Grenville Lindall Winthrop

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Grenville Lindall Winthrop
BornFebruary 11, 1864
New York City, U.S.
DiedJanuary 19, 1943(1943-01-19) (aged 78)
New York City, U.S.
Alma materHarvard University
OccupationLawyer, art collector
Spouse(s)Mary Tallmadge Trevor
Children2 daughters
Parent(s)Robert Winthrop
RelativesMoses Taylor (maternal grandfather)
Beekman Winthrop (brother)

Grenville Lindall Winthrop (1864-1943) was an American lawyer and art collector from New York City. A direct descendant of John Winthrop, the first governor of the Massachusetts Bay Colony, he restored historic buildings in Lenox, Massachusetts and assembled a large art collection in his Upper East Side townhouse. He bequeathed his entire art collection to the Fogg Art Museum of his alma mater, Harvard University.

Early life[]

Grenville Lindall Winthrop was born on February 11, 1864 in New York City.[1] His father, Robert Winthrop,[2] was a banker. His mother, Kate Wilson Taylor,[2] was the daughter of banker Moses Taylor. He was a direct descendant of John Winthrop, the first governor of the Massachusetts Bay Colony.[1][2] His brother, Beekman Winthrop, went on to serve as the Governor of Puerto Rico from 1904 to 1907. He had another brother, .[3]

He graduated from Harvard University with a bachelor of arts degree in geology and art history in 1886 and an LL.B. in 1889.[1] While he was studying at Harvard, he lived at ,[4] and he was a member of the Porcellian Club.[1]

Career[]

Winthrop co-founded a law firm in New York City with and Frederick Philips.[1][2] He retired in 1896.[1]

Philanthropy[]

Winthrop restored a number of buildings in Lenox, Massachusetts, namely the Church on the Hill, a Congregational church; the Lenox Academy, later known as the Lenox Academy; and the Colonial Courthouse, which houses the Lenox Library as a result of his patronage.[2] Subsequently, Winthrop served as the President of the Lenox Library.[2]

Winthrop served as the President of the Women's Hospital in New York City from 1915 to 1941.[2]

Art collection[]

Winthrop was an "internationally known art collector."[5] He was influenced from an early age by Charles Eliot Norton and his nephew, , two prominent art collectors from Boston.[2] He was assisted in assembling his collection by , an art dealer from New York City.[1][6] Winthrop never lent any of his artwork to museums.[7] When he showed visitors around his collection, he pretended to be the butler.[8]

Winthrop collected "early Wedgwood, Pre-Raphaelite paintings, Mesoamerican masks, gold-ground Italian paintings, French drawings, clocks, Korean Buddhas."[1] Initially, Winthrop focused on collecting the bulk of a given artist's work.[8] He owned the largest individual collection of paintings by Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres and William Blake.[1] Additionally, he owned paintings by Edward Burne-Jones, Honoré Daumier, Jacques-Louis David, Vincent van Gogh, Winslow Homer, Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Auguste Rodin, John Singer Sargent, Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, James Abbott McNeill Whistler, Gustave Moreau, Théodore Géricault, Eugène Delacroix, Théodore Chassériau, John Singleton Copley, Gilbert Stuart, and Aubrey Beardsley.[1][2] The collection also included major collections of Chinese and Asian art including jades, bronzes, ceramics, sculpture, and wall paintings. Some of these sub-collections now rank with the finest of their kind in any art museum.

Winthrop's collection amounted to 4,000 objects by the time of his death.[1][7]

Winthrop served on the Visiting Committee of the Fogg Art Museum at Harvard University for twelve years.[2]

Personal life[]

Winthrop married Mary Tallmadge Trevor in 1892.[1] They had two daughters, Emily and Katherine.[1] In New York City, they resided in a townhouse in Murray Hill, Manhattan, until they moved to 15 East 81st Street on the Upper East Side.[1] They summered at Groton Place, a 150-acre estate spreading across the in Lenox, Massachusetts whose main house was designed by Carrère and Hastings and whose grounds included 500 peacocks and pheasants.[5][9] His wife predeceased him in 1900.[1] His daughters were educated by private tutors; despite his attentive parenting, they both eloped with the help: one with a chauffeur, the other one with an electrician.[1][7]

Winthrop was described by art critic Richard Dorment as "a figure straight out of the pages of Henry James."[7]

Death and legacy[]

Winthrop died on January 19, 1943 in New York City. His funeral was held at the Grace Episcopal Church.[5] He was buried at the Green-Wood Cemetery.[5]

The Fogg Art Museum, home to the Grenville L. Winthrop Collection.

