In October of 1953, the Yale University Art Gallery received a letter from alumnus George Hopper Fitch, who wrote: "I am sending you via Budworth a water color by George Grosz, which I would very much like to present to the Yale Gallery for its permanent collection."
Thus began more than four decades of patronage during which Mr. Fitch would give hundreds of 19th- and early 20th-century works on paper to the Yale Art Gallery. The alumnus' connoisseurship and generosity are celebrated in the exhibit "Give a thing and it is yours forever -- George Hopper Fitch Collects for Yale." The show, which coincides with Mr. Fitch's 65th reunion at Yale, will open on Tuesday, May 6, and continue through Saturday, June 14. It was organized by Elisabeth Hodermarsky, assistant curator of prints, drawings and photographs at the gallery.
The Grosz watercolor is dated 1932, the year of Mr. Fitch's graduation from Yale College. It shows the artist Yasuo Kuniyoshi wearing a Yale sweater. The artist himself, who had only recently arrived in New York from Germany, is shown hatted and bespectacled in the far right of the composition.
Mr. Grosz and Mr. Fitch became friends. In fact, the Yale alumnus came to know many of the artists whose work he enjoyed and collected, from Edward Hopper to Arthur Dove, who Mr. Fitch calls his favorite 20th-century painter. The Yale Art Gallery exhibit includes watercolors and drawings by these artists, as well as by John Marin, Georgia O'Keeffe, Stuart Davis, Charles Sheeler, George Bellows, Childe Hassam, Charles Demuth, Thomas Moran and Rufino Tamayo.
In 1969, after retiring from his career in advertising in New York, Mr. Fitch moved to San Francisco, where he became interested in photography. His first purchase was Eugene Atget's "Organ Grinder." Mr. Fitch recalls: "It simply entranced me, and I was smitten with photography. Yale had so few photos in its collection so it seemed logical that I start filling some holes right away." Since 1989, Mr. Fitch has donated more than 375 photographs to Yale. This collection covers a broad range of subject matter and technique and includes works by Julia Margaret Cameron, Peter Henry Emerson, Brassai, Walker Evans and Dorothea Lange. The alumnus, who has served on the gallery's governing board since 1972, established a fund in 1990 expressly for the purchase of photography. This has enabled the Yale Art Gallery to purchase 85 additional works, beginning with Berenice Abbott's signature image "New York at Night" of 1936.
The title for the exhibition comes from a speech that Mr. Fitch gave at the opening of a 1980 exhibit of his donated watercolors. The alumnus paraphrased a line in James Joyce's play "Exiles" as: "When you give a thing it's yours forever." Ms. Hodermarsky, in an essay in the brochure accompanying the exhibit, expressed the hope that the alumnus "knows his treasures, their legacy, and Yale's gratitude are, truly, his forever."
The Yale University Art Gallery is located at 1111 Chapel St. The gallery and its sculpture garden are open to the public free of charge 10 a.m.-5 p.m. Tuesday-Saturday and 2-5 p.m. Sunday. A museum entrance for persons using wheelchairs is located at 201 York St.; call 432-0601 for further information about access. The number for general information is 432-0600.