helped him revamp his collection by adding paintings by artists such as Cézanne and Picasso and selling ones that no longer suited his taste. In the mid-1920s Gallatin studied art with the artist and teacher, Robert Henri, and in 1926 produced some small still lifes and mythology-themed paintings which have been described as having "broad areas of open space broken up by clusters of oddly shaped forms." His interest in cubism deepened and he added works to his collection by Georges Braque and Juan Gris. At least partly in response to articles by Forbes Watson in The Arts and Henry McBride in The Dial, Gallatin began planning for a public gallery based on his collection of modern art. Early in 1927, as a result of a family connection with New York University, he was able first to organize a small show and, in December of that year, to open his Gallery of Living Art in the south study hall of that university's main building on Washington Square. The gallery has been called the first museum devoted exclusively to modern art. (The Phillips Memorial Collection, opened in 1920, might also lay claim to that distinction but for the fact that it was not exclusively modernist.) Consisting almost entirely of works from Gallatin's collection and assembled with help from the critic, Henry McBride, there were, at its opening, paintings and works on paper by twenty-four artists, both American and French. In addition to the forty-three of his own, Gallatin included fifteen borrowed works. There was no entry fee and from the beginning it was seen as place for artists to use as well as the general public. Art collecting: 1930s The composition of the Gallery of Living Art was informal and fluid, changing frequently as Gallatin added to his collection or simply wished to revise the display. Somewhat conservative at first, it grew to include major paintings in the cubist, neo-plasticist, and constructivist style by artists such as Picasso, Braque, Gris, Fernand Léger, Piet Mondrian, Jean Hélion, and El Lissitzky as well as ones in the surrealist style by Joan Miró, Jean Arp, and André Masson. Gallatin hung the gallery with the few large paintings occupying wall space by themselves. By the mid-1930s, these large paintings included Picasso's Three Musicians (1921), Léger's The City (1919), and Miró's Painting (Fratellini). Most of the collection consisted of small works making it easy for moderately-sized