Régine van den Broek d’Obrenan Arnold Crane 150 1909-2014 Régine van den Broek at her home in Rivaulde in July of 2012 © Jean-Christophe Domenech IN tribute world’s largest holdings of the modernists Man Ray and László Moholy-Nagy. Perhaps the rarest and most important piece of photographic history to enter the Getty was from the Crane Collection: the album of French photographic pioneer Hippolyte Bayard, which contains 145 experimental photos from 1840–1845. In addition to collecting their work, Arnold enjoyed friendships with and photographed many of the twentieth century’s photographic geniuses: Ansel Adams, Bill Brandt, and Brassai, in addition to Evans, Man Ray, and Moholy-Nagy. After seeing Arnold’s candid shots of Arnold’s good friend Man Ray, Edward Steichen suggested Arnold photograph all of the other great photographers. The resulting monograph, On the Other Side of the Camera, At 105 years of age, Régine van den Broek d’Obrenan was the last surviving member of the group of five young people (Étienne and Monique de Ganay, Charles and Régine van den Broek d’Obrenan, and Jean Ratisbonne) who spent more than two years, from 1934 to 1936, sailing the South Seas aboard the yacht La Korrigane. Her mother, Zélie Schneider, was from one of the most wellknown families of industrialists of the early twentieth century, and her father was a high French aristocrat. Régine de Ganay married Charles van den Broek d’Obrenan in 1931. She had studied painting and drawing with André Lhote, so it was natural that she became the artist for the voyage. Following the tradition of the painters and illustrators of the great expeditions of the nineteenth century, she produced hundreds of sketches, watercolors, and pastels illustrating her vision of the many places the ship visited, and all of her works attest to her keen eye and developed sense of color. The La Korrigane voyage was the great adventure of her life and she loved to tell anecdotes of it, like the story of her hike in the interior of the island of Malekula in Vanuatu (then the New Hebrides) during which she believed she had very narrowly escaped the cooking pots of supposed cannibals. Be that as it may, Régine van den Broek had participated in one of the most impor tant collecting trips to Oceania made by a French expedition, which in part was made possible by the support of the Musée du Trocadéro’s director, Paul Rivet. Wh en sh e retur ned to France, s he sp ent three yea rs helpin g her husband, Charles, compile accession infor mation for th e more t han 2,00 0 o bjects that the members of th e expedition had brought back an d then stored at the Musée de l’Homme. W hen Charles died in 1956, Régine and her cousin, Monique de Gan ay, enlisted the help of Jean Roudillon t o make a selection of objects that would be sold at the famous auction that took place at the Hôtel Drouot in Dec emb er of 19 61, and of others that woul d be given to the Musée de l’Hom me. All Oceanic art aficionados are familiar with the D.39.3 ins cription seen on ea ch o f the objects collected du ring th is legendary expedit ion. Ma ny of th e pieces that Régine ga ve t o the M usée de l’H o mme are now at the Musée du Quai Bra nly. The wel l-known Dukna shark-god figure, donated in 1969, is curre ntly installed in the Pavillon de s Sessions at the L ouvre. As preparations were be ing ma de for the Voyage de La Korrigane dans les Mers du Sud exhibiti o n at the Musée de l’Homm e in 1997, I firs t made the acqua intance of the di screet and self-effacin g woman that was Régine van den Broek. Until la st Jun e, she was ki nd enough to tr ansmit her most vivid me mor ies of her yout h a nd her travels through Ocea nia to me. Despite h er years , she was always affable and at tentive t o m y questions. We lost R égine v an den B roek on September 13 of last y ear. She was well into her 106th year of l ife and now rests in the Visconti tomb at the Père Lachaise C emetery. Christian Coiffier Any visitors to Arnold Crane’s Chicago apartment realized immediately that they were in the presence of a passionate collector. Whether American Indian jewelry, African bronzes and weapons, European wooden walking canes and staffs, books, or his most beloved cameras, Arnold collected with great enthusiasm and in depth. Trained as a trial attorney, Arnold was a superb photographer first and foremost. His unbridled devotion to photography and his flawless eye for greatness resulted in his amassing an extraordinary collection of nineteenth- and twentieth-century photography that now forms the cornerstone of the Getty Museum’s photographic collection. When the Crane Collection entered the Getty in 1984, it included more than 1,000 Walker Evans images and the Arnold Crane: Photographer of Photographers, 2013 Photo: Bob Coates
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