Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney

Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney ( born January 9, 1875 in New York City; † April 18, 1942, ibid ) was an American sculptor and art patron. It has brought the City 's Whitney Museum of American Art in New York.

Life

Gertrude Vanderbilt was the eldest surviving daughter of Cornelius Vanderbilt II (1843-1899) and Alice Claypoole Gwynne (1852-1934) and thus granddaughter of Commodore Cornelius Vanderbilt ( 1794-1877 ). The summer of her youth she spent in Newport, Rhode Iceland in her family The Breakers house. She was educated there by private tutors and at the exclusive Brearley School in New York.

At the age of 21, she married the wealthy merchant and sportsman Harry Payne Whitney ( 1872-1930 ). The son of William Collins Whitney was a banker and investor, his mother was the daughter of a co-owner of Standard Oil. Harry Whitney inherited a fortune, which was based on oil and tobacco cultivation, as well as shares in financial assets. The two had three children: Flora, Cornelius and Barbara.

Influence on the artistic life

On a trip to Europe in early 1900 Gertrude Whitney discovered the art world of Montmartre and Montparnasse in Paris. What they saw there encouraged her to give in to their own creativity and to become a sculptor.

She studied sculpture first at the Art Students League in New York, then with Auguste Rodin in Paris. Finally, she entertained ever a studio in Greenwich Village, New York and in Passy, a posh suburb of Paris. Her works were well received by the critics in Europe and the United States.

Their wealth allowed her to act as a patron of the arts, so they supported, for example, the fellow with her sculptor Jo Davidson, but they also devoted himself especially to the advancement of women in the arts. She was the main financier of the International Composer's Guild, which had been established for the performance of modern music.

In 1914 she set up in 147 West Fourth Street, Manhattan, the Whitney Studio Club, to offer young artists an opportunity to exhibit. Hence her lasting legacy, the Whitney Museum of American Art, she founded it in 1931 after the Metropolitan Museum of Art had rejected its offer to take over her collection of modern art. Developed The Whitney Museum dedicated to her in 1943 a memorial exhibition in which 62 of her sculptures were shown.

Later years

During the First World War devoted Gertrude Whitney various aid organizations a lot of money and time. Among other things, founded and held them to a hospital for wounded soldiers in Neuilly -sur -Seine. After the war, they created a series of memorials. In 1934, she was at the center of a much-publicized court dispute with her ​​sister Gloria Morgan Vanderbilt for custody of her ten -year-old niece Gloria Vanderbilt. Gertrude Whitney died in 1942 at the age of 67 years and was next to her husband at Woodlawn Cemetery, Bronx, New York buried.

Published in 1999, her granddaughter Flora Miller Biddle, a volume of memoirs under the title The Whitney Women and the Museum They Made. In the television film Little Gloria ... Happy At Last, she was portrayed by actress Angela Lansbury, who won an Emmy for it.

Public Sculpture of Gertrude Whitney

Gertrude Whitney designed the statue in Huelva, which is reminiscent of Christopher Columbus, and was given to the Spanish people of the United States. In the United States come from her:

  • Fountain of El Dorado - initially in San Francisco, California, today in Lima, Peru;
  • Aztec Fountain - Washington, D. C.;
  • Women's Titanic Memorial - Washington, DC, to commemorate the sinking of the Titanic;
  • William F. Cody Memorial - Cody, Wyoming, at the entrance to Yellowstone National Park;
  • Victory Arch - Madison Square, New York;
  • Three Graces on the lower campus of McGill University in Montreal, Canada.

A marble copy of the head of the Titanic Memorial was purchased by the French government for the Musée du Luxembourg.

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