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historical notes
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Virginia Steele Scott was an heiress who lived in Pasadena and married a local artist, Jonathan Scott. Her eclectic art collection included works by Gauguin and Picasso. Scott initially sought to establish a museum within her home. The local government halted the development due to zoning restrictions.
Scott then decided to sell off her original collection and establish a new, American-centered collection, with the ultimate goal of endowing it to a local museum. She bought fifty paintings by American artists over a short period in the late 1970s, which she donated to the Huntington Gallery with funding for a gallery to house the collection and an endowment for a curator to manage it.
Designed by Paul Gray, The Virginia Steele Scott Gallery of American Art opened to the public in 1984, inaugurating American art as a significant part of The Huntington's collections. Since then, the American art collection has grown dramatically, largely through the support of the Scott Foundation. |
