2011 represents the 70th anniversary of the National Gallery of Art and the 50th anniversary of the "Great Kress Giveaway." Samuel Henry Kress, Claude Washington Kress, Rush Harrison Kress founded the wildly successful S. H. Kress & Co. Five and Ten chain in 1896 and by 1931, Samuel was one of the five richest Americans, with over 261 stores by the 1950's. With over 100 in-house architects on staff, their stores featured Art Deco, Mayan Revival, Spanish Colonial, Greek and Roman Revival, Gothic and Renaissance Revival styles and many are re-used as landmarked offices, residences, and cultural and commerical establishments in downtowns from New York to Hawaii. All three founded the Kress Foundation in 1929, as the repository of a 3108-piece collection of European Old Master paintings, sculpture, bronzes and decorative art. The first to answer the patriotic call from Andrew Mellon, half of the Samuel H. Kress Collection was given to the National Gallery of Art in Washington DC, and the other half was given to 90 museums, universities and art institutions around the country. This is the precedent for Bill Gates and Warren Buffett's call to American millionaires to give away 50% of their wealth while alive. See the entire Kress Collection catalogue in PDFs at http://www.kressfoundation.org/ and http://www.nga.gov/ for a complete list of the artwork.
My 400 page manuscript, titled Heads of Bronze, Hearts of Gold: The Kress Family Legacy is a cultural biography honoring the three brothers and other Kress relatives and ancestors in Germany who have all made contributions to world culture and history. I re-discovered the 72-acre estate of Rush H. Kress in Ossining, NY, my hometown, where some of the Old Master paintings were restored. The property was a self-contained Franconian estate with livestock, wood and timber buildings, a 5-acre lake and a glorious legacy quite unique in American history. I am working to get a landmark status for restoration funds for the site. Stay tuned for the book to come out in 2011.
I also have been building the Steven A. Worthy Kress Family Archive, which now has thousands of articles, photos and books. The Kress Legacy is still alive and well, and has helped fund the restoration of the Sistine Chapel, St. Lawrence Church in Nuremberg and important sites through the World Monument Fund. See http://www.wmf.org/. I would love to hear from all interested parties in architecture, art history, art conservation, historic preservation and economic development. More to come.
Steve Worthy- I have been trying to find you! I just went through your files re: Kress estate at the Ossining Historical Society. VERY interesting. Please contact me at sing2carol@optonline.net.
ReplyDeleteCarol Arrucci
My family and I found the ole estate area many years ago, not knowing what it was. I just recently contacted Miguel Hernandez via FB to ask if he knew anything about it. Of course, he was able to tell me about it. I will now look for some more information at the historical society. What an amazing site it must have been! Cheryl_vanachte@yahoo.com. Let me know how/if I can assist in any way.
ReplyDeleteThe manuscript is now 500 pages, and I continue to advocate cultural use for the 39-acre side in Ossining NY. Sadly, one of the staff who works at the 33-acre New Castle side, which is called Sunshine Children's Home and Rehabilitation Center, Kisook Ahn, was killed while returning home on the infamous Metro-North derailment at Spuyten Duyvil in January 2014. Sunshine has named a new wing after Ms. Ahn, and a stone with her name on it has a place of honor in the pond, renovated according to the Rush H. Kress estate photos I shared with them. I've made 3 presentations over the years on the Kress family presence there, and I donated a painting by a former President of the Kress Foundation and artist, Marilyn Perry (www.marilynperryart.com), which hangs in the Sunshine conference room. Hopefully, theatre, art, music and dance will retuen to the Shine House Theater this year.
ReplyDelete