The Tamesis
John P. Axelrod, a well-known collector and retired attorney, died Saturday, January 3. He was killed in a hit-and-run in Boston’s Back Bay neighborhood, where he owned a townhouse. He is 79 years old.
according to a report boston.comProsecutors said the suspect “intentionally” attacked Axelrod, who was walking his dog at the Federal Avenue Mall. According to police, around 8 a.m. Saturday, the suspect, later identified as 42-year-old William Haney, drove onto the pedestrian mall and attacked Axelrod before fleeing the scene. Axelrod was taken to a hospital, where he later died. His dog Tal was killed in the accident.
Related articles
Haney was charged with one count of murder and one count of animal cruelty. He turned himself in to police on Sunday after officers found his vehicle in the Boston-area town of Brookline and announced charges. boston globe.
Axelrod’s collection of American paintings, African American and Latin American art, and decorative arts is listed art news List of the top 200 collectors from 1997 to 2000. His first purchase was a seascape in Gloucester, Massachusetts, when he was a teenager painting as an artist on the docks. In the late 1960s, while a student at Harvard Law School, Axelrod became interested in collecting and purchased an Art Deco tea set designed by Gene Theobald for $45.
According to an article in 2002 magazine, at the height of his collecting, his collection ranged from paintings by Paul Cadmus, Jared French and George Tooker to a 1938 plaster sculpture by Cesare Stea, a group of works commissioned by the WPA for the Latin American Surrealist group El Grupo Orion. Antiques and Fine Arts Magazine. While Axelrod’s collection consists primarily of figurative works, he also owns a black-and-white abstract work by Norman Lewis titled every atom shines (1951).
“There is no collection that rivals that of John Axelrod,” said Jonathan L. Fairbanks, director emeritus of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. “Simply put, it’s the best of its kind. What’s more, John is a well-read student. He studies what he collects—he knows a lot about the modern era and the artists whose work he owns. Is John a compulsive collector? Well, yes, in the best sense of the word, because he’s passionate about owning and knowing.”
Axelrod was a major patron of the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, donating more than 700 works from his collection to the museum over the decades starting in 1985. The donations include his collection of works by African-American artists and 20th-century European and American decorative arts. In 2009, a gallery in the American Art Wing of the museum was named in his honor, and he is an honorary advisor to the museum.
“John was a generous supporter and passionate advocate for underrepresented artists and has been a member of the Museum of Fine Arts family since the 1980s,” the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, said in a statement. boston.com. “His legacy will live on at the museum through the John Axelrod Collection – a transformative collection of nearly 70 works by black artists.”
Axelrod first began collecting works by African American artists after seeing the 1993-94 exhibition “African American Art: Masterpieces of the 20th Century” at the Michael Rosenfeld Gallery in New York. during an interview maine antique digestwho describes the gallery’s founder, Michael Rosenfeld, as “a very important mentor.” In that article, Rosenfeld recalled that Axelrod became “very emotional” after seeing the exhibition and not recognizing any of the artists’ names. He quickly purchased five works from the exhibition and would continue to deepen his holdings in the field over the next two decades.
“He has incredible eyes and intuition that we don’t often see,” Rosenfeld told art news in a phone interview Monday. “He didn’t care what other people thought about the art he collected. He just followed his heart. He was a very rare person of taste and integrity, which is unusual, especially when you look at the art world now. He came from a different era.”
In 2011, the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, acquired 67 works from the Axelrod collection of works by African-American artists, including 39 paintings, 10 drawings, and 18 sculptures, which were sold to the museum for a reported $5 million to $10 million. These include abstract paintings by Lewis, works by Hale Woodruff High winds in Georgia (c. 1933), John Biggs shotgun (1983–86), Beauford Delaney green street (1940), Archibald J. Motley cocktail (c. 1926) and Sargent Claude Johnson’s mask (1934), the latter two works appearing in the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s 2024 exhibition “The Harlem Renaissance and Transatlantic Modernism.”
