Chase Alumni Association

Are You Hanging on the Wall?

Chase Alumni as Art Donors

We all know that David Rockefeller is a leading art collector and donor of works of art to museums.

He is not, however, the only Chase personality to have donated art to museums.

Joe Murphy was recently in Phoenix, AZ, at The Heard Museum of Native Cultures and Art, where he saw a plaque and photo honoring Roger Lyon, who had led the museum's board of trustees. Roger, according to Joe, was an EVP at Chase until the mid-to-late 1970s. "Around that time, the bank formed the Management Committee. At the annual dinner at the NY Hilton, Roger was the emcee," Joe recalls. "He referred to the new group as MC as in marginal contributors. Roger was not a member. Soon thereafter he was appointed the head of Valley National Bank in Phoenix."

Joe also told us about Dave Andrews:

"In the early 1970s, DIB was formed. Dave was DE of the NE District. Prior to that he ran the New England District. He was the head of the Insurance District when that was first formed. He was a Yale grad – maybe Class of '51? I'm not sure if he started Yale before the war and returned there, as many had done at that time. He was from Pittsfield, MA, and of Shaker faith. His parents collected Shaker furniture - there is a book on eBay. Our Northeast District moved from the hanging Mezzanine at 1 CMP to the 26th floor. Dave now had an office. He had the office designed with white walls, not with the traditional teak and white. He hung Shaker furniture on the walls from his family collection. I eventually had that office sans his collectibles. That furniture is now at the Metropolitan Museum with recognition of his gift." (Read about the Andrews collection at The Met here and a story about auctioning items from the collection below.)

So this begs the question: Have you donated art to a museum? Or are you active as a trustee of a museum? We'd like to continue this thread...please write to us at news@chasealum.org.

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From the Boston Globe, June 7, 2014:

 

Circa 1840 Mount Lebanon schoolhouse cupboard and case of drawers will be offered with a $60,000-$80,000 estimate at Skinner’s auction of the Andrews Shaker Collection.

More than 100 lots of furniture and objects from the legendary Andrews Shaker Collection will be offered at Skinner’s auction next Sunday at noon at its Marlborough gallery.

They are from the estate of Phyllis Andrews, the widow of David Andrews, son of the collectors Faith and Edward Deming Andrews, and were used in Phyllis’s Greenwich, Conn., home until her death last year.

“These were family pieces that were given to my parents by Faith and Ted,” said Edward Andrews, who was named for his grandfather and, like him, is known as Ted. “Some were special occasion gifts like when my parents were married or when I was born. So I grew up with furniture that had been in my grandparents’ home in Pittsfield.”

Edward Deming Andrews (1894-1964) and Faith E. Andrews (1896-1990) had a lifelong passion for the Shakers, not only from the vantage of collectors but also as scholars and dealers. A major part of their collection, amassed over more than 40 years, is now at Hancock Shaker Village, the living-history museum in Pittsfield.