Electra Havemeyer Webb – Shelburne Museum

“A collection of collections.”
– Mrs. Webb

Shelburne Museum, in Shelburne, Vermont, is the manifestation of one woman’s enduring passion and unwavering commitment to a distinctive vision. Electra Havemeyer Webb (1888-1960), a visionary and trailblazer founded Shelburne Museum in 1947, aiming to share an extensive collection encompassing American art, design, and decorative arts. Today, Shelburne Museum stands as a testament to her groundbreaking innovation in art collecting and museum experiences.

Born into privilege in 1888 to Henry Osborne Havemeyer (1847-1907) and Louisine Waldron Elder Havemeyer (1855-1929), Electra Havemeyer was raised in New York City, where her family’s wealth—derived from the sugar industry—facilitated a life of opulence and an acumen for collecting. The Havemeyers were influential collectors who assembled a renowned art collection of the finest masterpieces in Asian and European fine and decorative arts. Most notably, the Havemeyers were among the first American collectors to acquire French Impressionist artworks, which they purchased on the advice of their art advisor and friend, artist Mary Cassatt (1844-1926).

Deviating from her parents’ interest in European art, Mrs. Webb’s foray into collecting began at the age of 19 with the acquisition of an American folk-art piece, a tobacconist figure she named “Mary O’Connor,” which she procured for 15 dollars.

Undeterred by conflicting opinions on what constituted art, Mrs. Webb became an early collector of this then-little-
understood vernacular and body of work, defying conventional preferences for fine art at the time. From Mrs. Webb’s perspective, she was one of a few collectors who saw value in “the beauty of everyday things,” and through her focus on pieces created by ordinary craftspeople, she preserved and elevated facets of everyday life into a uniquely American aesthetic.

From her initial art purchase to her final acquisition, Mrs. Webb’s collecting is marked by the unexpected. Throughout her life, she pursued objects that affected her aesthetically and emotionally. Progressively undeterred by hierarchies long established within the arts, she valued all objects with the same reverence, such as hanging and displaying antique quilts on the wall like paintings and approaching weathervanes like modern sculptures. Her appetite for antiques was insatiable, and she filled every available space in her households with them. “The rooms were over-furnished. … Then the closets and the attics were filled,” she said. “I just couldn’t let good pieces go by – china, porcelain, pottery, pewter, glass, dolls, quilts, cigar store Indians, eagles, folk art. They all seemed to appeal to me.”

Throughout her life, she pursued objects that affected her aesthetically and emotionally. She was, therefore, just as passionate about collecting American folk art paintings and sculptures as she was about amassing an extraordinary holding of quilts, carousel figures, carriages, or a 220-foot steamboat. During the last decade of her life, Mrs. Webb expanded the Museum’s holdings to embrace fine art, acquiring over 400 American paintings and finalizing plans for exhibiting Impressionist works she inherited from her parents, including Edgar Degas (1834-1917), Édouard Manet (1832-1883), Claude Monet (1840-1926), and, of course, Cassatt.

There are few collectors whose collections grew to be quite as large and diverse as Mrs. Webb’s. In 1947, at the time she realized her dream to create a museum in which to share her collections with the public, she had amassed over 150,000 objects. However, while Mrs. Webb’s taste was visionary, her collection is also a tribute to her wisdom in seeking guidance from others, often leaning on the insights of other remarkable women, such as one of her first hires for Shelburne Museum, Lillian Baker Carlisle (1912-2006). A particularly fruitful partnership emerged with Edith Gregor Halpert (1900-1970), a prominent New York City art dealer, leading to a lifelong bond built on shared passion and hard work. For both women, the act of collecting was an art form, and when collaborating, they created a masterpiece.

Seeking Halpert’s counsel and heeding her advice, over several decades, Mrs. Webb purchased over one hundred objects from her for her new museum.

For shaping the Museum’s esteemed folk-art collection, and, as Mrs. Webb wrote, acting as “the fairy godmother to the Museum,” in 1953 she appointed Halpert as a member of the Museum’s Board of Trustees.

By the time of Mrs. Webb’s death in 1960, Shelburne Museum had established itself as a reputable museum. Mrs. Webb referred to her unique Museum as “a collection of collections” that acts as an “educational project, varied and alive.” As one of the nation’s first female museum founders, Mrs. Webb crafted a unique tapestry: extraordinary collections set amidst historic New England buildings, creating an inviting space for visitors to relish the pleasure of looking at and learning about various art objects, just as she did. Today, Shelburne Museum continues to be a place like no other, which reflects and honors Mrs. Webb’s collecting whimsy while also evolving and embracing the past, present, and future.

The Shelburne Museum is located at 6000 Shelburne Road, Shelburne, Vermont. For hours, directions, and more information on this museum and its exhibitions, visit www.shelburnemuseum.org.