Page 19 - Irving Collection Part II Chinese Art

FLORENCE AND HERBERT IRVING

A T R I B U T E

Each morning at fve o’clock, the entrepreneur his aunts in the Bronx. Florence Irving described her
and philanthropist Herbert Irving awoke to greet his own father as “a gambler and an entrepreneur.” “I went
art. Together with his wife, Florence, Mr. Irving had to school one day in a chaufeured car,” she recalled of
transformed his family’s New York residence into a jewel her family’s tenuous circumstances, “and the next day
box of masterworks from across the canon of Asian art. didn’t have enough money to take the trolley.” As the
“He communes with the pieces,” Mrs. Irving laughed couple’s son, Ron Irving, would observe, “The world
of her husband’s morning ritual. “You know how plant my parents grew into is not the world they grew up in.”
people talk to their plants?” Mr. Irving, for his part, was What the two young New Yorkers shared was a keen
unfazed by the comparison. “We don’t have a house,” interest in art, culture, and history, with the galleries of
he mused, “we have a warehouse. If I have it, I want to the Brooklyn Museum serving as a kind of second home
see it.” in which they could marvel at the wonders of the ancient
and modern worlds.
For Florence and Herbert Irving, the opportunity to live
in dialogue with their extraordinary collection of Asian Inspired by President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s
sculpture, ceramics, painting, and decorative art was Depression-era ‘freside chats,’ the precocious Herbert
an incomparable experience—an opportunity forged Irving was studying Economics at the University of
through unstinting personal scholarship and friendship Pennsylvania’s Wharton School by the age of sixteen.
with the world’s foremost scholars. “We don’t only He paid for his education by working jobs throughout
collect artifacts,” Mr. Irving said. “We collect people.” the year, including as a summertime waiter at a
Across more than a half century, the Irvings assembled Catskills resort. A fellow server introduced Mr. Irving
one of the world’s foremost private collections of Asian to his sister, Florence Rapoport, a student at New York
art, a grouping recognized for its remarkable quality and University who would become Mr. Irving’s beloved wife
beauty. Yet as Mr. Irving so astutely observed, it was and partner in art, family, and philanthropy for over
the couple’s dedication to people—from the experts seventy-fve years. After obtaining his Master’s degree
who helped shape their collection to the countless from Wharton, Mr. Irving set out to become a teacher.
New Yorkers who beneftted from their largesse—that Like many young men of the era, his plans were put on
defnes the generous vision that is the Irving legacy. hold by the onset of the Second World War. The Irvings
were married just one week after the events at Pearl
A NEW YORK STORY Harbor; Mr. Irving soon enlisted in the United States
Herbert Irving and Florence Rapoport were born in Army, and in 1943 joined the confict in Europe. He
Brooklyn in 1917 and 1920, respectively. Their lives landed at Normandy just after D-Day, and advanced
would be greatly shaped by the modest circumstances with his regiment through France, Belgium, and
in which they were both raised: neither would forget Germany. It was during the war that Mr. Irving made his
the importance of sharing their later success with the frst ‘acquisition’ of art: glassware from the Val Saint
less fortunate. Herbert Irving’s mother died when he Lambert factory in Belgium, sold so it could be saved
was just thirteen years old, leaving him to be raised by from future enemy attack.

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