Brinsley Ford

Sir Richard Brinsley Ford (10 June 1908 – 4 May 1999) was a British art historian, scholar, and collector. He inherited a large collection of art from his family and was himself an avid collector. A drawing that he purchased in 1936 was sold by his estate for $12 million in 2000. Ford was the director of the Burlington Magazine, president of Walpole Society and chaired the National Art Collections Fund. During World War II he was a Troop Sergeant-Major in the Royal Artillery and then served in the military intelligence organisation, MI9.

Personal life Richard Brinsley Ford was born in 1908 in Petworth, Sussex to Captain Richard Ford (1860–1940) and Rosamund Isabel Ramsden (1872–1911), the daughter of John William Ramsden. His father was an officer for the British Army, who inherited in 1917 a large art collection that had been assembled by his great great grandfather, Richard Ford (1758–1806) and his maternal great-grandfather, Benjamin Booth. Gustav Waagen describes the collection in Treasures of Art in Great Britain.

Early art collection

In 1927 Ford joined the National Art Collections Fund. His maternal grandmother left him a legacy two years later with which Ford was able to begin collecting art, including the works of Fuseli, Michelangelo, Ingres, Toulouse-Lautrec, and Henry Moore. He met art connoisseur James Byam Shaw and artist Charles Barrow Prescott when he joined the Burlington Fine Arts Club.

Career Ford amassed an art collection that was held at his house at Wyndham Place. He added works by Batoni, Cozza, Cavallino, creating a collection of Italian seicento and settecento works. In 1951 he published The Drawings of Richard Wilson. He organised an exhibition, "Richard Ford in Spain", lent works and assisted Denys Sutton in the development of the exhibition catalog. He was chairman until 1980.

In 2008, the family of the late Sir Brinsley Ford donated approximately 250 exhibition catalogues on 20th-century artists and on the subject of the Grand Tour to the Paul Mellon Centre library.

Ford art collection Benjamin Booth, Brinsley's ancestor, began collecting works of art in the 18th century, most notably the bulk of Richard Wilson's English landscapes. It was further enhanced when Marianne, his daughter, was married to Richard Ford. Brinsley Ford added paintings, sculptures and ceramics to the collection. Works were made during the Baroque and Renaissance periods, including works of Old Masters. He has works of students of the Royal Academy of Arts that line the walls of his bedroom, from floor to ceiling. In 1936, Ford was criticised for spending about 3,000 guineas for a drawing of Michelangelo's; his aunt felt it was extravagant since he paid about what it would cost for a home at that time. That story was often one of the tidbits that Ford shared on his tours with visitors. long term loan - 'At Home with Art – Treasures from the Brinsley Ford Collection', Basildon Park

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