Scope and Contents

The papers of art collector Emily Hall Tremaine measure 8.9 linear feet, date from circa 1890 to 2004, and document the development of Tremaine's seminal collection of modernist, pop, and contemporary art. The papers comprise biographical material including a sound recording, personal correspondence, art collection files, artist files, exhibition loan files including a video recording, and reproduction request files. Also found are two scrapbooks documenting Tremaine's first marriage to Baron Maximilian von Romberg; and photographs of Tremaine, her family and friends, and works of art from her collection.

Biographical material relates to the Hall, von Romberg, and Tremaine families, and includes a sound recording about the Tremaine family. Correspondence is with family members, including Tremaine's three husbands, her mother, and her sister Elizabeth, and includes Christmas cards with reproductions of artwork from Tremaine's collection.

Art collection files include inventory binders and document the purchase dates, prices, market value, and provenance of artwork purchased by the Tremaines. Artist files provide further detail on works by individual artists, and track the purchase, sale, trade, loan, and donation of many of those works. Of note is extensive documentation of the provenance, restoration, and sale of Piet Mondrian's Victory Boogie Woogie which was sold in 1988.

Exhibition loan files document loans from the Tremaine collection for exhibitions in the United States and abroad. Records of a 1984 Wadsworth Atheneum exhibition of artwork from the Tremaine collection include a video recording of a lecture by Philip Johnson. Requests for permission to reproduce images from the Tremaine collection document the extensive publication history of many of the works of art.

Two scrapbooks document the courtship and marriage of Emily Hall and Maximilian von Romberg and record von Romberg's passions for polo and aviation.

Photographic material primarily documents Tremaine's personal life, through portraits of Tremaine, her sister, and parents; wedding pictures from her marriage to von Romberg; photos of friends and members of Santa Barbara high society, including Clark Gable, Ruth and Walter Pidgeon, and Jeanne and Juan Reynal; and photos of the home Emily shared with von Romberg on the Brunninghausen Estate in Montecito, California. Two dismantled photograph albums include photos of artwork in the Tremaine collection.

Arrangement

The collection is arranged as eight series.

Biographical / Historical

Art collector Emily Hall Tremaine (1908-1987) lived in New York City and Madison, Connecticut, and was known for having assembled one of the most noteworthy collections of post World War II art focused on modernist, pop, and contemporary artists.

Tremaine was born in Butte, Montana, to mining executive William Hubbard Hall and his wife, Elizabeth Smith Hall. Her first marriage to Baron Maximilian von Romberg was well publicized in the society pages of the time and ended with von Romberg's death in a plane accident in 1938. Tremaine's second marriage to sugar heir Adolph B. Spreckels, Jr., ended in divorce in 1940.

While Tremaine collected art in the 1930s, it was not until her 1945 marriage to industrial executive Burton Tremaine that she began acquiring works in earnest. Together, the Tremaines assembled a collection that initially focused on American and European modern artists and would eventually include emerging pop and contemporary art. Their first purchase was Piet Mondrian's unfinished painting, Victory Boogie Woogie, now owned by the Gemeentemuseum. The collection would eventually number over four hundred works of art and range from paintings by Picasso, Kandinsky, and Georges Braque to works by Jasper Johns, Claes Oldenburg, Roy Lichtenstein, and Jean-Michel Basquiat. While single pieces were sold, traded, or donated throughout Tremaine's active collecting years, the bulk of the collection was sold at auction in 1988 and 1991 to raise funds for the Emily Hall Tremaine Foundation. Tremaine died from complications of emphysema in 1987.

Related Materials

Also found in the Archives of American Art is an oral history interview with Emily Hall Tremaine conducted by Paul Cummings, January 24, 1973.