Annie Swan Coburn (1856–1932) was an American art collector and patron. She collected

American art Visual art of the United States or American art is visual art made in the United States or by U.S. artists. Before colonization there were many flourishing traditions of Native American art, and where the Spanish colonized Spanish Colonial arc ...

and French Impressionist paintings. Upon her death she left artworks to the Art Institute of Chicago, the

Fogg Museum The Harvard Art Museums are part of Harvard University and comprise three museums: the Fogg Museum (established in 1895), the Busch-Reisinger Museum (established in 1903), and the Arthur M. Sackler Museum (established in 1985), and four research ...

at Harvard University, and Smith College. The Art Institute received more than one hundred works of art.

Life

Swan was born in

Fremont, Illinois Fremont is a ghost town in Clinton County, Illinois Illinois ( ) is a state in the Midwestern United States. Its largest metropolitan areas include the Chicago metropolitan area, and the Metro East section, of Greater St. Louis. Other ...

in 1856. In 1880 she married Lewis Larned Coburn. Lewis Larned Coburn died in 1910 and at that time Annie Swan Coburn began collecting art. She exhibited her collection in her apartment in the Blackstone Hotel, filling up much of the available space, including storing

Vincent van Gogh Vincent Willem van Gogh (; 30 March 185329 July 1890) was a Dutch Post-Impressionist painter who posthumously became one of the most famous and influential figures in Western art history. In a decade, he created about 2,100 artworks, inc ...

's ''Sunny Midi, Arles'' under her bed. She died in Chicago in 1932.

Legacy

Upon her death she left artworks to the Art Institute of Chicago, the Fogg Museum at Harvard University, and Smith College. The "Coburn Renoirs" became the core of the Art Institute's Impressionist painting collection.

Selections of paintings donated to the Art Institute of Chicago

Paintings donated by Mrs. Lewis Larned (Annie Swan) Coburn in the public domain and for which pictures are available. File:Pierre-Auguste Renoir 007.jpg, Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Two Sisters (On the Terrace), 1881 Wheatstacks (End of Summer), 1890-91 (190 Kb); Oil on canvas, 60 x 100 cm (23 5-8 x 39 3-8 in), The Art Institute of Chicago.jpg,

Claude Monet Oscar-Claude Monet (, , ; 14 November 1840 – 5 December 1926) was a French painter and founder of impressionist painting who is seen as a key precursor to modernism, especially in his attempts to paint nature as he perceived it. Durin ...

, Wheatstacks (End of Summer), 1897

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Coburn, Annie Swan 1856 births 1932 deaths American art collectors People from Chicago