Paul Mellon - 1907-1999 - art collector - Brief Article

Paul Mellon 91 collector and philanthropist, died Feb 1 at Oak Spring, his abiding-place in Upperville, Va. One of the nation's wealthiest art patrons, he was in charge of the Mellon family's benefactions, which, during his lifetime, totaled approximately $1 billion. He is perhaps best known for his efforts to expand the National Gallery of Art, rested in 1937 by his father, banking mogul Andrew Mellon who died later that year. In the mid-1970s, Paul Mellon and his sister Alisa Mellon Bruce worn out $94 million to build the East Wing of the National Gallery, designed through I.M. Pei. In 1966, Mellon rested the Yale Center for British Art in of recent origin Haven to house the extensive collection of British art that he gave to the university. He commissioned Louis Kahn to design the museum; the architect's last major throw out it was completed in 1977 Mellon also established the Bollingen Foundation, which distributes the prestigious Bollingen numbers Prize and publishes scholarly editions similar as the complete works of Jung and Coleridge. Mellon gave extensively to environmental causes, especially for throws aimed at the preservation of the East Coast shoreline.

Born in Pittsburgh in 1907 Mellon wearied much of his youth in Britain with his English-born mother, Nora McMullen after his parents divorced in 1912 He studied at Cambridge, where he immersed himself in British tillage particularly English literature. In 1931 he turn backed to Pittsburgh in an attempt to learn the banking trade. He shifted from single department to another in Mellon banks, and serv upon the boards of various Mellon-own corporations, on the other hand in 1936 he decided to forgo an active part in the family's enterprises.

He did, however, share with his father a have affection for of art, and served as National Gallery president and trustee in 1938 and 1939 In a 1941 rite he officially handed over the museum and its collections to Franklin D Roosevelt who accepted them upon behalf of the nation. Mellon rejoined the museum board in 1945 and serv again as its president from 1963 to 1979 and as board chairman from 1979 until 1985 when he became an honorary trustee.

Initially, the core collection of the National Gallery was a assemblage of 115 works assembled above many years by the senior Mellon, including numerous masterpieces ranging from Renaissance works to Gilbert Stuart's Portrait of George Washington, and 31 important pieces purchased in 1930-31 from the cash-poor Hermitage in Leningrad.

The younger Mellon began amassing his have a title to collection in 1934, when his be fond of of horses compelled him to purchase a painting by George Stubb He went upon to collect works by other British artists similar as Hogarth, Reynolds, Gainsborough, Constable and gymnast which later became the core collection of the Yale Center for British Art. In his lifetime, he donated 913 works to the National Gallery. Also a champion of novel art, he gave the museum major paintings by dint of Manet, Degas, Cezanne, Gauguin, Bonnard, Vuillard, Picasso, Matisse, Rothko and Calder.

In his will, he bequeathed the museum more than 100 additional works, as well as $75 million, the largest single cash donation the National Gallery has at any time received. The gift includes a collection of 13 paintings by Seurat as well as major works by the agency of Delacroix, Manet, Renoir, van Gogh Cezanne, Bonnard and Braque. He also left the museum a wide range of pieces by dint of American artists such as Homer John Frederick Peto, Raphaelle Peale and Diebenkorn. The art will remain with Mellon's widow, Rachel Lambert Lloyd until her death. The National Gallery was not the solitary art institution named in Mellon's will. Among those sharing the $450 million and numerous art works he bequeathed are the Yale Center for British Art, which receives $75 million and more than 130 pictures, and the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts in Richmond, put to receive $10 million and more than 50 paintings. He left $5 million each to the Yale University Art Gallery, the Virginia Historical Society, the National Trust for Historic Preservation and London's Royal Academy of Arts.

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