Page 140 - Bonhams Passkon and Philanthropy MET Mjuseum March 2024 Asia Week

Fig. 1 Portrait of Mary Stillman Harkness, 1933, by Frank O. Salisbury. Fig. 2 Mary Stillman Harkness courtesy of The Metropolitan Museum of Art
Source: https://onlineexhibits.library.yale.edu/s/we-were-always-here- Jellinek, Provenance, p.219
celebrating-all-women-at-yale/item/15230#?cv=&c=&m=&s=&xywh=-
319%2C-1%2C4039%2C4039

Mrs. Edward Harkness (1874-1950)

Mrs. Mary Emma Stillman Harkness (1874-1950) was born in Brooklyn Over the course of their lifetimes, they gave over $129 million in
into considerable wealth, one of four daughters of Thomas and charitable gifts. Mary was an ardent supporter of the United Hospital
Elizabeth Stillman, a prominent New York family associated with the Fund of New York, the American Red Cross, the Young Women’s
Rockefellers. She married the financier Edward Stephen Harkness Christian Association, the Boy Scouts, Connecticut College, the New
(1874-1940) in 1904, whose family had also made their fortune York Public Library, numerous hospitals, including the Columbia-
through investing in John D. Rockefeller’s (1839-1937) Standard Oil Presbyterian Medical Center and Presbyterian Hospital (where she
Co. The couple shared a passion for philanthropy, particularly for served on the Board of Members), and many other organizations. They
institutions that supported education, healthcare, and children, and made a series of grants to Harvard and Yale universities as well as to a
they also built a notable collection of art and books. Mary cared deeply number of independent preparatory schools, including St. Paul’s and
about childhood disease. She operated two farms in suburban New Phillips Exeter Academy.
York for the research and treatment of rheumatic fever in children
and funded a summer camp for disadvantaged city children at the Following her husband’s death, she became Honorary President of the
Harkness summer home in Connecticut. Commonwealth Fund and was an Honorary Fellow of Lady Margaret

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