Martin Antoine Ryerson

Martin A. Ryerson

Martin A. Ryerson (born October 26, 1856 in Grand Rapids , Michigan , † August 11, 1932 in Lake Geneva , Wisconsin ) was an American lawyer, entrepreneur, art collector and patron . The majority of his art collections are now held as a foundation in the Art Institute of Chicago

Life

His parents, the timber merchant Martin Ryerson and his wife Mary Antoine Campau, settled in Chicago in 1851. In addition to the wood business, the father also successfully invested in real estate, banking and the Elgin Watch Company , making a considerable fortune. In keeping with his class, the son Martin Antoine Ryerson received expensive tuition at private schools in Paris and Geneva. This was followed by law studies at Harvard Law School , which he graduated with a diploma in 1878. Martin A. Ryerson worked as a lawyer until his father's death in 1887, before taking over the management of Martin Ryerson & Company at the age of 34 . In the 1890s, however, he withdrew from the company in order to devote himself to building up his art collection and philanthropic work. Ryerson was married to Caroline Huchtinson since 1881.

The committed citizen

Ryerson was a co-founder of the University of Chicago in 1890 , where he was a member of the founding board of trustees and stayed until 1922. One of his endowments to the university was the Ryerson Physical Laboratory, named after his father . Influenced by the World Columbian Exposition in 1893, Ryerson co-founded the Field Museum of Natural History and served on the museum's board of trustees for many years. He had been on the board of trustees of the Art Institute of Chicago since 1890 and was a member of this body until his death in 1932. He donated an art library ( Ryerson Library ) to the museum and, after his death, most of his extensive art collection. To date, this is the largest foundation the museum has ever received. His wife Caroline bequeathed other works of art from the collection to the museum after her death. The university and the museums, which Ryerson had repeatedly supported financially during his lifetime, inherited further considerable funds after his death. The public library in his native Grand Rapids, founded in 1904, is also a foundation of Martin A. Ryerson and also bears the name Ryerson Library .

The art collection

Martin A. and Caroline Ryerson first collected paintings by old masters and used them to furnish their villa on Chicago's South Drexel Boulevard . These included works by Gerard David , Johann Koerbecke , Hans Memling , Rogier van der Weyden , Jacopo da Pontormo , Giovanni di Paolo , Antoine Watteau and Francisco de Goya . Inspired by the world exhibition in 1893 and the French impressionists shown there, the collector couple also turned to modern painting. The focus of this collection was on five paintings by Pierre-Auguste Renoir and 16 works by Claude Monet . Ryerson visited the latter personally in 1920 at his country house in Giverny. Other turn-of-the-century French painters in the Ryerson Collection included Édouard Manet , Edgar Degas , Paul Cézanne , Paul Gauguin , Paul Signac, and Odilon Redon . The preferred American artists in the collection were Mary Cassatt , John Singer Sargent, and Winslow Homer .

Images from the Ryerson Collection

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  Giovanni di Paolo:
  Ecce Agnus Dei

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  Rogier van der Weyden:
  Virgin with Child

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  Antoine Watteau:
  Fête champêtre

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  Francisco de Goya:
  Pedro ties Margato with a rope

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  Édouard Manet:
  The bullfight

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  Claude Monet:
  Saint Lazare Train Station

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  Paul Cézanne:
  The Bay of Marseille

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  Winslow Homer:
  The Herring Net

literature

• Art Institute of Chicago (Ed.): Martin A Ryerson Collection of Paintings and Sculpture XIII to XVIII Century Chicago 1930
• Chicago University, Board of trustees: Martin A. Ryerson 1856-1932 Chicago 1932
• Aline Bernstein Louchheim Saarinen: The Proud Possessors: the lives, times and tastes of some adventurous American art collectors . Random House, New York 1958
• Frederick A. Sweet: Great Chicago Collectors in Apollo Magazine September 1966
• Patricia Erens: Masterpieces . Chicago Review Press, Chicago 1979 ISBN 0-914090-75-5
• Helen Lefkowitz Horowitz: Culture & the city: cultural philanthropy in Chicago from the 1880s to 1917 . University of Chicago Press, 1989 ISBN 0-226-35374-5
• Sue Ann Prince (Ed.): The Old Guard and the Avant-Garde: modernism in Chicago 1910-1940 . University of Chicago Press, 1990 ISBN 0-226-68284-6
• Debra N. Mancoff, James N. Wood: Art Institute of Chicago, Treasures from the Art Institute of Chicago . Hudson Hill Pr., New York 2000 ISBN 0-86559-182-2

Web links

Commons : Martin A. Ryerson Collection  - Collection of images, videos, and audio files

• Short biography with paintings by Louis Betts at the Art Institute of Chicago (English)