Saidie Adler May (

née The birth name is the name of the person given upon their birth. The term may be applied to the surname, the given name or to the entire name. Where births are required to be officially registered, the entire name entered onto a births registe ...

Saidie Adler; 1879 – 1951) was an American

art collector A private collection is a privately owned collection of works (usually artworks) or valuable items. In a museum or art gallery context, the term signifies that a certain work is not owned by that institution, but is on loan from an individual ...

, of

Surrealist Surrealism is an art movement, art and cultural movement that developed in Europe in the aftermath of World War I in which artists aimed to allow the unconscious mind to express itself, often resulting in the depiction of illogical or dreamlike s ...

and early

Abstract Expressionist Abstract expressionism in the United States emerged as a distinct art movement in the aftermath of World War II and gained mainstream acceptance in the 1950s, a shift from the American social realism of the 1930s influenced by the Great Depressi ...

art. She was a major benefactor to the

Baltimore Museum of Art The Baltimore Museum of Art (BMA) in Baltimore, Maryland, is an art museum that was founded in 1914. The BMA's collection of 95,000 objects encompasses more than 1,000 works by Henri Matisse anchored by the Cone Collection of modern art, ...

, the

San Diego Museum of Art The San Diego Museum of Art is a fine art museum in Balboa Park in San Diego, California, that houses a broad collection with particular strength in Spanish art. It opened as the Fine Arts Gallery of San Diego on February 28, 1926, and changed ...

and the

Museum of Modern Art The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) is an art museum located in Midtown Manhattan, New York City, on 53rd Street (Manhattan), 53rd Street between Fifth Avenue, Fifth and Sixth Avenues. MoMA's collection spans the late 19th century to the present, a ...

in New York City. She was also known as Saidie Adler Lehman.

Biography

Saidie Adler was born in Baltimore in February 1879. Her father, Charles Adler, a wealthy shoe manufacturer who had emigrated from Germany to the United States in 1856, built a home in

Bolton Hill Bolton Hill is a neighborhood in Baltimore, Maryland, with 20 blocks of mostly preserved buildings from the late 19th century. It is listed on the National Register of Historic Places, preserved as a Baltimore City Historic District, and includ ...

and sent his three youngest children to attend private school. May’s early adult life centered on marriage and domesticity. In 1902, she married Albert Carl Lehman of Pittsburg and gave birth to her son Murray in 1906. She divorced Lehman and married Herbert L. May on October 3, 1922, but this marriage ended in divorce as well. May preferred a life of independence and art rather than the traditional role of mother and wife. She had the opportunity to travel to Europe in 1924, where she met the artists

Hans Hofmann Hans Hofmann (March 21, 1880 – February 17, 1966) was a German-born American painter, renowned as both an artist and teacher. His career spanned two generations and two continents, and is considered to have both preceded and influenced Abstrac ...

and Alfred Julio Jensen, which had a significant impact on her artistic tastes. She studied art at

Académie Scandinave Académie Scandinave (English: ''Scandinavian Academy'') was a private art academy in Paris that existed between 1919 and 1935. The school was located in the Maison Watteau art gallery, at no. 6 rue Jules-Chaplain. It was free and focused on figu ...

in Paris, under

Othon Friesz Achille-Émile Othon Friesz (6 February 1879 – 10 January 1949), who later called himself Othon Friesz, a native of Le Havre, was a French artist of the Fauvist movement. Biography Othon Friesz was born in Le Havre, the son of a long line of ...

. In about 1929, she took the artist

Michael Loew Michael Loew (May 8, 1907 — November 14, 1985) was an American abstract expressionist painter and teacher, who was active in New York City. He taught for many years at the School of Visual Arts (SVA) and University of California, Berkeley (UC ...

with her on a worldwide tour, spending two years in Paris, Africa, Germany, and Italy, and that trip is credited with vastly growing Loew's sophistication and worldview. Cousins to the

Cone sisters Claribel Cone (1864–1929) and Etta Cone (1870–1949), collectively known as the Cone sisters, were active as American art collectors and socialites during the first part of the 20th century. Claribel trained as a physician and Etta as a piani ...

, Etta and Claribel, famous for their patronage of the Impressionists, May and her sister Blanche Adler also extensively collected. May was also an artist, always learning new techniques and trying different forms, but she was cognizant enough of her talent to realize it was not equivalent to that of the artists she patronized. In 1933, May closed her Park Lane apartment in

Manhattan Manhattan ( ) is the most densely populated and geographically smallest of the Boroughs of New York City, five boroughs of New York City. Coextensive with New York County, Manhattan is the County statistics of the United States#Smallest, larg ...

where she had lived in the 1920s and early 1930s, and gave much of the art and furnishings to the Baltimore Museum of Art. Seven years later, Saidie A. May made the significant contribution of the Renaissance Room bought from

William Randolph Hearst William Randolph Hearst (; April 29, 1863 – August 14, 1951) was an American newspaper publisher and politician who developed the nation's largest newspaper chain and media company, Hearst Communications. His extravagant methods of yellow jou ...

complete with the sculpture of St. Catherine of Alexandria and Giovannidal Ponté’s “St, Anthoney’s Abbot” to her beloved museum. When Blanche died in 1941, May began to focus on amassing more modern works. She has been described as "particularly adventurous" in her tastes. She helped

André Masson André-Aimé-René Masson (; 4 January 1896 – 28 October 1987) was a French artist. Biography Masson was born in Balagny-sur-Thérain, Oise, but when he was eight his father's work took the family first briefly to Lille and then to Brus ...

and his family escape Nazi-occupied France in 1941 and ultimately became a significant collector of his art. May also acquired early pieces of work by

Jackson Pollock Paul Jackson Pollock (; January 28, 1912August 11, 1956) was an American painter. A major figure in the abstract expressionist movement, Pollock was widely noticed for his "Drip painting, drip technique" of pouring or splashing liquid household ...

and

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 ...

(later to become important

Abstract Expressionists Abstract expressionism in the United States emerged as a distinct art movement in the aftermath of World War II and gained mainstream acceptance in the 1950s, a shift from the American social realism of the 1930s influenced by the Great Depressi ...

), namely Pollock's "Water Birds" (1943) and Baziotes' ''The Drugged Balloonist'' (1942-43). In 1950, Saidie May bestowed the Baltimore Museum of Art $300,000 for a wing dedicated to children, which included an auditorium, gallery, library, staff rooms, and a conference room.http://cdm16075.contentdm.oclc.org/cdm/singleitem/collection/p15264coll/id/8 May died on May 28, 1951, in New York City.

References

External links

Saidie A. May Papers
at Baltimore Museum of Art {{DEFAULTSORT:May, Saidie A. 1879 births 1951 deaths American art collectors People from Baltimore People from Manhattan Women art collectors

Biography

See also

References

Further reading

External links