Sir Edwin Alfred Grenville Manton (22 January 1909 – 1 October 2005) was an English art collector. He was a driving force in the creation of the
American International Group
American International Group, Inc. (AIG) is an American multinational finance and insurance corporation with operations in more than 80 countries and jurisdictions. As of 2023, AIG employed 25,200 people. The company operates through three core ...
(AIG), a collector of paintings by
John Constable
John Constable (; 11 June 1776 – 31 March 1837) was an English landscape painter in the Romanticism, Romantic tradition. Born in Suffolk, he is known principally for revolutionising the genre of landscape painting with his pictures of Dedha ...
and his contemporaries, and a generous benefactor to the arts, the church and medicine.
Knighted in 1994 for charitable services to the Tate Gallery he was, after Sir
Henry Tate
Sir Henry Tate, 1st Baronet (11 March 18195 December 1899) was an English merchant and philanthropist, noted for establishing the Tate Britain, Tate Gallery and the company that became Tate & Lyle.
Early life
Henry Tate was born in White Copp ...
, the most generous benefactor in its history and continued to involve himself in the affairs of the gallery well into his 90s.
Early life
Sir Edwin was born in
Earls Colne
Earls Colne is a village in Essex, England named after the River Colne, Essex, River Colne, on which it stands, and the Earls of Oxford who held the manor of Earls Colne from before 1086 to 1703.
History Manor of Earls Colne
In the time of ...
, Essex, 20 miles from Constable's birthplace. Shortly after his birth, the family moved to
Westcliff-on-Sea
Westcliff-on-Sea (previously known as Milton, often abbreviated to Westcliff, and in the past spelt as Westcliffe-on-Sea) is a suburb of the city of Southend-on-Sea, located within the ceremonial county of Essex, England. It is on the north sh ...
on the Thames estuary, a location that gave him a lifelong affection for expanses of water and sky and which he much later recalled by acquiring paintings of the area by the English painter
John Wonnacott.
However, during the first world war the family moved to
Shaftesbury
Shaftesbury () is a town and civil parish in Dorset, England. It is on the A30 road, west of Salisbury, Wiltshire, Salisbury and north-northeast of Dorchester, Dorset, Dorchester, near the border with Wiltshire. It is the only significant hi ...
in Dorset. There he eventually enrolled at
Shaftesbury Grammar School where he stayed on as a boarder, even after the family had moved to London.
American International Group
In 1926, he declined a scholarship to Cambridge, instead following an uncle's introduction to the Paris agent of the Caledonian Insurance Company. In 1933, he was offered a post in New York. He joined as a casualty underwriter with the then small
American International Underwriter Group, later the AIG, one of a number of companies established by
Cornelius Vander Starr
Cornelius Vander Starr (October 15, 1892 – December 20, 1968), sometimes known as Neil Starr, was an American businessman and founder of C.V. Starr & Co. (later known as Starr Companies) in Shanghai, China, which became insurance giant AIG an ...
.
Soon afterwards, he married an American, Florence Brewer, known to all as Gretchen and they later had a daughter Diana. In 1939, he returned to London and volunteered for service, but was rejected on medical grounds having suffered from
Stokes-Adams disease.
He became president of the American International Underwriters' Corporation in 1942. He served as president of AIU from 1942 to 1969. He took over the chairmanship of AIU in 1969, retiring officially in 1975. At his death, he was an honorary director of and senior advisor to AIG. During his most influential years, the company grew to a force of more than 50,000 people and Manton became a leading figure in the American insurance business.
His shareholding in AIG made him very wealthy and he was ranked as the 83rd richest person in the United Kingdom according to the
Sunday Times Rich List 2003.
Art Collecting
After the second world war, he began to collect British paintings. His particular enthusiasm was for Constable. During the 1960s and 1970s, he assembled one of the best collections in private hands, in spite of competition from
Paul Mellon
Paul Mellon (June 11, 1907 – February 2, 1999) was an American philanthropist and a horse breeding, breeder of thoroughbred horse racing, racehorses. He is one of only five people ever designated an "Exemplar of Racing" by the National Muse ...
among others.
During this period, Constable scholars began to distinguish more rigorously between the works of
John Constable
John Constable (; 11 June 1776 – 31 March 1837) was an English landscape painter in the Romanticism, Romantic tradition. Born in Suffolk, he is known principally for revolutionising the genre of landscape painting with his pictures of Dedha ...
