Samuel H. Kress

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Samuel Henry Kress (born July 23, 1863 in Cherryville, Pennsylvania , † September 22, 1955 in New York ) was an American businessman, art collector and patron .

Life

Kress came from the large family of a retailer in a Pennsylvania village . As a teenager he first worked in stone quarries, at 17 he began to work as a teacher. In 1887 he opened a shop in Nanticoke, Pennsylvania . The business flourished and so he founded the SH Kress & Co. chain of stores , mainly in smaller cities in the USA, which became known as Kress Five and Dime stores . In the 1920s, Kress was so wealthy that he lived in a penthouse at 1020 Fifth Avenue in New York, across from the Metropolitan Museum of Art , which he attended regularly and of which he became a sponsor.

As an art collector, he acquired a collection of paintings and sculptures , mainly from the Italian Renaissance and Baroque periods , mostly from the art dealers Alessandro Contini-Bonacossi and Joseph Duveen . The unmarried and childless Kress founded the Samuel H. Kress Foundation in 1929 to promote the research and exhibition of European art in the USA and donated several hundred paintings to over 40, mostly smaller, museums in the USA from 1929 to 1961. With Paul Mellon he was also one of the greatest donors to the National Gallery of Art in Washington, DC in 1941

literature

  • Alan R. Smoker: Kress, Samuel Henry . In: American National Biography . Vol. 12, 1999.
  • A gift to America. Masterpieces of European painting from the Samuel H. Kress Collection . Abrams, New York 1994, ISBN 0-8109-3383-7 .

Web links

personal data
SURNAME Kress, Samuel H.
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Kress, Samuel Henry (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American entrepreneur, art collector, and art patron
DATE OF BIRTH July 23, 1863
PLACE OF BIRTH Cherryville, Pennsylvania
DATE OF DEATH September 22, 1955
Place of death new York