Mayer, Frederick R.

print view

role

Collector

dates

1928-2007

city

Denver

state

CO

other cities

Yougstown, OH; Dallas, TX;

sex

M

historical notes

Frederick Rickard Mayer was a collector of antiquities and Spanish Colonial Art, coins, currency and stamps.

Mayer formed Exeter Drilling Co. in 1953, and a year later moved from Texas to the Denver-Julesburg Basin. He sold Exeter in 1980 to Peoples Energy Co. in Chicago after it grew into the nation's largest privately held drilling company. In 1982 he formed Captiva Corp., an oil and gas company.

Mr. Mayer and his wife Jan MacCasler Perry of Tulsa, Oklahoma, through their JFM Foundation, gave the art museum the endowment to bolster collecting and exhibitions in the pre-Columbian and Spanish Colonial collections, plus the office of the museum director. They collected deeply in those areas, along with works on paper and contemporary art.

Mayer graduated from Phillips Exeter Academy (1945), and earned a bachelors degree from Yale University in 1950. Mr. Mayer served in the armed services during the Korean War.

Denver Art Museum: The longtime board member, through his JFM Foundation, gave the museum an $11 million endowment in 2003.

decades
of activity

1960-1970
1970-1980
1980-1990
1990-2000
2000-2010

website

http://www.frmfoundation.org

updated

11/24/2025 10:11:48

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