22 Pr<strong>of</strong>ile: Paul Mellon Gallery <strong>of</strong> Art, although in this case there were exceptions; four <strong>of</strong> them were given to the Louvre, three to the <strong>Fitzwilliam</strong> <strong>Museum</strong> in honour <strong>of</strong> its former Director, Michael Jaffé, and two to the Yale <strong>University</strong> Art Gallery. In 1964, the Royal Academy mounted an exhibition <strong>of</strong> British Art 1700-1850, which was discreetly subtitled ‘from the collection <strong>of</strong> Mr and Mrs Paul Mellon.’ By then it was clear to Paul Mellon that what he had amassed over a period <strong>of</strong> five years was more than a private collection; comprising some 1600 paintings together with many thousands <strong>of</strong> prints, drawings and rare books it was the preeminent collection <strong>of</strong> British art in private hands. No major artist between Hogarth and Turner was unrepresented, and many <strong>of</strong> his favourites, including Joseph Wright (<strong>of</strong> Derby), Richard Wilson and John Constable, by dozens <strong>of</strong> canvases. After a certain amount <strong>of</strong> soul-searching, or rather weighing the rival claims <strong>of</strong> Washington, Richmond and New Haven, he announced his decision in 1966 to give and bequeath the majority <strong>of</strong> his holdings <strong>of</strong> British art to Yale <strong>University</strong> together with sufficient funds to build and endow there the Yale Center for British Art. ‘Since a university is a community <strong>of</strong> scholars,’ he explained, ‘a majority <strong>of</strong> them young scholars at that; and since within its walls there is, or at least should be, a sharing <strong>of</strong> interests and a crossfertilisation <strong>of</strong> knowledge, it seemed to me that the ferment <strong>of</strong> a university would enliven and stimulate the study <strong>of</strong> and the enjoyment <strong>of</strong> these artistic relics <strong>of</strong> our British inheritance, more vitally and more resourcefully than if they were displayed in a non-teaching institution.’ Again, there were a few well-chosen exceptions from this allocation, including several masterpieces to complement his father’s gifts <strong>of</strong> British paintings for the National Gallery <strong>of</strong> Art, sporting paintings for the Virginia <strong>Museum</strong>, and gifts to the British Sporting Art Trust at the Tate Gallery and to the <strong>Fitzwilliam</strong> <strong>Museum</strong>. One <strong>of</strong> Paul Mellon’s gifts to the <strong>Fitzwilliam</strong> is a painting by the eighteenth-century artist John Wootton <strong>of</strong> A Race on the Beacon Course at Newmarket. He made it largely to acknowledge the pleasure he derived from spending two years as an affiliated student at Clare College between 1929 and 1931. After four years at Yale he ‘found <strong>Cambridge</strong> lectures dull and dry,’ but ‘<strong>Cambridge</strong> I loved, and I loved its grey walls, its grassy quadrangles, St Mary’s bells, its busy, narrow streets full <strong>of</strong> men in black gowns, King’s Chapel and Choir and candlelight.’ And beyond <strong>Cambridge</strong>, ‘lovely Newmarket, its long straight velvet training gallops, its racecourse, the most beautiful one anywhere.’ As if to sum up those two years in <strong>Cambridge</strong> where ‘I rode constantly, rowed intermittently, and read a little’, this one example serves to illustrate the very personal nature <strong>of</strong> the Paul Mellon Collection, in spite <strong>of</strong> its vast extent. Before buying major works, he <strong>of</strong>ten took the best advice available, from John Rewald for Impressionist paintings, from Basil Taylor for British art and subsequently from the curators who worked for the museums and galleries he supported, but the final decision was always his own. ‘When I buy a painting, some feature about it may remind me consciously or unconsciously <strong>of</strong> some past event, thought, feeling, moment <strong>of</strong> pleasure or even <strong>of</strong> sadness.’ And finally, ‘As anyone who has started to collect anything knows, it is impossible to stop.’ <strong>The</strong> same might be said <strong>of</strong> his habit <strong>of</strong> giving, which was just as personal and, it is tempting to add, equally incurable. Duncan Robinson (Director <strong>of</strong> the Yale Center for British Art 1981-1995) Sources Paul Mellon with John Baskett, Reflections in a Silver Spoon, A Memoir, New York and London, 1992, from which all quotations are taken. Oxford Dictionary <strong>of</strong> National Biography, Oxford, 2004.
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