Cézanne to Modigliani: Gifts of Modern Art from the Pearlman Collection

In January 1945, Henry Pearlman, a Brooklyn insulation businessman, walked past a New York auction house and won a Soutine. You walk in and that painting is waiting: View of Céret, a French town laid on as if with a trowel and pulled into a vortex. Pearlman said it felt like "listening to a symphony", and he kept buying for three decades.

More than 50 works fill the fourth floor of the Schapiro Wing. The Pearlmans bought Cézanne in depth, landscapes and a cache of watercolors, alongside Degas, Gauguin, Manet and Van Gogh. Letters, photographs and portraits of Henry by Kokoschka and Lipchitz tell the couple's story: he grew up in Park Slope, Rose arrived from Minsk aged four. After fifty years on loan to Princeton, the collection now hangs a short walk from where he grew up.

It's the collection's last full tour. Entry is included in general admission, untimed and pay what you can (suggested $20, free for 19 and under), through April 18, 2027.