Abby Aldrich Rockefeller

Abby Aldrich Rockefeller ( born October 26, 1874 in Providence, Rhode Iceland as Abigail Greene Aldrich, † April 5, 1948 in New York City ) was a famous American philanthropist, art collector and co-founder of the Museum of Modern Art ( MoMA) in New York.

Life

Family

Abby Aldrich was the daughter of the influential Republican Senator Nelson W. Aldrich and Abigail Pearce Truman Chapman (1845-1917) was born. 1891, at the age of 17, she enrolled in Miss Abbott's School for Young Ladies in Providence, where she studied until 1893 languages ​​and art history. On June 30, 1894 embarked for Liverpool, the beginning of a four-month trip through Europe. Back in Providence, they met in the autumn of the same year her future husband, John D. Rockefeller, Jr., the only son of the rich oil magnate John D. Rockefeller. After a lengthy courtship, the couple eventually married on 9 October 1901. The wedding was regarded as " the wedding of the Golden Age " and was a major social event for which about a thousand dignitaries and personalities in the summer house of the Aldrich family were invited in Kent County.

After the wedding, the couple moved to Manhattan. Together they had one daughter and five sons ( " Rockefeller Brothers "). The family formed the second generation of the Rockefeller dynasty:

Patronage

Abby Aldrich Rockefeller was a supporter of the Société Anonyme, Inc., a group of artists who, in 1920 on friendly terms by Katherine S. Dreier, with the Rockefeller, as well as Man Ray and Marcel Duchamp in New York was founded. She started from the year 1925 with the collection of paintings, watercolors and drawings of a number of contemporary American artists including Edward Hopper, Charles Demuth and Maurice Prendergast, as well as of European modernists, including Paul Cézanne, Edgar Degas, Andre Derain, Vincent van Gogh, Henri Matisse, Pablo Picasso, Camille Pissarro and Henri de Toulouse- Lautrec. In her apartment on the 54th street, which made them set up in the Art Deco style, she showed her collection under the name Topside Gallery and its contacts among other things, to Kunstkennerin Edith Gregor Halpert and gallerist (1900-1970) they had become a prominent patron of modern art and contemporary artists in the United States quickly.

Abby Aldrich Rockefeller was beside Lillie P. Bliss and Mary Quinn Sullivan (1877-1939) one of the founders of the Museum of Modern Art in New York. Could Abby Aldrich Rockefeller no hope of financial support from her husband, the contemporary art was not interested, she established a supporting network of companies and prominent individuals, to secure the financing of ongoing operations and acquisitions. On 7 November 1929, the museum was opened under the direction of Alfred Barr.

Abby Aldrich Rockefeller was an elected board member, Vice President (1934-1936) and first deputy chairman (1941-1945 ). In 1935 she gave the museum 181 paintings and drawings; 1939 36 sculptures and 45 works of American folk art. Between 1940 and 1946 nor 1700 prints were added from her collection; some collection pieces also went to the Metropolitan Museum of Art, The Cloisters, as well as the Rhode Iceland School of Design Museum.

Her son, Nelson, 1974-1977 Vice President of the United States, was a very active collector of modern art. He continued his mother's commitment to the Museum of Modern Art and several other museums.

Orders

  • Arthur B. Davies, mural for the lobby of International House, New York
  • Donald Deskey, interior design for Rockefeller Topside Gallery, as well as Radio City Music Hall
  • Beatrix Farrand garden design for The Eyrie, Mount Desert Iceland
  • Duncan Candler (1873-1949), architect of the Grace Dodge Hotel, Washington
  • Bayway Cottage, New Jersey

Facilities

  • The Abby Aldrich Rockefeller Sculpture Garden, in 1953, planned as a sculpture garden of the Museum of Modern Art by Philip Johnson and reshaped by Yoshio Taniguchi in 2004.
  • The Abby Aldrich Rockefeller Print Room at the Museum of Modern Art, contains a comprehensive collection of over 1700 prints Rockefeller who donated it to the museum in the 1940s.
  • The Abby Aldrich Rockefeller Gallery, in Rhode Iceland School of Design Museum, since 1953 shows Japanese woodcuts from the Abby Aldrich Rockefeller Collection.
  • The Abby Aldrich Rockefeller Folk Art Museum in Colonial Williamsburg, is considered the nation's leading center for research, conservation, and exhibition of American folk art and holds the extensive collection of Abby Rockefeller, the folk art was a particular concern.
Providence, Rhode Island Rhode Island Gilded Age Kent County (Rhode Island) Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec Alfred H. Barr, Jr. Rhode Island School of Design Museum Arthur Bowen Davies Mount Desert Island Nishiki-e Integrated Authority File
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