There are any number of ways to assemble a collection, but quite the best, I think, is to rely on the judgment of one individual of taste, who will have an altogether personal sense of what’s good and what’s important. So we find with the Courtauld Gallery, which is based on the collection of Samuel Courtauld and is one of the loveliest collections in London. So too is the collection of Oskar Reinhart, the Swiss international trader whose real love was art.
He and Samuel Courtauld were near contemporaries, remarkably similar and indeed met in 1932; both loved art and both took the view that the ultimate purpose of collecting it was to share it with the public. Reinhart however was a patriotic resident of Winterthur where his gallery is based, and for those of us who haven’t had the opportunity of making it there, some but of the collection – from Goya to the Impressionists - has come here while the gallery is being refurbished. Lucky us.
