Archives Directory for the History of Collecting in America

Hilles, Susan Morse, 1905-2002 print view role Collector Patron dates 1905-2002 city Boston state MA other cities Simsbury, CT; Lynn, MA; Paradise, Nova Scotia; Cambridge, MA: New Haven, CT; sex F historical notes Susan (Morse) Hilles was an art collector and philanthropist. According to Susan Morse Hilles, the 1950s were the happiest period of her life, when her interests in art, which had lain dormant since art school, flourished. She began to assemble a collection of contemporary painting and sculpture, resolving to buy only the works of living artists. She looked, she said, for "design and color in painting, those two qualities plus a third, inner rhythm or soul." Her collection documented the achievements of the post-war generation of mostly American artists and included works by Alexander Calder, Helen Frankenthaler, David Smith, Kenzo Okada, Willem de Kooning, Franz Kline, Josef Albers, Ellsworth Kelly, Robert Rauschenberg, and many more. Her collection was frequently exhibited: at the Yale Art Gallery, Wadsworth Atheneum, and Mount Holyoke College (1964), the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston (1966), and Trumbull College, Yale University (1968). SMH was active on the boards of many museums: member and treasurer of the International Council of the Museum of Modern Art (MOMA), governor of the Yale Art Gallery Associates, member of the Collectors Committee of the National Gallery of Art, trustee of the Whitney Museum of American Art, the Wadsworth Atheneum, and the MFA. Her loans and gifts of paintings and sculpture have enriched the collections at Yale, MOMA, the Whitney, and the Harvard University Art Museums. She gave a portion of her collection to the Wadsworth Atheneum in 1990 and 1992. decades of activity 1950-1960 1960-1970 1970-1980 1980-1990 1990-2000 updated 02/14/2025 10:12:25 bibliographic search Search Frick Art Reference Library Catalog Search Photoarchive Search Worldcat Search Library of Congress Name Authority File (LCNAF) Search Virtual International Authority File (VIAF) Search Wikidata Entry Archives/Repository Collection Title Collection Details Schlesinger Library, Radcliffe Institute Harvard University Susan Morse Hilles Oral History, 1986 see details... Schlesinger Library, Radcliffe Institute Harvard University Susan (Morse) Hilles Papers, 1839-1995 (inclusive) see details... «  back