Mary Quinn Sullivan

Mary Quinn Sullivan (November 24, 1877 – December 5, 1939), born Mary Josephine Quinn, was a pioneering collector of European and American modern and contemporary art and gallerist, and a founding trustee of the Museum of Modern Art, which opened in rented space in New York City in November 1929. She also led a small group of Indianapolis, Indiana, art patrons who called themselves the Gamboliers and between 1928 and 1934 selected artworks of for the group that brought some of the first modern and contemporary works to the collections of the John Herron Art Institute, which later became the Indianapolis Museum of Art.

Mary and Cornelius J. Sullivan, her husband, amassed a significant private collection of art during the 1920s and 1930s that included Modigliani's Sculptured Head of a Woman, Paul Cézanne's Madame Cézanne, Georges Rouault's Crucifixion, and a Hepplewhite desk that once belonged to Edgar Degas, as well as works by Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Paul Gauguin, Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, Vincent van Gogh, Pierre Bonnard, Pablo Picasso, and others.

The Indiana native trained for a career as an artist at the Pratt Institute in Brooklyn, New York, and in 1909 she studied at the Slade School of Fine Art in London, England, for a semester. Sullivan became an art teacher in the New York City public schools and a member of the faculty at Pratt Institute's School of Household Science and Arts. She also authored a textbook, Planning and Furnishing the Home: Practical and Economical Suggestions for the Homemaker (1914). Sullivan operated an art gallery in New York City in her later years, but the Great Depression and financial difficulties in the 1930s subsequently led to the decision to sell her private art collection at auction.

Early life and education Mary Josephine Quinn was born in Indianapolis, Indiana, on November 24, 1877. She was the eldest of Thomas F. and Anne E. (Gleason) Quinn's eight children (six daughters and two sons). Thomas Quinn, came to Indianapolis in 1857 and by 1877 was farming land outside the city.

Interested in art from an early age, Mary Quinn attended public schools in Indianapolis, including the Shortridge High School. Quinn took classes from Roda Selleck, the head of the high school's art department, and served as Selleck's assistant. In 1899, Quinn received a scholarship to study art at the Pratt Institute in Brooklyn, New York, and moved to New York City to pursue a career as an artist. While living in New York, she met Katherine Dreier, a fellow art student and the two became a lifelong friends through a shared interest in modern art. Quinn resided in the Brooklyn Heights home of Katherine Dreier's father, Theodor Dreier, during the early 20th century.

In 1901, Quinn was hired as an art teacher in the Queens, New York school system. In 1902, the New York Board of Education sent her to Europe to observe the curriculum of art schools. Katherine Drier accompanied Quinn during the trip, which included visits to France and Italy. Their travels exposed the two women to the modern art movements of the time (Impressionism and Post-Impressionism). (The neighborhood is now occupied by a Con Ed power plant.) The Sullivans often spent summers in Ireland, and maintained a second home on Block Island, Rhode Island.

Cornelius Sullivan, who specialized in managing large trusts and divorce proceedings for the wealthy, was a member of the New York Board of Education. He was also a friend of John Quinn a Harvard Law School classmate and an art and manuscript collector. C. J. Sullivan was a collector of rare books and manuscripts, antiques, and art. Vincent van Gogh's Mlle. Ravoux, and Winslow Homer's The New Novel to name but a few.

After her marriage, Mary Sullivan also became a strong supporter of philanthropic causes. She served as the president of the Needle and Bobbin Club in New York City. This women's group sold lacework for charity, most notably works by women in poorhouses at Blackwell's Island. She also gave lectures about the history of lacework on behalf of the club. In addition, Sullivan supported causes such as the Handwork Centre at 511 Madison Avenue that sold toys made by the elderly, infirm, and unemployed. As late as 1921, Sullivan was noted to be the secretary and chairman of the New York Society of Occupation Therapy, which operated a summer program at Byrdcliffe Colony in Woodstock, New York. The program taught the basics of art and applied arts instruction to hospital aides and nurses.

Indianapolis Museum of Art's Gamboliers In 1927, Sullivan and Indianapolis art patron Carl Lieber organized a small group of Indianapolis art patrons who called themselves the Gamboliers to acquire modern and contemporary art for the John Herron Institute, the predecessor to the Indianapolis Museum of Art. As the leader of the group, Sullivan began choosing works of art in 1928 on their behalf in New York City and during her frequent travels to Europe. Working with an annual budget of $2,500, she purchased 160 works of art for the Gamboliers that usually ranged in price from $10 to $25 each. By the time the group disbanded in 1934, its collection were mostly on paper and included works from new and upcoming American and European artists such as Modigliani, Henri Matisse, and Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, among others. The group's best-known purchase was a Toulouse-Lautrec color lithograph, Moulin Rouge: La Goulue, which the Herron Art Institute received in 1936.

During summer of 1928, Sullivan also helped the Herron Art Institute organize two exhibitions of modern paintings from French and American artists. In addition, she helped bring to Indianapolis in January 1932 a temporary exhibition of 111 works of modern art. In February 1932, the Herron Art Institute opened an exhibition to showcase the works of art that Sullivan had helped the Gamboliers to acquire.

The Museum of Modern Art During the 1920s, Sullivan established friendships with art patrons Lillie Plummer Bliss and Abby Aldrich Rockefeller, and in early 1929, the three women and Arthur Bowen Davies began discussions for a new museum of modern art in New York City. During a luncheon with collector A. Conger Goodyear, who agreed to serve as chairman of the museum's organizing committee, the group began developing definite plans for what became the Museum of Modern Art. The museum opened in November 1929 in rented space at its temporary quarters in a New York City office building at 730 Fifth Avenue. In 1932, the museum moved into its own facility on 53rd Street. Her husband, Cornelius Sullivan, drafted the art museum's incorporation documents and served as its legal advisor until his death in 1932. Mary Sullivan chaired several of the museum's committees before her resignation and retirement from the board of trustees on October 17, 1933, due to financial difficulties. She was made an honorary trustee for life in 1935. She later moved her gallery to a two-room space in Lois Shaw's gallery on Park Avenue. The private art collection that she and her husband, Cornelius J. Sullivan, amassed during the 1920s and 1930s, which included modern and contemporary works from notable American and European artists was later sold and passed into other collections.