WOLFE, CATHARINE LORILLARD A Great Philanthropist By Polly Guerin

Portrait of Catharine Lorillard Wolfe (1876)
by Alexandre Cabanel

Dear Catharine: It is said that more women have backed the founding of museums then men and this truism certainly applies to you, a woman determined to succeed in promoting the role that museums could play in presenting art to the public. Your largesse as a great American philanthropist and art collector is legendary. When the Metropolitan Museum of Art was incorporated in 1870 by a group of businessmen, you were the only woman among the 106 founders. Although you gave large amounts of money to other institutions your most significant gifts were two bequests to the Metropolitan Museum of Art, leaving your large collection of 140 paintings to the museum, along with an endowment for its maintenance.
THE WOLFE FUND
The bequest of Lorillard’s art collection gave the Metropolitan its first significant representation of the kinds of paintings that appealed to the general public. The Catharine Lorillard Wolfe Wing displayed popular paintings including, Rosa Bonheur’s painting, “The Horse Fair” (1853). Other star attractions included Ludwig Knaus’s “Holy Family,” and Jules Breton’s “Procession of Pardon in Brittany.” The large crowds flocked to see “Madame Georges Charpentier and Her Children, Georgette and Paul” painted by Auguste Renoir (1878), acquired by the Museum in 1907. INTEREST IN LIVING ARTISTS
While she was seriously expanding her own collection, Lorillard had a particular interest in living artists. A life-long supporter of Grace church, she also left a substantial bequest to be used for some form of “women’s work”. In 1896, a club bearing Catharine Lorillard Wolfe’s name was established by the Rector William Reed Huntington in New York, and Mrs. Newell, wife of the Rector of the Episcopal Church in Paris. The Catharine Lorillard Wolfe Art Club was founded with the mission to promote and advance the artwork of women. Today the mission is the same. Annual juried exhibitions to honor talented women artists are held at the National Arts Club in New York City.
CULTIVATING ARTISTIC INTEREST
From early life Catharine cultivated a fine and discriminating taste for art. Wolfe’s father John David Wolfe was a real-estate developer, who had given labor and money for the advancement of the New York Historical Society, and was one of the founders of the American Museum of Natural History, and its first president. Her mother Dorothea Anne Lorillard was partial inheritor of the Lorillard fortune and Catharine, who had inherited her father’s noble qualities, would continue their philanthropic activities. Catharine was an only child (1828-1887) and her fine mind was broadened by extensive travel in many countries.
EXTENSIVE BENEFICIARIES
Catharine Lorillard Wolfe was an outstanding supporter and always had a large number of beneficiaries including the Newsboy’s Lodging House and Industrial School (an outgrowth of Charles Loring Brace’s movement to help care of New York’s homeless children; she financed archaeological missions, including one that unearthed Nippur and she was also involved with the American Museum of Natural History, which her father had helped to found. She gave large amounts of money to institutions such as Grace Episcopal Church and Union College and her generosity attesting to her great philanthropy continued throughout her lifetime.
A LIFE WELL LIVED WITH ART AS ITS CORE, PHILANTHROPY, COMPASSION FOR LIVING ARTISTS, THE CATHARINE LORILLARD WOLFE ART CLUB CONTINUES THE TRADITION. WWW.CLWAC.ORG.