Wendy Reves

Wendy Reves (born Wyn-Nelle Russell on May 2, 1916 in Marshall, Texas ; died on March 13, 2007 in Menton ) was an American model , art collector and patron . In the 1940s, she worked first in New York City and later in Paris on fashion shoots published by magazines such as Harper's Bazaar and Vogue . Together with her third husband Emery Reves , she brought together an extensive art collection in their home in Roquebrune-Cap-Martin , which she later donated to the Dallas Museum of Art .

Life

youth

Wyn-Nelle Russell was born in 1916 in Marshall, Texas, the only child to David L. Russell and his wife Blanche Korean Murphy. Her childhood was marked by frequent changes of residence and conflicts between parents. She first grew up in Hallsville , where her father ran a hair salon. Her mother contributed to the family income with music lessons. In 1921 the family moved to Marshall. Here the father ran a men's fashion and dry cleaning business. A little later, the parents divorced and the mother and Wyn-Nelle Russell moved in with their grandparents, who lived on a farm outside Marshall. Another move followed in 1930 to Haynesville, Louisiana . Here the mother hoped for better working conditions and opened a pension. After the parents had remarried, the family lived in San Antonio from 1932 , where the father worked as a used car dealer.

Model career and first marriages

When she was 16, when Wyn-Nelle Russell was in high school, she first demonstrated dresses in a San Antonio textile store. A little later she met her first husband Al Schroeder, who was serving as a lieutenant in the Air Force. The wedding took place on Wyn-Nelle Russell's 17th birthday at an air force base in Honolulu , Hawaii . One year later, the son Arnold Leon Schroeder was born. Her husband was later transferred to Washington, DC , where Wyn-Nelle Schroeder again worked as a model. For example, she posed for photos in real estate and clothing ads. Since the marriage was unhappy, the couple divorced. She then took the maiden name Wyn-Nelle Russell and moved back to San Antonio.

To advance her modeling career, Wyn-Nelle Russell settled in New York City in 1939 . Here she first worked in the demonstration room of a textile wholesaler. In 1940 she married the pianist Paul Baron, who became known as the orchestra leader of the Chesterfield Radio Show with Perry Como . Through him she got to know musicians like Mario Lanza and The Andrews Sisters , actors like Cary Grant and Errol Flynn or the producer Howard Hughes . Since the early 1940s she called herself Wendy Russell. After the model agency of John Robert Powers took her under contract, she received numerous orders for advertisements in the following period. Her name was mentioned a lot in newspapers, which was rare for models at the time.

With Emery Reves in Europe

Shortly after the end of the war in 1945, Wendy Russell first met the Hungarian journalist Emery Reves; In the late 1940s, the two began a steady relationship. The marriage with her second husband Paul Baron had already failed, but she had no intention of remarrying. Instead, she lived with Reves in a "wild marriage" for the next few years, which was rather unusual for the time. She initially continued her modeling career and magazines such as Vogue or Harper's Bazaar published photos with her. The couple traveled a lot and stayed mostly in hotels. These included the Plaza in New York, the Royal Monceau in Paris and Claridge's in London . They also visited Geneva , Florence , Venice , Berlin and Lisbon . In winter the couple went to St. Moritz to ski , and both spent the summer on the Côte d'Azur . In 1953 they chose permanent residence and bought the Villa La Pausa , which belonged to the fashion designer Coco Chanel . The publisher Lord Beaverbrook and the painter Graham Sutherland were neighbors there. Sutherland later painted portraits of Wendy Russell and her husband.

Villa La Pausa was stylishly furnished by the Russell-Reves couple with antiques and an extensive art collection. Emery Reves had already acquired some of the works of art before he met Wendy Russell. Other objects were jointly selected for the house. The villa quickly became a popular meeting place and numerous famous guests came to the house. These included the fashion designers Edward Molyneux and Hubert de Givenchy , the actors Noël Coward and Greta Garbo , the writer William Somerset Maugham , the violinist Nathan Milstein , the patron Mary Woodard Lasker , the designer Raymond Loewy , the banker Eugène Daniel von Rothschild and his wife Jeanne Stuart , the Presidential Mother Rose Kennedy and the President's wife Lady Bird Johnson , the later US Vice President Hubert H. Humphrey , French politicians like Paul Reynaud and Minister of Culture André Malraux .

The most famous guest at Villa La Pausa was Winston Churchill , whose books Reves published. From 1955 on, Churchill spent several vacations with the Reves-Russell couple. He held his hosts in high esteem and usually came with numerous employees who were housed in outbuildings. During his presence he wrote on manuscripts and worked as a hobby painter on paintings. He in turn attracted other prominent guests, including German Chancellor Konrad Adenauer , French President René Coty , British Field Marshal Bernard Montgomery , Prime Minister Anthony Eden , Minister Rab Butler , the Duke of Windsor and his wife Wallis Simpson , Prince Rainier of Monaco and Grace Kelly and the shipowner Aristotle Onassis .

