Louisine W. Havemeyer
Louisine W. Havemeyer (also Mrs. Henry O. Havemeyer) (born July 28, 1855 in New York City , † January 6, 1929 there ) was an American art collector, patron and suffragette .
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family
Louisine Waldron Elder was the second of four children of Mathilda Adelaide Waldron (1834–1907) and the sugar manufacturer George William Elder (1831–1873). In 1858, Louisine's uncle J. Lawrence Elder (1832–1868) and Mary O. Havemeyer (1834–1865), an older sister of their future husband, who first grew up in this household because his mother had died early, married. In 1862 Henry O. Havemeyer (1847–1907) came into the household of Louisine's parents and grew up with them.
In 1869, Henry O. Havemeyer and Mary Louise Elder (1847–1897), Louisine's aunt, married. This marriage soon ended in divorce because Henry had a drinking problem.
In 1883 Louisine W. Elder and Henry O. Havemeyer married. Before getting married, Louisine is said to have stipulated that her husband should not touch a drop of alcohol in his life. He is said to have followed this. The fact that Henry was already divorced, had with Louisine's aunt and also had a drinking problem, led to the ostracism of Louisine in particular, even though they were among the wealthiest families in the United States.
Louisine W. Havemeyer had three children: the daughter Adeline (1884–1963), the son Horace (1886–1956) and the daughter Electra (1888–1960).
Art collector
Louisine W. Havemeyer began collecting art as a young girl. During their marriage, she continued this passion for collecting, building up an art collection with her husband. After the death of her husband, the focus of the collection changed again.
Beginning of the art collection
Louisine W. Havemeyer went with her mother and two sisters to Paris from March to October in 1874 to attend Madame Del Satre's elegant boarding school. In addition to French lessons, Louisine also took singing lessons and attended the theater, the opera and made excursions (including to Fontainebleau). She met the 30-year-old American painter Mary Cassatt through a former boarding school student . A friendship developed that lasted for decades. In the following years she was repeatedly in Paris. In 1877 - advised by Mary Cassatt - she bought her first picture from Degas for 500 francs , which at the time was about 400 marks , and her first Monet for 300 francs (for comparison: in 1912 she paid 478,500 francs for a Degas). At the age of 22, Louisine W. Havemeyer was one of the first collectors in America to buy Impressionist paintings. She loaned Degas' picture to an exhibition at the National Academy of Design in New York in 1878. Pissarro and Cassatt bought paintings in 1879 . In 1881 Louisine W. Havemeyer visited the Paris Salon and saw pictures by Édouard Manet . She saw what an uproar these pictures found among the audience. A planned visit to Manet did not materialize because of his illness. She also saw a Courbet exhibition and then later an exhibition by Whistler in London . Whistler met her personally and bought five of his paintings.
During the marriage
Japanese porcelain was added as a further collection area in 1884. Lacquer work and textiles, bronzes, swords and carpets also from China and Persia followed later. The first picture by Edouard Manet entered the collection in 1886. In 1888, Henry Havemeyer bought a portrait of George Washington from Gilbert Stuart and immediately donated it to the Metropolitan Museum of Art . So this picture was not intended for your own collection, but for the social upgrading of the family. In 1890 the Havemeyers moved into their new home in Central Park , on the corner of 5th Avenue and East 66th Street. The architect was Charles Haight and the furnishings were from Colman and Tiffany . The interior was designed by modern American designers , which met with a complete lack of understanding in upscale American society. At the same time, the collector Bertha Honoré Palmer from Chicago had set up in the French Beaux Arts style, while Isabella Stewart-Gardner had a Venetian palace built in Boston from original components. In the following years Henry bought eight pictures by Rembrandt (of which only three are considered real today), plus pictures by Angelo Bronzino , Lucas Cranach the Elder , Cuyp , van der Goes , El Greco , Frans Hals , de Hooch , Veronese . These pictures certainly corresponded to the buyer's taste, but in addition to decorating the house, they also served to represent the family.
From 1889 the Havemeyers traveled to France almost every year. They also went to England, Belgium, Germany, Austria, Spain, Italy, Greece and Egypt, Switzerland and the Netherlands. They visited museums, exhibitions, dealers and private collectors. In Spain they discovered their love for Goya and El Greco and began to collect these artists when they were not very popular outside of Spain. In France they were repeatedly advised by Mary Cassatt and, in addition to Corot , Ingres and Courbet, bought mainly French impressionists on a large scale. In 1901 the Havemeyers bought the first pictures by Cézanne . While the walls of their house were no longer sufficient to accommodate the collection, Louisine and her husband kept lending pictures to exhibitions at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. As early as 1893 they made $ 10,000 available to the museum so that the museum could also open on Sundays.
