series, Kania realized that he had the ability through his collecting to not only preserve important artworks but, by donating them to a museum, to insure the many more people would get to experience and appreciate them.
Continuing to share his generosity, Paul Kania will match all gifts to the 2020 Annual Fund. Support to this year’s Annual Fund will help the Museum with:
- Continue to inspire adults and families with the wonders of art on Free Fun Sundays. Since reopening in August our Free Fun Sundays have quickly regained popularity, with over 50% of our visitors coming to the Museum on that day.
- Bring the calm and stress relieving activity of creating art during Sunday ArtVentures and outside LawnVentures, to visiting families in a safe, socially distanced environment, as well as bring the same projects to our online audience with #AAMatHome.
- Keep the historic Discover Art program, now in its 22nd year, running virtually this fall. Through a recorded presentation of the program, our Public Engagement Department can expand our outreach to more school districts in the area and keep Discover Art a part of the fourth grade learning at home experience for the students.
Thank you for considering making your end of year gift to the Annual Fund in the giving spirit of Paul Kania. Every gift makes a difference. Art will endure because of you!
Featured image: Stanley William Hayter (British, 1901–1988), Poisson Rouge (Goldfish), 1957, etching. Gift of Paul K. Kania, 2015. (2015.15.22). Seen in A Collecting Spirit: Gifts of Paul Kania.