As the couple grew older, they began to consider what kind of hedge for Wendy Russell in old age and the future of the art collection could look like. The art collection was registered as The Art Limited Collection in the Bahamas , which should primarily bring tax advantages, but also more security in the event of inheritance. In addition, the couple decided to get married in 1964, which took place in Thônex , Switzerland . In Glion above Lake Geneva , the couple set up a second home. Wendy and Emery Reves considered converting Villa La Pausa and their art collection into a museum. During negotiations with the city of Roquebrune, however, it turned out that they only showed interest in the assets. Negotiations with the French state to convert the villa into a museum, however, were well advanced but did not come to a conclusion. Instead, the idea arose to leave the art collection to a museum that would display the objects as a coherent Reves collection. However, the negotiations initially did not lead to any concrete result. Emery Reves died in 1981.

legacy

View of an exhibition room in the Dallas Museum of Art, furniture from the drawing room of Villa La Pausa, paintings by Renoir, Morisot and Pissarro on the walls.

In 1985, Wendy Reves donated large parts of her fortune to the Dallas Museum of Art , including her 1,400 art collection. Wendy Russell was able to convince the museum of the importance of the collection and to enforce her wishes regarding the collection presentation. Together with the founder, the museum developed the idea of ​​adding another wing to the new museum building in Dallas, in which five rooms of the Villa La Pausa were to be reconstructed. The objects in the original furnishings were intended to preserve an impression of the cultivated way of life of Wendy and Emery Reves. The valuable exhibits include paintings and drawings by painters such as Pierre-Auguste Renoir , Berthe Morisot , Camille Pissarro , Paul Cézanne , Claude Monet , Édouard Manet , Vincent van Gogh , Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec , Pierre Bonnard , Gustave Courbet , Paul Gauguin , Alfred Sisley and Edgar Degas . There were also sculptures, for example by Auguste Rodin , baroque furniture and carpets, handicrafts such as porcelain or silver work and personal memorabilia, especially of Winston Churchill.

In 1989, in memory of her husband, Wendy Russell also founded the Reves Center for International Studies at the University College of William & Mary in Williamsburg, Virginia .

literature

• Robert V. Rozelle: The Wendy and Emery Reves Collection. Dallas Museum of Fine Arts, Dallas 1985, ISBN 0-9609622-9-8 .
• Richard R. Brettell, Julie Lawrence Cochran, Tom Jenkins: Impressionist paintings, drawings and sculpture from the Wendy and Emery Reves Collection. Dallas Museum of Art, Dallas 1995, ISBN 0-936227-15-X .
• Charles L. Venable: Decorative arts highlights from the Wendy and Emery Reves Collection. Dallas Museum of Art, Dallas 1995, ISBN 0-936227-17-6 .

Web links

Commons : Wendy Reves  - Collection of Images

• Obituaries - Wendy Reves article in The Telegraph, March 16, 2007
• Wendy Reves, 90, Museum Benefactor, This Associated Press articlein The New York Times, March 17, 2007
• Wendy Reves in the database of Find a Grave (English)

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Wendy Reves, 90, Museum Benefactor, This Associated Press news release of March 21, 2007 in the New York Times
2. ↑ The information on the youth section comes mainly from the article A Short Biography: Wendy Russell - From Marshall to Manhattan , taken from the book Robert V. Rozelle: The Wendy and Emery Reves Collection , pp. 31-41.
3. ^ Robert V. Rozelle: The Wendy and Emery Reves Collection , p. 31.
4. ↑ The information on the section career as a model and first marriages comes mainly from the article A Short Biography: Wendy RusselL - From Marshall to Manhattan , taken from the book Robert V. Rozelle: The Wendy and Emery Reves Collection , pp. 31–41.
5. ↑ Richard R. Brettell states in the sketch Introduction to the Paintings, Drawings, and Scupture that most of the works of art were only acquired in the 1950s and 1960s. See Richard R. Brettell, Julie Lawrence Cochran, Tom Jenkins: Impressionist paintings, drawings and sculpture from the Wendy and Emery Reves Collection , p. 9.
6. ↑ The information on the section With Emery Reves in Europe comes mainly from the article A Short Biography: Pausaland - The Golden Era , taken from the book Robert V. Rozelle: The Wendy and Emery Reves Collection , pp. 50-62.
7. ↑ The information in the previous paragraph comes mainly from the article A Short Biography: The Arts limited Collection - From Côte d'Azur to Dallas , taken from the book Robert V. Rozelle: The Wendy and Emery Reves Collection , pp. 63-76.
8. ↑ The information on the legacy comes mainly from the article A Short Biography: The Arts limited Collection - From Côte d'Azur to Dallas , taken from the book Robert V. Rozelle: The Wendy and Emery Reves Collection , pp. 63-76.
9. ↑ Detailed information on the collection items can be found in the catalogs of the Dallas Museum of Art listed under literature.
10. ^ Information on the foundation of the Reves Center for International Studies on the website of the College of William & Mary