Kay Kimbell (June 15, 1886 in

Leon County, Texas Leon County is a county in the U.S. state of Texas. As of the 2020 census, its population was 15,719. Its county seat is Centerville. History The legislature of the Republic of Texas authorized Leon County in 1846 from part of Robertso ...

– April 13, 1964 in

Fort Worth, Texas Fort Worth is a city in the U.S. state of Texas and the county seat of Tarrant County, Texas, Tarrant County, covering nearly into Denton County, Texas, Denton, Johnson County, Texas, Johnson, Parker County, Texas, Parker, and Wise County, Te ...

) was an entrepreneur and philanthropist, especially as benefactor of the

Kimbell Art Museum The Kimbell Art Museum in Fort Worth, Texas, hosts an art collection as well as traveling art exhibitions, educational programs and an extensive research library. Its initial artwork came from the private collection of Kay and Velma Kimbell, w ...

. Born to Benjamin B. and Mattie (Jones) Kimbell, he attended the public schools in

Whitewright, Texas Whitewright is a town in Fannin and Grayson Counties in the U.S. state of Texas. The population was 1,725 at the 2020 census, up from 1,604 at the 2010 census. The Grayson County portion of Whitewright is part of the Sherman– Deniso ...

, but quit school in the eighth grade to work as an office boy in a grain-milling company there, where he later founded the Beatrice Milling Company. This firm grew into Kimbell Milling Company, the pilot organization of diverse interests that Kimbell later founded or directed. At the time of his death he was the head of more than seventy corporations, including flour, feed, and oil mills, grocery chains (Buddies, sold to

Winn-Dixie Winn-Dixie Stores, Inc., is an American supermarket chain store, chain headquartered in Jacksonville, Florida. Founded in 1925, Winn-Dixie grocery stores and liquor stores serve communities throughout five southeastern states – Alabama, ...

but later closed when the chain left the DFW market), an insurance company, and a wholesale grocery firm. In addition to pursuing business interests, Kimbell collected art. He established the Kimbell Art Foundation in

in 1935 and at his death left his fortune to the foundation, with directions to build a museum of the first class in Fort Worth. The collection of art that Kimbell and his wife amassed included many fine works by late Renaissance, French nineteenth-century, and American nineteenth-century artists, with a special emphasis on eighteenth-century English painters such as Reynolds and Gainsborough. The Kimbells' home in Fort Worth was often visited by touring groups before the museum was completed, and a great many of the works in their collection were continuously on loan to area colleges and universities, libraries, and churches. Kimbell married Velma Fuller on December 24, 1910; they had no children. Kimbell died on April 13, 1964, in Fort Worth, aged 77, and was buried in Whitewright, but was later re-interred in Fort Worth.

External links

*http://www.tshaonline.org/handbook/online/articles/fki11 *https://web.archive.org/web/20100820035137/https://www.kimbellart.org/index.aspx {{DEFAULTSORT:Kimbell, Kay 1886 births 1964 deaths 20th-century American businesspeople Businesspeople from Fort Worth, Texas People from Leon County, Texas People from Whitewright, Texas 20th-century American philanthropists