Judith Hollander is not known to most Americana people. Unlike her colleague and friend, Jed Johnson, Judith had no books written about her and generally kept out of the limelight. A woman of tremendous intellect, fierce convictions, and extraordinary taste, Judith first entered the furniture game when married to her Brahmin first husband. Her husband’s distinguished family had a lot of fine furniture and paintings in the big house in Manchester-by-the-sea, Massachusetts, and Judith was hooked. Her taste ran in many directions, although a common theme of classicism ran through all of them – Early Neoclassical, Empire, Gothic Revival, Reform Gothic, Renaissance Revival, Danish Design and Aesthetic Movement. The 1970s were, of course, the boom time for nineteenth-century studies and museum collecting. After Judith’s marriage to her second husband, the architect and academic scholar Michael Hollander, Judith began to not only collect and broker furniture, but to develop architectural contexts for her collection. Together they purchased and restored a succession of properties in Chappaqua, New York; Bedford, New York; Waccabuc, New York; and Bernardsville, New Jersey. Judith was particularly interested in late nineteenth- and early twentieth century country house architects.
Another stage of her investigations was her brief but significant partnership with Jed Johnson in his interior design firm. As they approached the treatment of Andy Warhol’s newly acquired Upper East Side townhouse, they traveled to Hartford to investigate the stenciled decoration being restored at the Mark Twain House under the supervision of Bill Faude. Jed and Judith immediately began incorporating stenciled decoration in Warhol’s house and in the New York apartment of Pierre Berge. They complemented the mural decoration with Renaissance Revival and Aesthetic furniture at a time when few designers knew the first thing about it.
In the 1980s, Judith managed a network of dealers to find, collect, and market furniture. Among these dealers were Francis J. “Jay” Carey, Gary Kingsley, George Subkoff, Bob Bahssin and Robert Trump. Judith was particularly interested in Philadelphia classical furniture, but ultimately her taste was more about composition and line than anything else. Her holdings of Herter Brothers was particularly strong, and her best parlor cabinet was illustrated in the Metropolitan Museum’s Herter catalog. Her Gothic Revival collection was also particularly strong, with important New York and Philadelphia monuments.
The auction of Judith’s collection, which is complemented by the sale of some objects once owned by Jed Johnson, brings to a close an important era in design, connoisseurship, and extraordinary collaboration. Thankfully, some objects from Judith’s collection have been placed in museums, to preserve her record of extraordinary accomplishment.
– Robert F. Trent
Wilmington, Delaware
The Collection of Judith Hollander will be offered on Saturday, April 2, 2016, beginning at 11am EDT. See Sale Information >
For inquiries regarding the items in this sale please contact us at 518-751-1000 or info@stairgalleries.com.