Bodies & Souls

Robert Cozzolino is a Minneapolis-based independent curator, art historian, and critic who approaches curation collaboratively, in partnership with artists, colleagues, and broad communities. "Starting where you are" is critical to his practice-knowing the immediate context and deeper history of the place in which he works. Dr. Cozzolino is drawn to artists who express the full range of human experience, especially those who aspire to visually express the intangible. Although he has worked on topics from the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, he often collaborates with contemporary artists in examining history. He considers himself a curator of fluid time, not bound by the labels and bins imposed on the field. Among his more than forty exhibitions are Supernatural America: The Paranormal in American Art (2021-22), World War I and American Art (2016-17), Peter Blume: Nature and Metamorphosis (2014-15), David Lynch: The Unified Field (2014), and With Friends: Six Magic Realists, 1940-1965 (2005). William R. Valerio is the Patricia Van Burgh Allison Director and CEO of Woodmere in Philadelphia. Over the last fifteen years, he has led a transformative revitalization of the institution's community engagement, collections, financial health, and cultural relevance. As the lead visionary behind the museum's exhibitions, he has deepened the scholarship and celebration of the art and artists of Philadelphia, through such major exhibitions as A Grand Vision: Violet Oakley and the American Renaissance (2017), We Speak: Black Artists in Philadelphia, 1920s-1970s (2015), and Schofield: International Impressionist (2014). Valerio holds a PhD in art history from Yale, an MBA from Wharton, an MA in art history from the University of Pennsylvania, and a BA cum laude from Williams College. Robert E. Kohler trained as a chemist but has long been informally devoted to books and creative literature. A happy accident in midlife led him to unite these separate threads in history of science and environmental history, fields he pursued as a scholar and teacher at the University of Pennsylvania from 1973 to his retirement in 2006. His passion for collecting contemporary art, which he shared with his wife, Frances, began as a secondary pursuit but developed into a mid- to late-life vocation and primary life's work. Frances was another creative shapeshifter: educated in classics and comparative literature, she discovered a gift and calling in history of science, as managing editor of the premier journal in the couple's shared field.

"This exhibition catalog is a fresh rethinking of the term 'regionalism,' offering the opportunity to champion the local in important new ways and to contribute to an enlivened understanding of daring patronage in Greater Philadelphia." - Jenni Sorkin, Professor and Chair, History of Art & Architecture, University of California, Santa Barbara "Art is big, encompassing more than the narrow margins defined by sanctioned art history and stale critical edicts. This volume surveys the depth and purpose of the Robert and Frances Colbourn Kohler Collection, highlighting its fresh collection of quirky and compelling American figurative art. Robert Cozzolino's important essay powerfully contextualizes the collection, shining a light on art that reveals the inner workings of the human psyche with impeccable craft, empathy, and poetic clout." - Michael Duncan, independent critic and curator, Los Angeles "Frances and Robert Kohler built an extraordinary collection shaped by shared values and a willingness to follow their own convictions, bringing together works by widely recognized artists alongside others whose significance has too often been overlooked. Their deep trust in artists of exceptional force and originality is matched by a sustained collaboration with curator Robert Cozzolino, whose exhibitions and writing have been central to shaping, interpreting, and sharing the collection. This book offers a rare and intimate view of the Kohlers' path as collectors, affirming collecting as a creative practice grounded in care, curiosity, and enduring partnership." - Jodi Throckmorton, Chief Curator, John Michael Kohler Arts Center "Bodies & Souls explores the ideal synergy between artists, collectors, and museum curators. Looking at the generosity of Philadelphia-based collectors Frances and Robert Kohler, curator Robert Cozzolino convincingly argues for the significance of figuration for artists and the communities in which they live. This book is critical reading for any serious consideration of the vitality of contemporary representational painting and drawing inside and outside of New York in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries." - Bridget R. Cooks, Ph.D, Professor and Chancellor's Fellow, Department of Art History, African American Studies, University of California, Irvine