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Ebullient Edwin A. Bergman, 50, president of Chicago's U.S. Reduction Co., values a work of art not for its mystery but for what it tells him of the artist who made it. "You sometimes wonder," he jests, "whether you are buying the art or a piece of the artist." The Bergmans' home is jammed with several generations of Dadaist and surrealist works. Some are by unknown artists, others by famous ones, who are personal friends.
Bergman caught the collecting bug in 1954, soon met Surrealist Wilfredo Lam and through him acquired an interest in surrealism. He also acquired Roberto Malta's Onyx of Electro, a key exhibit in the survey of Dada and surrealism opening this week at Manhattan's Museum of Modern Art.
Another favorite is Sculptress Marisol. In fact, the Bergmans were lunching with her on Nov. 22, 1963, when they heard of Kennedy's assassination. They went sadly back to her studio, there saw her 1961 Kennedy Family. It had been returned from a West Coast gallery where a fellow artist had playfully drilled the Jack Kennedy doll in the chest with a pistol. Aghast but fascinated, Bergman bought the work after Marisol had repaired it.
False-Teeth Collage. The average visitor, ushered through the five galleries annexed to the Winnetka chateau belonging to Retailing Executive Robert Mayer, 57, wishes he had brought along his sunglasses: more than 450 works of op, pop, ob, blob, kinetic and frenetic art jump, creep, twitch, jiggle or blaze from every conceivable wall and cranny. Some of Mayer's purchases are spectacularly fine, including Robert Rauschenberg's Buffalo II, a recent star at the Sao Paulo Bienal. Many others are simply spectacular. For, as Mayer is the first to admit, he has something of a glass eye for art.
During his World War II tour of duty in France, he reminisces, he looked up Pablo Picasso in Paris. Picasso offered to let him pick out a picture, so Mayer did. It turned out to be by one of Picasso's students (the master let him choose a second). Today, Mayer lets dealers do most of the picking. But his infectious enthusiasm has made modern-art converts out of several of his neighbors. Even the Mayers' butler now assembles collages from bow ties and false teeth, which Mayer hangs along with his Oldenburgs and Tingue-lys. "We buy what we like," he explains, "not for appreciation, but enjoyment. I hope we never stop."
In the case of New Orleans-bred Lillian Florsheim, ex-wife of the late Shoe Manufacturer Irving Florsheim, art appreciation has led herto both collecting and creating art herself. Her constructions are composed in the constructivist vernacular that she favors in her collection, which is rich in Vasarely, Albers, Calder and Gabo. For the past two years, she has held shows at Chicago's Main Street Galleries, has sold work to Collectors Mayer, Bergman and Connecticut's Joseph Hirshhorn.