“Museums want these collections because you can’t have a great collection of American art without these artists. Period. End of story. You can’t have a great collection of Abstract Expressionism without Norman Lewis,” Axelrod told maine antique digest then.
In addition to his patronage of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, Axelrod was a supporter of the Yale University Art Gallery (YUAG) and the Addison Gallery of American Art at Phillips Academy, both affiliated with his alma mater. Throughout the 1980s, he donated more than 300 American prints to Yale University, which organized an exhibition in 1983 related to the 1980 donation. Beginning in the 1990s, he also supported YUAG’s collection of American decorative arts, donating approximately 50 objects to the department, including “textiles by avant-garde designer Ruth Reeves, examples of modernist homewares and furniture, and Funk-style furniture.” ceramics and contemporary glass,” the museum said.
“John Axelrod was an extraordinary and visionary collector who often celebrated art history before it was fashionable,” said John Stuart Gordon, curator of American decorative arts at YUAG. art news in the statement. “The diversity of his collection reflected his insatiable curiosity. He loved finding objects and learning about the people who made them and their families. Each gift to the museum was accompanied by a story of how he acquired each piece, the people he met along the way, and the colorful revelry that ensued. He loved creativity of all kinds and encouraged others to love it too by supporting museums and educational institutions.”
Axelrod presented the Addison Museum with photographs by PaJaMa and Peter Hujar, paintings by George Tooker and Ralston Crawford, works on paper by José Bedia and Paul Cadmus, and a collection of works by Betye Saar. While his sponsorship of the Addison Museum dates back to 2024 and 2025, several of his donations to the museum were made in 2024 and 2025. He has collaborated with the institution on exhibitions and installations focusing on Art Deco silverware, 1980s New York City street art, magical realism, and Precisionism, and more recently provided funds to establish the John P. Axelrod (PA 1964) Acquisition Fund there.
“The Addison Gallery has been fortunate to have a close and enduring relationship with Phillips School graduate and pioneering collector John Axelrod (PA 1964), a benefactor, mentor and, above all, a friend,” the Addison Gallery said in a statement. art news. “John’s well-known acumen and foresight, as well as his deep knowledge and appreciation, have greatly enhanced the museum’s exhibitions and collections over the years. Guided by his motto ‘Only buy what you like,’ his passion for art knew no bounds, encompassing an astonishingly broad range of media and time periods.
By the time of the 2011 MFA auction, Axelrod had turned his attention to collecting works from New York’s East Village from 1980 to 1984, with a particular focus on graffiti art. In December 2022, Christie’s auction house offered an online auction of 26 works from the Axelrod Collection titled “Loisaida: 1980s Graffiti and Street Art from the Collection of John P. Axelrod.” The sale includes works by David Wojnarowicz, Martin Wong, Peter Hujar, Rammellzee, Daze, Lee Quiñones and Luis Frangella.
“Axelrod’s collection is important not only for the artists within it, but also for the quality of the works,” critic Carlo McCormick said in a video produced for the sale. “I think it was purchased at a time when it was undervalued. A lot of it is actually early work by these artists who we now call legends.”
Axelrod’s approach to acquiring new works is rooted in in-depth research into each area of his collection. “I started by asking myself some questions: Is the work good, is the artist respected in his field? (I bought books on the subject and read them, so I know everything about the subject.),” he told the outlet observer 2015. “I wanted to know if the price was reasonable, and I checked the sources of sales price information. I asked myself, ‘Is there anything else I would pay that much for?’ And, most importantly… I asked myself, ‘Do I like it?’ “It’s a gut check, and if the answer is no, then the discussion is over. You move on.”
Updated at 2:30 pm on January 5, 2026: This article has been updated to include an interview with dealer Michael Rosenfeld and a statement from Addison Gallery.
Updated at 3:25 pm on January 5, 2026: This article has been updated to include a statement from John Stuart Gordon, Director of the Yale University Art Museum.
