Samuel Putnam Avery

Samuel Putnam Avery Samuel P. Avery ( born March 17, 1822 in New York City; † August 11, 1904 ) was an American artist, art dealer and patron.

Life

He first learned the technique of engraving and woodcuts and worked for the American Bank Note Company and for leading publishers. To 1864/65 he was working as an art dealer. In 1867 he was appointed Commissioner for the American Art Department at the Paris World Exposition in 1867. On this occasion, and with the help of the collector George A. Lucas, he acquired paintings of the most fashionable Parisian artists, including William -Adolphe Bouguereau, Jules Breton, Jean -Léon Gérôme, and Ernest Meissonier. He undertook annual collecting trips. He auctioned The acquired images in New York City or sold directly to collectors such as William Henry Vanderbilt and Alexander Turney Stewart. He was one of the founders of the Metropolitan Museum of Art and a member of the most important scientific, artistic and educational associations. He founded the Avery Architectural Library at Columbia University in memory of his son, Henry Ogden Avery, an architect who had died already in 1890. Samuel P. Avery collected mainly French prints. In 1900 he donated his collection of etchings and lithographs 17,775 to the New York Public Library. In 1912, the Avery Hall was built on the Columbia campus in memory of father and son. It is also the Avery Library, one of the largest collection of the state of works on architecture and the Allied Art Samuel Putnam Avery was president of the Grolier Club from 1896-1900. The medalist Anton Scharff made ​​by him in 1897 a portrait medal.

Literature (English)

• Madeleine Fidell Beaufort, Herbert L. Kleinfeld and Jeanne K. Welcher, (ed.), The Diaries of Samuel P. Avery 1871-1882, Art Dealer, New York: Arno Press, 1979
• Arthur Bonn ( Comp. ) A Handbook of the SP Avery Collection of Prints and Art Books in The New York Public Library. Additions, by donation, from the Misses Which (Emma Avery, Alice Lee, and Amy Ogden ). New York: NYPL, about 1926.
• A Handbook of the SP Avery Collection of Prints and Art Books in The New York Public Library, New York: De Vinne Press, 1901.
• Louisa Wood Ruby, Samuel Putnam Avery as a Collector of Drawings: A Complete Checklist from The New York Public Library 's Print Collection. Biblion: The Bulletin of The New York Public Library.
• Frank wide fight ( Comp. ), Supplement to the Handbook of the SP Avery Collection in The New York Public Library. Additions of Prints, 1901-1920. New York: NYPL, 1921.