The Transcendent Buddha Ratnasambhava
Joseph H. Heil (1916–1974), New York, by 1974 [1];
Bequeathed by Heil to John M. Crawford, Jr. (1913–1988), New York, 1974 [2];
His gift to The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, MO, 1974 [3].
[1] Joseph H. Heil was an artist, designer, and collector living in New York. He was well-known for his Art Nouveau and Tiffany glass collections with several mentions in The New York Times. (See “Glass Décor Shines Anew In a Revival,” March 28, 1958, p. 20; “New Old Art Nouveau,” October 11, 1964, p. SM116; “An Art Nouveau Dealer’s Story,” December 23, 1979, p. D45.)
[2] A letter from Freda B. Stolz to Laurence Sickman, NAMA director, August 28, 1974, NAMA curatorial files, informs the museum that Heil’s collection was bequeathed to Crawford with the intent that it one day be “eventually housed in a suitable museum of his choice.”
[3] NAMA archives includes correspondence between Crawford and Laurence Sickman, NAMA curator and director, between 1959 and 1973. Crawford first donated Asian objects in 1960 and into the 1970’s. Sickman, in collaboration with the Pierpont Morgan Library, helped curate an exhibition of Crawford’s collection in the early 1960’s exhibited at the Pierpont Morgan Library, New York, Fogg Art Museum, Boston, and The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, MO. See Laurence Sickman, Chinese Calligraphy and Painting in the Collection of John M. Crawford, Jr., exh. cat. (New York: Pierpont Morgan Library, 1962).