Winthrop bequeathed his art collection to the Fogg Art Museum at his alma mater, Harvard University.[1] His will had a clause whereby the museum could only lend his artwork to other museums if they donated US$100,000 to the Foundling Hospital in New York City.[7] In the early 2000s, as inflation meant that the sum was less colossal than in 1937, the university decided to donated the sum to the hospital and plan a worldwide exhibition.[7] By 2003-2004, his entire art collection was exhibited at the Musée des Beaux-Arts de Lyon in France, followed by the National Gallery in London, the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City, and the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C.[1] The exhibit was called "A Private Passion: 19th-Century Paintings and Drawings from the Grenville L Winthrop Collection, Harvard University."[7]

Winthrop's Lenox estate, Groton Place, was purchased by educator , who opened the Windsor Mountain School there shortly after Winthrop's death.[9] It is now owned by Boston University.[9]

Further reading[]

  • Wolohojian, Stephan, ed.A Private Passion: Nineteenth-Century Paintings and Drawings from the Grenville L. Winthrop Collection, Harvard University. New Haven, Connecticut: Yale University Press, 2003.[10]

References[]

  1. ^ Jump up to: a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r Reed, Christopher (March 2003). "Unveiled: For the first time, a recluse's treasures go traveling". Harvard Magazine. Cambridge, Massachusetts. Retrieved October 12, 2015.
  2. ^ Jump up to: a b c d e f g h i j Forbes, Edward W.; Sachs, Paul J. (November 1943). "Grenville Lindall Winthrop". Bulletin of the Fogg Art Museum. 10 (2): 26–28. JSTOR 4301116.
  3. ^ Freiberg, Malcolm (1979). "Frederic Winthrop". Proceedings of the Massachusetts Historical Society. 91 (3): 26–28. JSTOR 25080853.
  4. ^ "Winthrop, Grenville Lindall, 1864-1943. Photograph album of Grenville Lindall Winthrop, ca. 1886 : an inventory". Harvard University Library. Harvard University. Retrieved October 14, 2015.
  5. ^ Jump up to: a b c d "Funeral of Mr Winthrop Held in New York". The Berkshire Eagle. Pittsfield, Massachusetts. January 23, 1943. p. 7. Retrieved October 12, 2015 – via Newspapers.com. open access
  6. ^ "Martin Birnbaum papers, 1862-1970". Archives of American Art. Retrieved October 14, 2015.
  7. ^ Jump up to: a b c d e f g Dorment, Richard (June 25, 2003). "Aesthetic black furnace". The Daily Telegraph. Retrieved October 14, 2015.
  8. ^ Jump up to: a b Cumming, Laura (July 13, 2003). "What the butler saw: Grenville L. Winthrop was an incomparable collector. So why did he pretend to be a manservant?". The Guardian. Retrieved October 14, 2015.
  9. ^ Jump up to: a b c "GROTON PLACE – 45 WEST. ST., COMPLETED 1905". Lenox History. Lenox Historical Commission and Lenox Historical Society. September 27, 2014. Retrieved October 14, 2015.
  10. ^ "A private passion : 19th-century paintings and drawings from the Grenville L. Winthrop Collection, Harvard University ; [contributors to the catalogue, Kathryn Calley Galitz, Colta Ives, Rebecca A. Rabinow, Susan Alyson Stein, Gary Tinterow [and others]". WorldCat. Retrieved October 14, 2015.
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