Ted L. Simmons and his wife, master printmaker Maryanne Ellison Simmons, presented St. Louis Art Museum with 833 contemporary artworks, Ted had played baseball for more than a decade in the city.
The collection includes on art made in 1961 by a group of diverse of 40 artists who were mainly based in US. This collection is a partial gift that means the museum had to pay $2.3Million, the half value of the total of collection. The collection mostly contained prints but also included drawings, collages, photographs, and editioned sculptures.
Some of the standouts are Bruce Conner’s inkjet and acrylic Bombhead (2002), Helen Frankenthaler’s woodcut Savage Breeze (1974), Jasper Johns’s screenprint The Dutch Wives (1977), Kara Walker’s linocut Keys to the Coop (1997) and H.C. Westermann’s suite of woodcuts The Connecticut Ballroom (1976).
“Ted and Maryanne Simmons are passionate and thoughtful collectors, and their generosity has transformed the museum’s holdings of contemporary American prints,” SLAM’s director, Brent R. Benjamin, said in a statement.
The collection brought in the works of new painters which was not included in the museum earlier. To name a few are Robert Gober, Liliana Porter, Paul Thek, and David Wojnarowicz. It strengthens the institution’s holdings in artists such as Bruce Conner, Donald Judd, Bruce Nauman, Ed Ruscha, Roger Shimomura, and Jaune Quick-to-See Smith.
Ted Simmons will be inducted into the Major League Baseball Hall of Fame this summer. A switch-hitting catcher for the St. Louis Cardinals for much of his career, he also played stints with the Milwaukee Brewers and the Atlanta Braves. He was one of the best-hitting catchers in MLB history, and even hit for a higher batting average than Johnny Bench, a contemporary who was inducted in the Hall in 1989.
Maryanne Ellison Simmons is an artist, master printer, and publisher. She established Wildwood Press, which produces prints with artists, in 1996. The couple has lived in the St. Louis area for more than 50 years.
