Le Port

Inscriptions: Signed (lower right)

Provenance: Nathan Cummings (1896-1985), Chicago (by 1970)

Sara Lee Corporation, Chicago, IL (1985-2000)

Note: Nathan Cummings was the first CEO of the Sara Lee Corporation.  According to the Nathan Cummings Foundation website, Cummings began collecting in 1945. It is possible that Cummings acquired the painting directly from the artist.

Dallas Museum of Art, gift of the above (2000)

Expositions: Greenwich, CT., New York Graphic Society, 19 – 29 December 1967 

Madison, WI., University of Wisconsin, Elvehjem Art Center, Inaugural Exhibition, 11 September – 8 November 1970, 58 (The Port);

Chicago, Art Institute of Chicago, Major Works from the Collection of Nathan Cummings, October 20 – December 9, 1973, 49 (reproduced);

Chicago, University of Chicago, David and Alfred Smart Gallery, Jean Metzinger, 23 January – 9 March 1986

Winston-Salem, NC., 1990

Memphis, TN., 1991 

Lakeland, 1995 

Laren, 1997-98

Singapore, Singapore Museum of Art, Monet to Moore: The Millennium Gift of the Sara Lee Corporation, 1 April – 30 May 1999, p. 30 (reproduced) 

Travelled to:

Canberra, Australia, National Gallery of Australia, Monet to Moore: The Millennium Gift of the Sara Lee Corporation, 11 June – 22 August 1999

Raleigh, NC., North Carolina Museum of Art, Monet to Moore: The Millennium Gift of the Sara Lee Corporation, 10 September – 7 November 1999

Portland, OR., Portland Art Museum, Monet to Moore: The Millennium Gift of the Sara Lee Corporation, 19 November 1999 – 23 January 2000

Chicago, The Art Institute of Chicago, Monet to Moore: The Millennium Gift of the Sara Lee Corporation, 13 March – 28 May 2000

Littérature: Consolidated Foods Corporation, Consolidated Foods Corporation’s Nathan Cummings Collection, Chicago, 1983, p. 25 (color illus.)

Jean Metzinger in Retrospect, David and Alfred Smart Gallery Newsletter, Winter 1986, p. 1 (reproduced)

S. Taylor, Resurrecting ‘Minor Cubist’, Chicago Sun Times, January 30, 1986, p. 80 (reproduced)

C. Glatt, Dazzling Cubism Art at Smart Gallery, Hyde Park Herald Review, February 5, 1986, p. 11 (reproduced)

N. Roth, Jean Metzinger, Artnews, May 1986, p. 116-117 (reproduced)

F. Metzinger and D. Robbins, Jean Metzinger: Die Entstehung des Kubismus, Frankfurt, 1989, no. 15 (reproduced)

J. Kutner, Dropping Anchor, The Dallas Morning News, 2 February 1999, p. 21 A (color illus.).

Notes: The above information and research was compiled by Emily Vokt, Marcus Intern, May 2001. Updated by Paige Waggoner, Curatorial Intern, July 2017.

Martha MacLeod, Senior Curatorial Administrator for the Curatorial Department at the Dallas Museum of Art, in a private communication, has confirmed that the canvas was relined (at some point). Also, a 2004 report from a local conservator noted: “A gritty texture in an area of tan paint at right center edge suggests the admixture of sand.”