Information AboutMorton D. May |
| CATEGORIES ABOUT MORTON D. MAY | |
| american art collectors | |
| people from st. louis, missouri | |
| dartmouth college alumni | |
| 1914 births | |
| 1983 deaths | |
| american philanthropists | |
| photographers | |
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BIOGRAPHY Morton D. May was the grandson of David May, who started the family in merchandising from a canvas roofed makeshift shop in Leadville , Colorado during a gold strike in 1877 . He soon came to the conclusion that there was no future there, and moved his business across the nation a few times finally setting in 1893 in St. Louis , Missouri . He opened a store called Famous . Later he bought out the William Barr Dry Goods Co. , and Famous-Barr was created. Morton J. May, David May's son took over the family enterprise, and ran it successfully for many years during Morton D. May's childhood. St. Louis Globe-Democrat ( 1983 - 4-13 ), "Morton D. May-1914-1983" Morton D. May lived a life of privilege, attending St. Louis's Country Day school, and then Dartmouth College . Career Despite his privileged position as heir to May Department Stores fortune, May started out his career with a summer position in the complaints department. Brasch, Phyllis and Robert W. Duffy ( 1983 - 5-12 ), "Morton May's Philanthropy Praised in Memorial Service", '' St. Louis Post-Dispatch '' After that he held nearly every position from stock clerk to chairman of the board. In 1951 he was elected president of the corporation, a position which he held until 1967 . Then he was chairman of the board until 1972 . He was also chief executive officer from 1957 to 1968 . He retired from the corporation's board of directors in 1982 and was elected director emeritus.Compton, Gail ( April 1983 ), "Prominent Civic Leader Devoted Life to the Arts", ''St. Louis Living'' Art Collection May became interested in collecting art in the early 1940s but was interrupted by World War II . When the war was over he traveled to galleries in New York and began investigating the paintings of American artists and Cubists , but soon his interests drifted elsewhere. He was well known for not being a fashionable collector. When his contemporaries were buying School Of Paris pictures, May was buying tough German Expressionist pictures that turned out to be masterpieces. Joseph Pulitzer Jr. , St. Louis Post-Dispatch ( 1983 - {Link without Title} ) In general May focused his collection in three areas, German Expressionism, Mesoamerica , and the indigenous arts of various cultures around the globe, including primarily art from Oceania , Africa , and other Pre-Columbian art that was not specifically from Mesoamerica. In these areas his goal was comprehensiveness. Because he bought so extensively, he sometimes made mistakes, which he famously laughed off, making no effort to conceal them. He even displayed them in his office in the Railway Exchange Building along with his fishing trophies and family photographs.Duffy, Robert W. ( 1983 - 4-17 ), '' St. Louis Post-Dispatch '' He was introduced to art by his parents when he was in his early teens. They traveled to Europe and toured various museums, trips which he later characterized as 'forced marches'. He did not learn to appreciate art until he was at Dartmouth where he took a course in modern art and architecture. In the 1930s May visited the home in Chicago of the architect Samuel Marx, to whom his aunt was married, and from whom he would later commission a house. When interviewed in 1980 , he spoke of the visit: He bought some Pre-Columbian artwork immediately following the war, but mostly between 1945 and the mid- 1950s he gave his attention to acquiring German Expressionist works, a movement which were virtually unknown in the United States at the time. In 1948 May asked his friend, the painter Maurice Freedman, if he knew of any artists who were doing good work but weren't very well known. Freedman mentioned Max Beckmann to May, and soon May bought his first Beckmann from dealer Curt Valentin in New York. Then he discovered that Beckmann was teaching art at the nearby Washington University . "Imagine my surprise, here he was a quarter of a mile away.-Morton D. May" During Beckmann's time in St. Louis, he and May became friends. May, who was painting at the time hired Beckmann to be his tutor. May also commissioned a portrait from him in 1949 . Over the years May purchased so many of Beckmann's works that his collection was one of the two major collections in the United States. (The other belonging to Dr. Stephan Lackner of Santa Barbara, California ) May also collected works of other German Expressionist Masters of both Die Bruecke and Der Blaue Reiter movements, and works by independents. Some of these include Karl Schmidt-Rottluff , Ernst Ludwig Kirchner , Lovis Corinth ,MacLachlan, Claudia and Robert W. Duffy ( 1983 - 4-18 ), "2 Institutions get May's Art", '' St. Louis Post-Dispatch '' Wassily Kandinsky , Franz Marc , Erich Heckel Saint Louis Art Museum 2004 , ''Saint Louis Art Museum Handbook of the Collection'', Saint Louis Art Museum, Saint Louis. and Oskar Kokoschka . In the 1950s , when prices for German Expressionist paintings began to rise, May directed his attention to the expansion of his other collection, the works of art that he had liked so much in the Marx's apartment. He regarded his " Primitive " collection as an extension of his interest in Expressionist art. He found in both areas vitality and enormous expressiveness. In 1960 May visited the Carlebach gallery in New York. He detailed his experience in an introduction to a catalogue for a show of his collection at the Saint Louis Art Museum.
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