Smooke, Nathan

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role

Collector

dates

d 1991

city

Los Angeles

state

CA

sex

M

historical notes

Born in New York, Nathan Smooke came to Los Angeles in 1933 and founded a small food manufacturing company. In 1965, he launched Wollman Properties, a industrial real estate firm operating in Southern California. Nathan and his wife, Marion, assembled a formidable collection of twentieth-century French and German paintings and sculpture in the 1970s and 1980s. Some of the works in the collection included: ''Suburban House With Washing,'' a 1917 landscape by Egon Schiele, Modigliani's 1916 ''Portrait of Almaïsa,'' and one of Degas's famous sculptures of a 14-year-old dancer.The collection also included a selection of Picassos from different periods, several Matisse paintings and bronzes, Fauve period paintings by several artists, including Derain and Vlaminck, and several German Expressionist paintings. Many were exhibited at “Degas To Picasso: Modern Masters from the Smooke Collection” at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art in 1987. Although the Smookes were long affiliated with LACMA—Nathan and his son Michael were on the board of trustees at different points—the estate decided to sell the collection following Marion’s death in 2001. Phillips de Pury & Luxembourg won the rights to the auction, which fetched over $85 million.

decades
of activity

1960-1970
1970-1980
1980-1990

updated

11/24/2025 10:11:49

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Archives/Repository	Collection Title	Collection Details
Online Archive of California	Los Angeles County Museum of Art exhibition records, 1973-2003 EXH.001.00	see details...