Masterpieces of Art Deco: The Marsha Miro Collection

Marsha Miro was first drawn to Art Deco in the early 1980s. She stepped into this field at a fortuitous moment. Great pieces were coming to market, very often for the first time from the estates or heirs of the clients for whom they were originally made. Auctions in New York and in Europe, notably in Monte Carlo, brought forth masterful examples of the creativity of the great designers of this golden era.

I remember meeting Marsha and being struck by the glint in her eye – the glint of deep and lively curiosity and of real, visceral delight in this subject. She selected well, bringing together pieces both of impressive and of more modest scale – from the sumptuous cabinet by Paul Iribe to the elegantly understated correspondence box by Rose Adler. The goal was to find exemplary works that each made a strong statement about creativity – furniture and objects with the stature of works of art and capable of holding their own in dialogue with the 20th century paintings and sculpture with which they would share a home. Success can be measured in the exceptional character of the pieces that constitute the collection, fine examples, deserving of the epithet ‘masterpieces’, of the inspiration of a notable roster of artists that includes Edgar Brandt, Ernest Boiceau, Pierre Chareau, Jean Dunand, Pierre Legrain, Eugène Printz, and Emile-Jacques Ruhlmann.

Marsha brought to collecting the informed intelligence and the rigor that marked her approach to life and underpinned her other roles, as Art Critic for the Detroit Free Press (1974-1995), as Architectural Historian at Cranbrook (1995-2005), the educational community in Bloomfield Hills, Michigan, that is a National Historic Landmark, and as Founding Director, Museum of Contemporary Art Detroit (2006-2010), where she is currently Board President.