The collection is arranged as seven series. Series 1: Biographical Material, circa 1897-circa 1960, 2003 (Boxes 1, 7-8; FC 20; 0.45 linear feet) Series 2: Correspondence, 1911-1984 (Box 1; 0.9 linear feet) Series 3: Writings, 1904-1963 (Boxes 2, 8; 0.55 linear feet) Series 4: Chester Dale Collection, circa 1930-1968 (Boxes 2-3; 1 linear foot) Series 5: Printed Material, 1925-circa 1972 (Boxes 3-4, 8, OV 9; 1.2 linear feet) Series 6: Scrapbooks, circa 1920s-1963 (Box 4, BVs 10-14; 1.2 linear feet) Series 7: Photographs, circa 1883-1972 (Boxes 4-6, 19, BVs 15-17, OV 18; 3.3 linear feet)
Access Note / Rights:
Use of original papers requires an appointment and is limited to the Archives' Washington, D. C., Research Center. Use of archival audiovisual recordings with no duplicate copy requires advance notice.
Summary:
The papers of New York art collector Chester Dale measure 8.4 linear feet and date from circa 1883-2003. Dale amassed one of the world's most complete collections of nineteenth and twentieth century French art, was a collector of eighteenth century American portraitists, and a patron and collector of twentieth American artists including George Bellows and Mary Cassatt. The bulk of the collection dates from 1920 to 1970 and documents Dale's activities through biographical material, correspondence, memoirs and other writings, purchase, sales and estate records, printed material, scrapbooks, and photographs.
Citation:
Chester Dale papers, circa 1883-2003, bulk 1920-1970. Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution.
Additional Forms:
The bulk of the collection was digitized in 2018 and is available on the Archives of American Art website. Materials which have not been digitized include blank pages, blank versos of photographs, negatives and transparencies for which prints exist, stereo slides, the dictaphone recordings, the home movie, and duplicates. In some cases, exhibition catalogs and other publications have had only their covers, title pages, and relevant pages digitized.
Funding:
Funding for the processing and digitization of the Chester Dale papers is provided by The Walton Family Foundation. Funding for the reformatting of the 16mm film reel was provided by the Smithsonian Institution Women's Committee.
Use Note:
The Archives of American Art makes its archival collections available for non-commercial, educational and personal use unless restricted by copyright and/or donor restrictions, including but not limited to access and publication restrictions. AAA makes no representations concerning such rights and restrictions and it is the user's responsibility to determine whether rights or restrictions exist and to obtain any necessary permission to access, use, reproduce and publish the collections. Please refer to the Smithsonian's Terms of Use for additional information.
Related Materials:
Holdings at the Archives of American Art also include the Chester Dale papers concerning George Bellows, 1919-1956, comprising correspondence, a photograph, and invoices relating to Chester Dale's relationship with George Bellows and Dale's interest in artwork by Bellows; and the Chester Dale eulogy, consisting of one 35 minute, 9 second sound tape reel of a eulogy delivered by an unidentified speaker.
Biography Note:
New York art patron and collector of French and American art Chester Dale (1883-1962), made his fortune as a banker who pioneered the sale of public utility securities. He began purchasing French paintings in the mid-1920s and retired from the investment security business in 1935 in order to focus full time on the acquisition of art.
Dale was encouraged to begin collecting art by his first wife, Maud Dale, who was an artist, a writer, and a former chairman of the Exhibition Committee of the Museum of French Art. With the benefit of his wife's knowledge, passion, and perception, Dale began to lay the foundation of his collection in 1926, and amassed circa seven hundred pictures within ten years. His collection is considered to be one of the most complete collections of nineteenth and twentieth century French art in the world, and includes some of the finest examples of works by Braque, Corot, Delacroix, Degas, Derain, Dufy, Leger, Matisse, and Renoir, as well as by artists representative of the French tradition in art including Modigliani, Picasso, Rivera, and Van Gogh.
Although primarily interested in French art, Dale also collected and encouraged American artists. He was a patron of George Bellows and Salvador Dali, and had his portrait painted by both artists. Dale presented the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the National Gallery of Art with their first Dali paintings, the latter being The Sacrament of the Last Supper . Dale also purchased works by Mary Cassatt, representative works by "the Eight," and examples of eighteenth century American portraitists John Smibert, Gilbert Stuart and Thomas Sully. In the early 1940s he visited Diego Rivera and Frida Kahlo in Mexico, and Rivera subsequently completed a portrait of Dale in 1945.
Dale served as a trustee to the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Chicago Art Institute, and the Philadelphia Museum of Art. He made the first of a series of gifts to the National Gallery of Art when it opened in 1941. In 1955 he was elected president of the museum, by which time his collection occupied ten of its galleries. Dale bequeathed the bulk of his remaining collection to the National Gallery in his will. This final gift included eighty of his favorite pictures, which had been located in his Manhattan apartment at the Plaza Hotel up until his death.
A year after the death of Maud Dale in 1953, Dale married Mary Towar Bullard, whom he had employed as his secretary for twenty-five years. Mary Dale oversaw the disbursement of her husband's estate, following Dale's death from a heart attack in 1962.
Language Note:
The collection is in English.
Provenance:
The collection was donated in 1972 by Mary Dale, Chester Dale's second wife, and in 1985 by Mary Dale's estate.
Digitization Note:
This site provides access to the papers of Chester Dale in the Archives of American Art that were digitized in 2018, and total 8,963 images.
Location Note:
Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution, 750 9th St. NW, Washington, D.C. 20001
