Abby Aldrich Rockefeller

Verified Timeline

Lore & Background

Abigail Greene Aldrich was born in Providence, Rhode Island, as the fourth child of Senator Nelson Wilmarth Aldrich and Abigail Pearce Truman Chapman. Her childhood was divided between Providence and Warwick Neck, and Washington, D.C., where she was introduced to elevated political circles through her father's prominence. She studied at Miss Abbott's School for Young Ladies from 1891 to 1893 and made her social debut in November 1893. In June 1894, she sailed to Liverpool, beginning a lifetime of extensive European and later Asian travel; her initial four-month sojourn included stops in England, Belgium, the Netherlands, Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Italy, and France, featuring visits to numerous art galleries. In late 1894, she met John Davison Rockefeller Jr. at a friend's house in Providence. Their long courtship is documented in her engagement books. They married on October 9, 1901, in front of around a thousand elite personages at her father's summer home, 'Indian Oaks', in Warwick Neck. The couple settled at 13 West 54th Street in Manhattan from 1901 until 1913, then at 10 West 54th Street until 1938, when they moved to a 40-room triplex apartment at 740 Park Avenue. They became the parents of six children: Abby Rockefeller Mauzé, John D. Rockefeller III, Nelson Rockefeller, Laurance Rockefeller, Winthrop Rockefeller, and David Rockefeller. Rockefeller began collecting paintings, watercolors, and drawings by contemporary American artists and European modernists in 1925. In 1928, she employed Donald Deskey to create the Topside Gallery, a series of furnished rooms in the art deco style in her home. Along with Lillie P. Bliss and Mary Quinn Sullivan, she conceptualized the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA). She was elected to MoMA's board of trustees in October 1929 and served as inaugural treasurer from 1929 until 1934, first vice-president from 1934 until 1936, and first vice-chairman from 1941 to 1945. She campaigned for the creation of the museum's film library and the War Veterans' Art Center.

Reader's Guide

Abby Aldrich Rockefeller's significance lies in her pivotal role as a co-founder of the Museum of Modern Art, which transformed the American art landscape by establishing a dedicated institution for modern works. Despite her husband's personal distaste for modern art and his limited financial support, she solicited funds from the public, corporations, and prominent New York residents to finance the museum. Her legacy at MoMA includes the Abby Aldrich Rockefeller Print Room, which opened on May 15, 1949, housing her gift of sixteen hundred prints, and the Abby Aldrich Rockefeller Sculpture Garden, designed by architect Philip Johnson and opened in 1953. She also left four major works to the museum in her will: Lady With a Parasol and Seated Woman by Georges Seurat, and Street at Saintes-Maries and Corridor at Saint-Remy by Vincent van Gogh. Her residuary estate of $850,848, minus estate taxes of $250,000, was donated to MoMA. Beyond MoMA, her collection of folk art led to the opening of the Abby Aldrich Rockefeller Folk Art Center in Colonial Williamsburg in 1957. Her patronage influenced other collectors and helped legitimize modern and folk art in the United States.

Did You Know?

• Abby Rockefeller's father was Senator Nelson W. Aldrich, who served as a senator from Rhode Island.
• She made her social debut at her coming-out party in November 1893, which sparked her lifelong love of social events.
• Her wedding to John D. Rockefeller Jr. on October 9, 1901, was held in front of around a thousand elite personages at her father's summer home, 'Indian Oaks'.
• She left four major works to MoMA in her will: two by Georges Seurat and two by Vincent van Gogh.
• Henri Matisse completed a stained glass window for the Union Church in Pocantico Hills as a memorial to Rockefeller in November 1954, dying two days after finishing it.

