Shown is a portrait of Mrs. J.P. Morgan. Image provided.

By Darla McCammon
and DeeAnna Muraski
Guest Columnists

Darla McCammon and DeeAnna Muraski

Editor’s note: Please enjoy this week’s final installment of Art in Action.

After more than 15 years of compiling this weekly column to inform and educate readers about art, mother and daughter Darla McCammon and DeeAnna Muraski have decided to retire the column.

“We did not take the decision to stop lightly as we both love writing and it was the one volunteer job where we felt a big sense of pride in having our articles published every week!” the pair wrote to us in a farewell note. They said they have loved working on the column together and have “loved hearing weekly from our thousands of email subscribers.”

They ended their note this way: “Thank you for allowing us to help spread the joy of art and awareness as that was my mom’s idea — way back when she started the Dana Point art fair on the pier in California, which now boasts billions of visitors since she started it in the 1970s. Thanks for the memories, DeeAnna and Darla.”

And our thanks to you, Darla and DeeAnna.

WARSAW — The Morgan Library & Museum has a fascinating history. The origins lay with John Pierpont Morgan, more famously known as J.P. Morgan but more intimately known as Pierpont. Pierpont obtained his middle and preferred name from his mother’s maiden name. He was born in 1837 to a heritage already entrepreneurial in spirit. His maternal relatives started Yale University; his paternal grandfather started Aetna Insurance; and his uncle penned “Jingle Bells” (initially deemed as a failure). However, Pierpont would go a different direction and make his own mark on the world.

As a young boy, Pierpont’s parents would whisk him off to boutique art galleries, and the fond memories of those trips forever stoked his love of art. To further his studies, his parents sent him to school in France and Germany to learn the respective languages, which he became quickly fluent in both. Not surprisingly, due to his affinity with art, he graduated college with a degree in art history. He married, and his young wife died of tuberculosis after only four months of marriage. A scant three years later, he was remarried and would eventually be blessed with four children.

Contrary to his degree and passion for art, at 20 years old he went into banking and forged an impressive presence in an intimidating field. He quickly diversified from banking and retained a controlling interest in electric, railroads and U.S. Steel, which was the first billion-dollar company in the world. He remained a member on all the boards, and it may explain why his personal residence was the first to become electrically lit in the state of New York.

In 1898, his 300-foot personal yacht, the Corsair, was purchased by the government for use in the Spanish-American war as it was the largest in the world at the time. By the 1900s, he also had some other of the world’s largest figures as he retained the world’s most powerful banking institutions. Pierpont particularly enjoyed buying struggling companies, retaining the staff and making them profitable, evidencing his astute business sense. During the 1907 financial panic, he ingeniously and quickly organized financiers to collectively loan the government $60 million to stabilize the economy. This private bailout provided the means to make the U.S. solvent again and eventually led to the development of the Federal Reserve.

Pierpont retained the monikers of financier, investment banker, business developer and accountant, but his favorite was art collector. While he was amassing his own personal art collection in a two-story private library, he was also helping establish the Metropolitan Museum of Art through massive loans and donations of his grand private art collection. He realized art was a means of connecting. Art could connect you to others, to beauty and to something outside yourself. His favorite collections were his rare incunabulum (manuscripts printed before 1501), Chinese porcelains and Renaissance paintings. He obtained more than 1,000 gemstones so rare they were exhibited, under heavy guard, at the World’s Fair in 1889.

For his personal library, he retained a roster of full-time employees, and the two most important were Roger Fry, his collector, and Belle da Costa Greene, his director. Belle’s, Roger’s and Pierpont’s knowledge of art and access to financial capital allowed the art stockpile to grow and be heralded as the greatest collection in the world.

At Pierpont’s death in 1913, flags on Wall Street flew at half-staff, and the stock market historically remained closed until noon to honor him.

To Go

The Morgan Library & Museum is located at 225 Madison Ave. at 36th Street, New York, N.Y. It boasts an extensive collection of art and books. It is open from 10:30 am. to 5 p.m. Tuesday through Sunday, and is open until 7 p.m. on Friday.

To Read

“The Personal Librarian” by Marie Benedict. It is based on real-life librarian Belle da Costa Green. Journey with Belle as she curates the most impressive library of books and art the world had ever experienced at the time. While the library begins as a private collection as mentioned in the book, it eventually segues into The Morgan Library & Museum, which is real and open to the public for viewing.

Darla McCammon is an artist, columnist and author. DeeAnna Muraski is executive director of Operation Read USA Inc. Send an email to the mother/daughter team at [email protected].