A painting by French painter Camille Pissarro.
It amazed Eliot Gminder when he saw the drawings from some of the most famous artists in history on display at the Harrisburg Area Community College in 2010. The exhibit showed about a dozen drawings from artists like Dali, Picasso, and Manet. These are rare drawings and lithographs. They are genuine and they are Gminder’s.
Gminder is a part-time instructor at the HACC Gettysburg campus. He noticed that the campus featured rotating art exhibits in the gallery hallway. Though he wasn’t an artist himself, Gminder thought he had some drawings and lithographs that the college might be interested in showing.
“My wife and her brothers were all artists so I developed an appreciation for it,” Gminder said. “My contribution to the family is that I collect fine art.”
He has 19 pieces in his collection mostly from French Impressionists, though he will purchase other works that catch his attention.
“The impressionists took art outdoors,” Gminder said. “They were more interested in the way light played on things and they looked at different angles.”
A drawing by Pablo Picasso.
His collection includes pieces by Paul Signac, Camille Pissarro, Claude Monet, Paul Cezanne, Edgar Degas, Auguste Rodin, Pierre-Auguste Renoir and more. They are not the traditional paintings that you would expect from these artists. For instance, Rodin is best known for his sculpture, not his drawings. Some pieces are lithographs but others are done in pencil, charcoal, crayon, and ink. One is a 1935 U.S. one-dollar silver certificate signed by Salvador Dali. The pieces are valued from a few thousand dollars to more than $200,000.
Whether they are black and white or colorful, large or small, the pieces all share one common trait. Gminder thinks they are beautiful.
When Gminder asked about the art exhibits, he discovered that HACC hosts exhibits to expose arts and humanities students to original artwork. The HACC exhibit committee was very enthusiastic to show Gminder’s museum-quality art by such famous artists. He displayed a dozen pieces at HACC Gettysburg in 2010 and received an enthusiastic response that such a unique collection would be shown locally.
He has been building his collection for 18 years, occasionally selling or gifting a piece and then buying new ones from auction houses, antique shops, and even eBay.
The Gettysburg exhibit was the first public showing of the art. Based on the response to that exhibit, HACC in Harrisburg is showing Gminder’s collection this fall on the main campus.
He is also willing to allow any college or art gallery to show the work as long as they have proper security and insurance for such a display.
Eliot Gminder with one of his pieces of art.
“I want it to be shown and seen,” Gminder said. “The art doesn’t belong to me. It belongs to the world.”
When not at a show, Gminder keeps the professionally framed artwork on display at his Fayetteville home.
“I wanted my house to have a museum look about it, which is what I kept in mind when I hung all of these,” Gminder said.
He made sure to keep most of the art hung at eye level with proper lighting to accent rather than detract from the pieces.
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