, his son
Lionel, and followers. In the early 1980s, Manton came to know
Leslie Parris, deputy keeper of the British Collection at the Tate, who, together with
Ian Fleming-Williams and
Graham Reynolds, were the leading authorities in the field. Manton discovered many of the works in his collection were what he called Constabiles, rather than works by the master, but Manton took this to be part of the learning process and became close friends with Parris in particular.
Philanthropy
His friendship with Parris resulted in the offer of a contribution to the Tate's 1987 appeal for funds to acquire Constable's
Salisbury Cathedral from the Meadows,
[https://www.mantonfoundation.org/grantees/tate-britain
] and shortly afterwards a gift of AIG shares, which established the American Fund for the Tate Gallery with an endowment of $6.5m in 1988.
Manton never took up US citizenship, retaining his British nationality until his death. In 1997, he established the American Fund for the Tate Gallery with an endowment generated by a gift of AIG shares. In creating a fund that would respond to the Tate's wish to strengthen its American collection, he was giving expression both to his affection for his birthplace and to his enthusiasm for his adopted country.
By 2005, the fund was worth $30m, and made possible the acquisition of major works by
Robert Motherwell
Robert Motherwell (January 24, 1915 – July 16, 1991) was an American Abstract Expressionism, abstract expressionist Painting, painter, printmaker, and editor of ''The Dada Painters and Poets: an Anthology''. He was one of the youngest of th ...
,
Philip Guston
Philip Guston (born Phillip Goldstein, June 27, 1913 – June 7, 1980) was a Canadian American painter, printmaker, muralist and draftsman. "Guston worked in a number of artistic modes, from Renaissance-inspired figuration to formally accomplis ...
,
Donald Judd
Donald Clarence Judd (June 3, 1928February 12, 1994) was an American artist associated with minimalism.Tate Modern websit"Tate Modern Past Exhibitions Donald Judd" Retrieved on February 19, 2009. In his work, Judd sought autonomy and clarity for ...
,
David Smith,
Louise Bourgeois
Louise Joséphine Bourgeois (; 25 December 191131 May 2010) was a French-American artist. Although she is best known for her large-scale sculpture and installation art, Bourgeois was also a prolific painter and printmaker. She explored a varie ...
,
Ellsworth Kelly
Ellsworth Kelly (May 31, 1923 – December 27, 2015) was an American painter, sculptor, and printmaker associated with hard-edge painting, Color field painting and minimalism. His works demonstrate unassuming techniques emphasizing line, col ...
,
Bruce Nauman
Bruce Nauman (born December 6, 1941) is an American artist. His practice spans a broad range of media including sculpture, photography, neon, video, drawing, printmaking, and performance. Nauman lives near Galisteo, New Mexico.
Life and work
...
and
Cildo Meireles
Cildo Meireles (born 1948) is a Brazilian conceptual artist, installation artist and sculptor. He is noted especially for his installations, many of which express resistance to political oppression in Brazil. These works, often large and dense, ...
. Manton deliberately established the fund in a form that would allow American citizens to make donations which would support the mission of the Tate and this has stimulated very significant gifts of works of art and more than $70m in donations.
In 1992 and 1997, Manton made further gifts totalling nearly £12m towards the centenary development and other projects at Tate Britain; he also made a promised bequest of a major Constable, ''
The Glebe Farm''. These magnificent gifts allowed the trustees to transform the presentation of British art at Millbank as
Tate Britain
Tate Britain, known from 1897 to 1932 as the National Gallery of British Art and from 1932 to 2000 as the Tate Gallery, is an art museum on Millbank in the City of Westminster in London, England. It is part of the Tate network of galleries in En ...
, in 2001. Taken together, Manton's benefactions, enhancing both the British and international collections, are by far the most generous gift in the history of the Tate.
Manton also was a longtime parishioner at the Episcopal
Church of the Ascension in New York City. After his death, the Manton Foundation supported the construction of a new pipe organ in memory of Sir Edwin and Lady Manton. The 6,183-pipe, 95-stop Manton Memorial Organ was the first French-built pipe organ in New York City and was installed in 2011.
References
External links
Tate Britain official websiteDescription of the Manton Memorial Organ and Manton's philanthropy to the Church of the AscensionManton Foundation website
{{DEFAULTSORT:Manton
1909 births
2005 deaths
American International Group
English art collectors
Knights Bachelor
People from Earls Colne
People from Shaftesbury