Railways and Paintings
Pender also had interests in railways and was persuaded to invest in the Isle of Man Steam Railway. As a result of this, No. 3 was named Pender in his honour. He was a director of the Chicago, St. Paul, Minneapolis & Omaha Railway in the United States, which connected major midwestern cities and stimulated their economies. Pender, Nebraska was named for him.
He also amassed a considerable collection of paintings, including some of the works of J. M. W. Turner, including Giudecca La Donna Della Salute and San Georgio, a view of Venice. Exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1941 and arguably Turner’s best work, it was sold in 1897 for 1,650 guineas to Donald Currie. A century later it broke all auction records for works by a British artist when it was sold to Steve Wynn (entrepreneur) through Christie's (New York) for US$35.8 Million in April 2006 This painting is one of four of Turner's paintings of Venice to be in private hands. Also in Pender's collection were the works An Event in the forest by Landseer, ‘Portrait of Princess Sobieski’ by Joshua Reynolds, and works by John Everett Millais, Gainsborough, and Canaletto. The collection was sold in parts the year after John Pender’s death.
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Famous quotes containing the words railways and, railways and/or paintings:
“There is nothing in machinery, there is nothing in embankments and railways and iron bridges and engineering devices to oblige them to be ugly. Ugliness is the measure of imperfection.”
—H.G. (Herbert George)
“There is nothing in machinery, there is nothing in embankments and railways and iron bridges and engineering devices to oblige them to be ugly. Ugliness is the measure of imperfection.”
—H.G. (Herbert George)
“All photographs are there to remind us of what we forget. In this—as in other ways—they are the opposite of paintings. Paintings record what the painter remembers. Because each one of us forgets different things, a photo more than a painting may change its meaning according to who is looking at it.”
—John Berger (b. 1926)