Huguette M. Clark

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William Andrews Clark with his daughters at Columbia Gardens, Butte . Andrée (left), Huguette (right)

Huguette Marcelle Clark (born June 9, 1906 in Paris , France , † May 24, 2011 in New York , United States ) was an American millionaire who was best known for her eccentric behavior .

Life

Huguette Clark was born on June 9, 1906 in Paris, the second child of industrial tycoon William Andrews Clark and his second wife Anna Eugenia Clark (nee Chapelle). Clark was considered one of the richest men in America during his lifetime. He was also politically active and was Senator for Montana from 1899 to 1900 and from 1901 to 1907 . Her father had married the family's former nanny after the death of his first wife. The marriage was probably concluded in 1901. However, it was initially kept a secret from the American public, as the 39-year-old woman was considered inappropriate here. Clark and his wife could only appear together as a couple in Europe, which only changed in 1904 when the connection became known in the United States according to press reports. From her father's first marriage she had five siblings, at least one of whom died before she was born.

She spent her childhood from 1907 in a magnificent mansion on Fifth Avenue . She attended Miss Spence's School for Girls in New York. When her sister Andree died of meningitis in 1919 at the age of only 16, she became the main heir and had to take on social responsibilities in place of her sister. In the 1920s, Clark's father bought the Bellosguardo estate overlooking the Pacific as the family's winter quarters in Santa Barbara , California . After her father's death in 1925, she and her half-siblings inherited a fortune of over $ 300 million.

At this time, Clark had also increasingly turned to the arts and music. For the year 1929 an exhibition with seven of her pictures at the Corcoran College of Art and Design in Washington is documented.

Renoir painting Dans les Roses (Portrait de Madame Léon Clapisson)

In 1928 she married law student William MacDonald Gower, from whom she divorced in 1930. The marriage remained childless. Her last known photo is from the same year. A year later, an Irish nobleman publicly denied a planned marriage to Clark. She left hastily to go to the opera and thereafter only occasionally made public appearances until her mother's death in 1963. She then withdrew completely from the public eye and lived in an apartment in New York for the next 25 years. There she spent the time with her enormous doll collection and often only communicated with visitors through closed doors.

Since 1988 she has lived in hospitals at her own request, although, according to her then domestic worker, she appeared healthy. There she was known by changing names and was cared for by private nurses.

Clark made several donations to charity, but most of this only became known after her death.

In 2003 she had the Renoir painting Dans les Roses (Portrait de Madame Léon Clapisson) auctioned off at the Sotheby’s action house, which brought in proceeds of 23.5 million US dollars.

After almost 80 years in which Clark lived extremely withdrawn, there have been extensive press reports about the eccentric millionaire since mid-2010 in the course of several legal disputes.

She died on May 24, 2011 at the age of 104 in New York's Beth Israel Hospital. Two days later she was buried in Woodlawn Cemetery in New York's Bronx . Clark left a fortune of approximately $ 500 million. Most of the fortune went to a foundation for the promotion of the arts. Among other things, it should serve to expand Bellosguardo into a museum with the paintings, musical instruments and rare books of the testator. Clark's distant relatives received nothing from the inheritance.

literature

  • Bill Dedman, Paul Clark Newell Jr .: Empty mansions, the mysterious life of Huguette Clark and the spending of a great American fortune . Atlantic Books, New York 2013, ISBN 978-1-78239-492-1 .

Web links

Individual evidence

Commons : Huguette Clark  - Collection of Images, Videos and Audio Files
  1. ^ A b c d Huguette Clark at telegraph.co.uk, accessed May 29, 2011
  2. ↑ a b 104 years old: Mysterious US millionaire died at spiegel.de, accessed on May 30, 2011
  3. ↑ "Dans les Roses" Renoir painting for 20.5 million euros will be auctioned by rp-online.de on May 7, 2003
  4. ↑ Mysterious Millionaire: Death at 104 at welt.de, accessed on May 29, 2011
  5. ↑ The will of the old lady in: Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung of June 26, 2011, page 54
  6. ↑ Million dollar dispute about the doll house at focus.de, accessed on October 12, 2013
personal data
SURNAME Clark, Huguette M.
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Clark, Huguette Marcelle (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American millionaire and eccentric
DATE OF BIRTH June 9, 1906
PLACE OF BIRTH Paris , France
DATE OF DEATH May 24, 2011
Place of death New York , United States