One collector's gift.

Byline: Bob Keefer The Register-Guard

The 95 paintings that make up a new exhibit at the Portland Art Museum illustrate what's possible for an ordinary guy to pull off with nothing more than an interest in art, a few years to develop his taste and a bit of pocket money.

Well, OK. Not exactly an ordinary guy - and considerably more than a little money.

The exhibit, ``From Fra Angelico to Bonnard: Masterpieces of the Rau Collection,'' represents the best of hundreds of works of arts purchased over the last four decades by a wealthy German pediatrician, Gustav Rau.

Rau, born into a family of industrialists, had one of the most amazing midlife crises on record.

After successfully running the family business as a young man, Rau - then in his mid-40s - dropped out, went to medical school, studied pediatrics and tropical medicine, cashed out the business and headed for Africa.

There, in what is now the Democratic Republic of Congo, he began providing food and medical care to as many as 8,000 children a day through a hospital and private foundation.

Rau also got interested in art. In the 1960s he began buying masterpieces of European painting and sculpture that ranged from Gothic and Romanesque to contemporary. But he focused on 19th century works.

He had wanted to create a museum for his collection in France, but his plans fell through.

Rau finally donated the entire lot to UNICEF, with the stipulation that the works be shown internationally for five years. The art can be sold in 25 years to fund the organization's work. The doctor died in 2002.

This collection of some of his best paintings opened in 2000 at the Musee du Luxembourg in Paris. It drew 300,000 visitors there, before traveling to Germany, Holland, Italy and Colombia.

The Portland exhibit is the show's United States debut. It marks another art world coup by museum director John Buchanan, who has established a record of bringing high-profile and significant exhibits to Portland. The show was put together here by Buchanan and Penelope Hunter-Stiebel, the museum's curator of European painting.

``From Fra Angelico to Bonnard'' demonstrates not only Rau's good taste, his fascination with impressionism and his deep pocketbook, but also his particular interest in people - especially children.

The first large gallery you tour consists largely of impressionist and impressionist-era paintings. You'll find most of the celebrity names in French art well represented: Paul Cezanne, Edouard Manet, Edgar Degas, Alfred Sisley.

And then you come to the Monets.

The work of Claude Monet is familiar to every museum traveler and art lover in the 21st century, to the point that you may think that if you see one more big blue water lily you'll go blind. Well, there are no water lilies here.

Instead you'll find six Monet canvases arranged along one wall, showing the artist's amazing progression from near realism, with his landscape ``Woods and Undergrowth'' of 1865, to his cerebrally fractured vision in the 1895 ``Houses in the Snow in Norway.''

Monet is sometimes called the first abstract painter, and this powerful painting of white-roofed houses in the white snow shows why. The painting is a study in shape, form and subtle distinctions of color, almost completely divorced from pictorial content. It may be the first white-on-white painting.

Farther along is a series of portraits that make up the exhibit's next highlight. Rau, a lover of humanity, clearly loved looking at individual people's faces.

Here you'll find, for example, Thomas Gainsborough's portrait of the doughty Mrs. Gainsborough, her face slightly world-weary under the elaborate finery of her hat and dress.

By contrast, take a look at Giandomenico Tiepolo's luscious "Allegorical Portrait of a Young Woman as Flora," which the Italian painted in about the 1780s.

Allegory or not, the young woman's face sizzles with life and quiet sexuality under a hat brimming with fresh flowers. Her eyes pierce through you and her mouth seems ready with a tart comeback.

There is much, much more to see. Rau collected works from the fauvist and Les Nabis schools, a few 20th century pieces and some Dutch still lifes.

There's German expressionism here and a saint by El Greco. You'll find a pointillist piece by Paul Signac; a flamboyantly rococo 18th century painting, "The Flute Lesson," that could make a bad greeting card; and a strangely intense little "Judith," by Lucas Cranach the Elder, that's as small as a cigar box lid.

The exhibition wraps up with paintings of children: a "Mother and Child" by Maurice Denis sits next to a slightly creepy "Portrait of Rebecca Watson" by English portraitist Joshua Reynolds.

The little rich girl in the painting, her complexion barely pink in the overall pallor of the scene, looks slightly away from us with sad brown eyes. She is trapped in the sumptuous finery of her grown-up jewels and gown.

Finally, the centerpiece in this children's room is Mary Cassatt's 1899 "Louise Feeding Her Child," one of those art images that everyone has no doubt seen on a postcard at one time or another. The original, its pastel strokes still as fresh and vibrant today as a century ago, is almost shocking to view in its immediacy.

Taken together, these paintings tell us something about great art. But more than that, they show a glimpse of the elegance and grace of the man who collected them.

Rau, you might say, won the cosmic lottery by being born rich. How refreshing it is that he preferred, in the end, to invest his winnings in humanity.

FROM FRA ANGELICO TO BONNARD

Masterpieces from the Rau Collection

What: Fine European paintings, from Renaissance to mid-20th century

Where: Portland Art Museum, 1219 S.W. Park Ave., Portland

When: Through Aug. 22

Admission: Adults, $15; seniors and students, $13; ages 5 through 18, $6; age 4 and under, free

Hours: 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Tuesday, Wednesday and Saturday, 10 a.m. to 8 p.m. Thursday and Friday; noon to 5 p.m. Sunday.

CAPTION(S):

Above: Giandomenico Tiepolo's oil painting, ``Allegorical Portrait of a Young Woman as Flora'' (1780s) is one of a number of fine portraits in the Rau collection exhibit. Far right: El Greco is represented in the show, with ``Saint Dominic in Prayer,'' oil on canvas. Right: Mary Cassatt's ``Louise Feeding Her Child'' (pastel on paper, 1899) is one of several works that highlight children. Collection of Dr. Rau, Cologne ``View of Amsterdam'' by Claude Monet (1874) is one of a series of six of his paintings that together give a clear picture of the evolution of his style.