Formative Years and the Seeds of a Collector

Abigail Greene Aldrich entered the world on October 26, 1874, in Providence, Rhode Island, the fourth child of Senator Nelson Wilmarth Aldrich and his wife Abigail Pearce Truman Chapman. Her childhood shuttled between the family homes in Providence and Warwick Neck and the political heart of Washington, D.C., where her father's congressional prominence placed the household in close proximity to figures such as Senators Eugene Hale and William P. Frye, General Ambrose Burnside, and Elizabeth Bacon Custer. Her early schooling was guided by Quaker governesses before she attended Miss Abbott's School for Young Ladies from 1891 to 1893, where she studied English composition and literature, French, German, art history, ancient history, gymnastics, and dancing. Her November 1893 coming-out party sparked her lifelong love of social events. That passion merged with an emerging aesthetic sensibility in June 1894, when her father arranged a voyage to Liverpool and onward through England, Belgium, the Netherlands, Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Italy, and France. The galleries she visited during that initial four-month sojourn planted the seeds of a discernment for art that would define the rest of her life.

A Gilded Age Union and a Growing Household

In late 1894, Abby met John Davison Rockefeller Jr. at a friend's residence in Providence. What followed was a courtship stretching over more than two years, meticulously recorded in her engagement books. It began with quiet Sunday-afternoon strolls in early 1895 and culminated in a late-August 1901 engagement. Their wedding on October 9, 1901, at her father's summer estate Indian Oaks in Warwick Neck drew roughly a thousand of New England's most prominent figures, making it one of the defining society events of the Gilded Age. The young couple first took up residence at 13 West 54th Street in Manhattan, remaining there until 1913, when John completed his nine-story mansion at 10 West 54th Street, the largest private residence in the city at that time. By 1938 they had relocated to a spacious forty-room triplex apartment at 740 Park Avenue. Beyond New York, the family maintained properties in Pocantico Hills, New York, Seal Harbor, Maine, and Williamsburg, Virginia. Together they raised six children: Abby Rockefeller Mauzé, John D. Rockefeller III, Nelson Rockefeller, Laurance Rockefeller, Winthrop Rockefeller, and David Rockefeller. Nelson Rockefeller later served from 1974 to 1977 as the 41st vice president of the United States.

The Topside Gallery and a New Kind of Patron

By 1925 Abby had committed herself to collecting works by both contemporary American artists and the great European modernists, including Vincent van Gogh, Edgar Degas, Henri Matisse, Pablo Picasso, Paul Cézanne, and Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec. Her passion for displaying these works in a domestic setting led her in 1928 to commission the designer Donald Deskey to furnish a series of art deco rooms within the Rockefeller home. She called the space the Topside Gallery. Visitors ascended a private elevator to the seventh floor, where the collection was presented in a setting deliberately distinct from, yet physically connected to, the family's private living quarters. The artworks were rotated on a regular schedule, so that the gallery functioned as a sequence of curated exhibitions drawing on both her modern and folk art collections. Word of her bold collecting and her inventive domestic museum spread rapidly through New York's cultural circles, and many subsequent collectors began to follow her lead, treating the private home as a legitimate venue for serious art presentation.

A Bequest That Shaped Modern Art

Abby Aldrich Rockefeller died of a heart attack on April 5, 1948, at the family's home at 740 Park Avenue in New York City, at the age of 73. She was cremated, and her ashes were spread at a private burial place in Pocantico Hills, New York. A memorial service took place at Riverside Church. Her will, filed for probate on April 22, 1948, revealed a gross estate appraised at $1,156,269. In her final wishes she directed four major paintings to the Museum of Modern Art: Lady With a Parasol and Seated Woman by Georges Seurat, and Street at Saintes-Maries and Corridor at Saint-Remy by Vincent van Gogh. She left her Oriental miniatures to the Fogg Museum. The residuary estate of $850,848, minus estate taxes of $250,000, was donated to MoMA. In 1949 the Abby Aldrich Rockefeller Print Room opened at MoMA with her gift of sixteen hundred prints, and in 1957 the Abby Aldrich Rockefeller Folk Art Center opened in Colonial Williamsburg. Perhaps the most poignant tribute came from Henri Matisse, who, bedridden at eighty-four, completed a stained glass window for the Union Church in Pocantico Hills in her memory in November 1954, dying just two days after finishing it.