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Luman Reed (1787–1836) was a successful
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Luman Reed (1787–1836) was a successful America
The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territorie ...
n merchant and an important patron of the arts. His support for the painters George Whiting Flagg
George Whiting Flagg (June 26, 1816 – January 5, 1897) was an American painter of historical scenes and genre pictures. He was from a family of artists including his brother, Jared Bradley Flagg, and uncle Washington Allston, with whom both br ...
and Thomas Cole
Thomas Cole was an English-born American artist and the founder of the Hudson River School art movement. Cole is widely regarded as the first significant American landscape painter. He was known for his romantic landscape and history paintin ...
were particularly significant contributions to the development of American painting during the early 19th century. He also commissioned works from artists such as Asher B. Durand
Asher Brown Durand (August 21, 1796, – September 17, 1886) was an American painter of the Hudson River School.
Early life
Durand was born in, and eventually died in, Maplewood, New Jersey (then called Jefferson Village). He was the eighth ...
.
Biography
Reed was born on a farm in Green River (in the area that is nowAusterlitz Austerlitz may refer to:
History
* Battle of Austerlitz, an 1805 victory by the French Grand Army of Napoleon Bonaparte
Places
* Austerlitz, German name for Slavkov u Brna in the Czech Republic, which gave its name to the Battle of Austerlitz a ...
), New York
New York most commonly refers to:
* New York City, the most populous city in the United States, located in the state of New York
* New York (state), a state in the northeastern United States
New York may also refer to:
Film and television
* '' ...
. He began his business career as a store clerk in the Hudson River
The Hudson River is a river that flows from north to south primarily through eastern New York. It originates in the Adirondack Mountains of Upstate New York and flows southward through the Hudson Valley to the New York Harbor between N ...
village of Coxsackie, New York
Coxsackie ( ) is a town in Greene County, New York, United States. The population in the 2020 census was 8,382, a decrease from the 2010 census. The name of the town is said to be derived from a Native American term, but it has various transl ...
, where his family relocated (c. 1789) before moving to New York City
New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...
in 1815. There he became one of the city's most prominent merchants with the Front Street dry-goods firm he established with various partners, the last being Jonathan Sturges
Jonathan Sturges (August 23, 1740 – October 4, 1819) was an American lawyer, jurist and politician from Fairfield, Connecticut. He represented Connecticut as a delegate to the Continental Congress and in the United States House of Repr ...
(1802–1874). With his wealth, Reed assembled in the course of six years one of the earliest and most significant collections of European
European, or Europeans, or Europeneans, may refer to:
In general
* ''European'', an adjective referring to something of, from, or related to Europe
** Ethnic groups in Europe
** Demographics of Europe
** European cuisine, the cuisines of Europe ...
and 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 ...
in the United States
The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territorie ...
, which he displayed in a specially designed two-room gallery in his house on Greenwich Street in lower Manhattan
Manhattan (), known regionally as the City, is the most densely populated and geographically smallest of the five boroughs of New York City. The borough is also coextensive with New York County, one of the original counties of the U.S. state ...
.Vedder, L.A., "Nineteenth-century American paintings," ''Magazine Antiques'' (Jan, 2005/ref>
Philanthropy
Making his mark as a patron of both established and aspiring contemporary American artists, Reed attempted to nurture the creation of a national artistic culture as sophisticated and accomplished as that of Europe. His interest inlandscape painting
Landscape painting, also known as landscape art, is the depiction of natural scenery such as mountains, valleys, trees, rivers, and forests, especially where the main subject is a wide view—with its elements arranged into a coherent compos ...
and portraiture
A portrait is a painting, photograph, sculpture, or other artistic representation of a person, in which the face and its expressions are predominant. The intent is to display the likeness, personality, and even the mood of the person. For this r ...
notwithstanding, Reed was also an avid collector of genre paintings
Genre painting (or petit genre), a form of genre art, depicts aspects of everyday life by portraying ordinary people engaged in common activities. One common definition of a genre scene is that it shows figures to whom no identity can be attached ...
depicting scenes from everyday life.Vedder, L.A., ''supra.''
In 1844, his substantial collection was purchased by a group of his associates in New York with the intention to form a public art collection, later the New York Gallery of Fine Arts. The collection was later donated to the New York Historical Society
The New-York Historical Society is an American history museum and library in New York City, along Central Park West between 76th and 77th Streets, on the Upper West Side of Manhattan. The society was founded in 1804 as New York's first museum. ...
in 1858. It is one of the most important early 19th-century collections of American art that survives intact.
References
External links
* {{DEFAULTSORT:Reed, Luman American art collectors 1787 births 1836 deaths People from Columbia County, New York American art patrons Philanthropists from New York (state) Burials at New York Marble Cemetery