The Leonard A. Lauder Cubist Collection, a promised gift now given in full, is celebrated in a new installation of masterpieces by Georges Braque, Juan Gris, Fernand Léger, and Pablo Picasso.
Now on view at The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City is a display of nearly 40 works of Cubist art honors the extraordinary life and legacy of Leonard A. Lauder (1933–2025), one of the Museum’s greatest patrons and champions. The Leonard A. Lauder Cubist Collection, which was promised to the Museum in 2013, has been fully accessioned into The Met collection this year. Distinguished by its quality, focus, and depth, the collection is unsurpassed in its number of paintings, sculptures, collages, and works on paper critical to the development of Cubism.
The three-room installation in the Museum’s European Painting and Sculpture Galleries presents a significant selection of paintings and sculptures of the four pioneering Cubists—Georges Braque, Juan Gris, Fernand Leger, and Pablo Picasso—placing them in dialogue with one another. It also offers visitors the opportunity to make connections between Cezanne, whose works are on view in the adjacent room, and the birth of Cubism.
Pablo Picasso ‘Nude with Raised Art and Drapery’ (Study for ‘Les demoiselles d’Avignon’)
Paris, spring–summer 1907. Courtesy of The Met.
Lauder was a visionary philanthropist and collector who, throughout his life, combined a love of art with a deep commitment to nourishing the legacy of public institutions. His belief that art should be shared with the widest possible audience shaped his decades-long relationship with The Met and prompted his transformative gift of over 90 works to the institution. The Leonard A. Lauder Cubist Collection includes paintings, sculptures, and works on paper encompassing some of the most revolutionary works of the 20th century.
“Avid and inquisitive with a keen eye, Lauder developed an exceptional connoisseurship that led him to assemble one of the most outstanding collections of early 20th-century art in private hands,” said Max Hollein, The Met’s Marina Kellen French Director and CEO. “His extraordinary gift to The Met of over 90 Cubist masterworks has solidified the Museum’s status as a major center for the study of modern art. We are honored by the opportunity to share these incredible works of art with the public and look forward to highlighting the collection in the Museum’s Tang Wing for Modern and Contemporary Art, opening in 2030, and continuing the important scholarly and collaborative work of the Leonard A. Lauder Research Center for Modern Art, established by Mr. Lauder and a group of Met Trustees.”
Leonard Lauder’s dedication to collecting began in childhood—with picture postcards—and expanded over time to include art posters, 19th- and 20th-century works on paper, especially those of Egon Schiele and Gustav Klimt, and, ultimately, the masterworks of Cubism, which he began collecting in 1980. In every genre he pursued, Lauder combined intellectual curiosity with a discerning eye and an abiding respect for scholarship. Lauder’s particular passion was Cubism, which he called “the great movement that changed Western art forever.” His first Cubist artwork, Pablo Picasso’s Carafe and Candlestick (1909), marked the beginning of a lifelong focus on the movement’s foundational years. By the mid-1980s, he had refined his collecting scope to four artists central to the development of Cubism: Georges Braque, Juan Gris, Fernand Léger, and Pablo Picasso. Gifts of his unparalleled collections, matched only by his incredible generosity, have forever changed the holdings of many museums in the United States.
Lauder’s legacy at The Met reflects his philanthropic spirit and passion for the arts and art institutions. Over four decades, he supported the Museum through major gifts of art and the endowment of curatorial positions, as well as contributions to conservation, curatorial research, and publications. Mr. Lauder also donated to The Met a collection of over 500 19th-century American literary posters and important works of contemporary American art.
For more information on the Leonard A. Lauder Collection visit: https://www.metmuseum.org/collections/the-leonard-a-lauder-cubist-collection-at-the-met
