Abby Aldrich Rockefeller - MoMA/philanthropy/women's Issues

MoMA/philanthropy/women's Issues

Abby Rockefeller began collecting paintings, watercolors, and drawings by a number of contemporary American artists in 1925, as well as a number of European modernists: Vincent van Gogh, Edgar Degas, Henri Matisse, Pablo Picasso, Paul Cézanne, and Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec.

In 1929, she employed a designer to create a suite of art deco rooms and furnishings for herself on the 7th floor of their nine-story house at 10 West Fifty-fourth Street. Called the Topside Gallery, it allowed her to display and organize changing exhibitions of her growing collection, integrating modern and folk art. Visitors took the elevator directly to the 7th floor, bypassing the private domain of the rest of her family. The news of her interests and activities spread quickly from this period, and many subsequent collectors began to follow her lead.

She became a prominent patron of modern art and artists in America, using the example of their European predecessors, such as Picasso and Matisse. Most notable was her avid interest in becoming the driving force in the establishment and ongoing operations of the Museum of Modern Art, in New York, on November 7, 1929, nine days after the Wall Street Crash. In this project she could not rely on financing from her husband, who was repelled by much of modern abstract painting, nor did she have great wealth of her own to draw on as she received only an allowance from him. Financing for the museum and acquisition of paintings came from her solicitation of corporations and prominent New York individuals.

She was elected to the museum's Board of Trustees in October 1929 and also served as inaugural treasurer from 1929 until 1934. Other roles included terms as First Vice-President (1934–1936) and First Vice-Chairman (1941–1945). Her son Nelson subsequently became its president and involved himself in its financing and the establishment of its new permanent headquarters on 53rd Street, in 1939.

The Art Gallery named in her honor, The Abby Aldrich Rockefeller Gallery, designed by architect Philip Johnson and opened in 1953, showcases Japanese woodblock prints from the permanent collection at The Museum of Art, Rhode Island School of Design (The RISD Museum). In 1949, the Abby Aldrich Rockefeller Print Room opened at MoMA, housing Abby's gift of 1600 prints, which had been given nine years earlier.

In addition to her gifts to the MoMA, Mrs Rockefeller gave substantially to other museums, including the Metropolitan Museum of Art and The Cloisters, which received much of her collection of sculpture and decorative arts, as well as to the Rhode Island School of Design, which received her collection of Japanese prints.

She also has a residential hall named after her at Spelman College in Atlanta, Georgia. The College itself was named after her mother-in-law, Laura Spelman Rockefeller.

With a lifelong dedication to the advancement and welfare of women, Abby was one of the charter founders of the Cosmopolitan Club in New York. She was also a member of the Colony Club, the Women's City Club, the National Society of Colonial Dames, the Women's National Republican Club, the Faculty Club of Harvard University, the Society of Mayflower Descendants, and the Garden Club of America, among others. Along with her husband, she also served on the board of trustees of the International House of New York.

For decades she was involved with the YWCA's National Board, starting as chairman of its housing committee in 1918, building demonstration structures to accommodate working women contributing to the war effort, including, in 1919, the Bayway Cottage and Community House, in New Jersey, with financing from her husband.

She was later to chair the Grace Dodge Hotel committee for fifteen years, organizing the construction of a major hotel for business and professional women involved in government work, as well as accommodating city visitors to Washington.