From the collection to the establishment of the foundation
Henry O. Havemeyer died on December 4, 1907. Two days later, on November 6th, Henry's funeral took place and Louisine's mother passed away. On December 31st, Louisine's daughter Adeline had twins, who died after a few days. Louisine fell into a deep depression and in the next few years sold some of her works of art, which she later regretted. In 1909, during a transatlantic crossing, she tried to take her own life, but was saved.
From 1909 Louisine W. Havemeyer began collecting pictures again. She bought El Greco's view of Toledo, pictures of Courbet, Cezanne, Goya and above all Degas, whom she also met personally. She owned 65 works by Degas alone, 25 by Manet, 30 by Monet, 12 by Cezanne.
Her collection was increasingly visited by interested parties. The art critics Max Jakob Friedländer and Julius Meier-Graefe as well as Ludwig Justi , the director of the Nationalgalerie Berlin , came from Germany . Justi was “deeply impressed” by the collection and called it “a monument to American taste in art, by a woman with a real understanding of art”.
Louisine W. Havemeyer died in 1929 and was buried in Woodlawn Cemetery in the Havemeyer's family grave. Over 2000 works of art from their collection were donated to the Metropolitan Museum under the name HO Havemeyer Collection . To date, this is the largest foundation the museum has ever received. Their three children inherited the rest of the collection. While her daughter Electra later founded her own museum, her other children and, in the meantime, her grandchildren have repeatedly given works of art to the Metropolitan Museum and the National Gallery in Washington. In addition, family members work in various functions in the museums.
Suffragette
Louisine W. Havemeyer first came into contact with the women's rights movement ( suffragettes ) in 1910 . On May 3, 1913, she took part in the largest suffragette demonstration ever held in New York. Encouraged by Harriot Stanton Blatch , President of the Woman's Political Union, she took a more active role in the women's rights movement and spoke for the first time publicly on February 28, 1914 at a meeting with Helen Todd of California to support the referendum on women's suffrage. In late November she spoke in Greenwich, Connecticut. In 1915 she gave speeches in Waterbury, Connecticut and several times in New York. In April of the same year, an exhibition in support of the women's rights movement was held at the Knoedler & Co. gallery, with more than half of the works of art coming from Louisine's possession. In June, she traveled 10 days through New York State and gave up to seven talks a day promoting the women's rights movement. She made other speeches in New York and New Jersey from August through October. On November 2, the referendum on the introduction of women's suffrage was rejected.
From 1916 Louisine W. Havemeyer served on the advisory board of the National Woman's Party. The following year she devoted herself to charitable work and raised money for the Red Cross, for which she received praise from the French Minister of War. At the behest of Alice Paul , chairman of the National Woman's Party, Louisine led a demonstration in Washington in 1919. Louisine was arrested with 39 others after they burned a picture of President Wilson outside the White House . Given the choice of paying five dollars or going to jail for five days, Louisine opted for jail. After three days, at her family's request, she left the prison. Then she drove with 2 dozen other demonstrators in the “Prison Special” train through the USA for three weeks. When she appeared, Louisine was always the first to speak. They traveled to South Carolina, Florida, Tennessee, Louisiana, Texas, California, Colorado, Wisconsin, Illinois, Michigan, Massachusetts, and Connecticut. At the closing rally in New York's Carnegie Hall, Louisine spoke to an audience of 3,500. Her speech began with the words "The militants are here ...". In June, women's suffrage was approved by the Senate but had yet to be approved by the states. Louisine continued to speak and traveled to Chicago, Detroit, Milwaukee and St. Paul to promote women's suffrage. During a Republican Party convention in Chicago in 1920, Louisine W. Havemeyer disrupted the event and held up a banner. On July 21, 1921, Louisine traveled to Marion, Ohio with 200 suffragettes to demonstrate in front of Senator Warren G. Harding's home . The majority state of Tennessee ratified the bill on August 26th and women's suffrage was made the 19th amendment to the United States Constitution .
Awards
- 1922: Cross of Merit of the Legion of Honor of France
- 1928: Officer of the Legion of Honor of France
Works
- Sixteen to sixty. Memoirs of a collector. Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York 1961.
literature
- Anne Distel: Les collectionneurs des impressionnistes, Amateurs et marchands. La Bibliothèque des Arts, Paris 1989, ISBN 2-85047-042-2 .
- Alice C. Frelinghuysen (Ed.): Splendid Legacy. The Havemeyer Collection. Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York 1993, ISBN 0-87099-664-9 . (Exhibition catalog)
- Frances Weitzenhoffer: The Havemeyers. Impressionism comes to America. Abrams, New York 1986, ISBN 0-8109-1096-9 .
Web links
- Tagesspiegel from May 27, 2007
- Shelburne Museum
- Metropolitan Museum New York
- National Gallery of Washington DC
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Havemeyer, Louisine W. |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | American art collector, patron and suffragette |
| DATE OF BIRTH | July 28, 1855 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | New York City |
| DATE OF DEATH | January 6, 1929 |
| Place of death | New York City |