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The Yale Alumni Magazine is owned and operated by Yale Alumni Publications, Inc., a nonprofit corporation independent of Yale University. The content of the magazine and its website is the responsibility of the editors and does not necessarily reflect the views of Yale or its officers. |
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Personal Best Paul Mellon's Personal Best Tour When Paul Mellon, Class of 1929, was a youngster, his parents introduced him to the pleasures of the English countryside. The "green, green, green" landscape offered a stark contrast to his native Pittsburgh, and, he said, "there seemed to be a tranquility in those days that has never again been found." Mellon, who died two years ago at age 91, attempted to recreate a measure of that feeling by collecting English art, particularly paintings, drawings, and rare books that depicted the British sporting life -- indeed, anything that had to do with horses. This self-described "galloping Anglophile" bought his first painting, Pumpkin with a Stable-Lad, a 1774 work by George Stubbs, in 1936, and 30 years later, Mellon had amassed a large and hugely important collection, much of which he donated to Yale, along with funds for a museum building, designed by Louis Kahn, and an endowment for its upkeep. But at the "Brick
House" -- his country estate in Upperville, Virginia -- and
at his offices and apartments in New York City, the collector surrounded
himself with the work closest to his heart. "Paul Mellon bought
for the love of the subject matter, not for the name of the artist,"
says Malcolm Warner, curator of paintings and sculpture at the Center
for British Art. The collector's final bequest to the BAC -- some
300 paintings, more than 1,000 drawings and watercolors, and 5,000
rare books -- is celebrated in an exhibition subtitled "Treasures
of a Lifetime" that is on display through April. Says Warner:
"This exhibition gives the viewer a feel for Mellon's more
personal side."
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