The history of art collecting is a fairly new area of research within the domain of art history but nonetheless highly interesting.
At the beginning, the research focused solely on the “big robber barons” of the Gilded Age like J. Pierpont Morgan, William and Henry Walters or Henry Clay Frick.
For this first series of lectures, I thought I would share with you the portraits of some of the ordinary and extraordinary women who shaped part of today’s American cultural scene thanks to their approach towards collecting art.
Why are we not talking more about women art collectors? Why did the collecting of precious objects became such a significant feature in the lives of American Woman during the late 19th and early 20th centuries? What legacy did they leave behind?
On this first lecture, we will discuss the extraordinary lives and legacies of Catharine Lorillard Wolfe, first woman on the board of the Metropolitan Museum of Art. We will also talk about the lives of Irene Leache and Annie Wood, behind the Chrysler Museum in Norfolk.