Art: Buying American

"European painting is studied and tired, missing the freshness of spring." says Belgian Industrialist Philippe Dotremont. "American painting bursts forth from the ground like flowers, disengaged from tradition and the past. If a man moves by plane rather than oxcart, why must he prefer Rubens to Pollock?"

With this philosophy. Dotremont has made himself Europe's leading collector of American art: 40 of his 140 paintings are from the U.S. His made-in-America flower bursts crowd the walls, halls, ante rooms and garage of his cubist suburban Brussels home. This week 85 that had been on loan for a one-collector show at Basel's Kunsthalle...

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