Chester Dale papers
name: label: Creator
content: Dale, Chester, 1883-1962
label: Names
content: Allentown Art Museum
label: Names
content: Amherst College
label: Names
content: Metropolitan Museum of Art (New York, N.Y.)
label: Names
content: National Gallery of Art (U.S.)
label: Names
content: Parrish Art Museum
label: Names
content: Batigne, Claire
label: Names
content: Batigne, Renee
label: Names
content: Braque, Georges, 1882-1963
label: Names
content: Burkhardt, Rudy
label: Names
content: Cantor, Irving
label: Names
content: Cassatt, Mary, 1844-1926
label: Names
content: Cooper, Maria
label: Names
content: Cooper, Veronica
label: Names
content: Cézanne, Paul, 1839-1906
label: Names
content: Dale, Mary Towar Bullard, 1892-1984
label: Names
content: Dale, Maud, 1875-1953
label: Names
content: Dallas Museum of Art
label: Names
content: Dalí, Gala
label: Names
content: Dalí, Salvador, 1904-1989
label: Names
content: Dmitri, Ivan, 1900-1968
label: Names
content: Dufy, Raoul, 1877-1953
label: Names
content: Elizabeth, Queen of Great Britain, II, 1926-
label: Names
content: Frost, Robert, 1874-1963
label: Names
content: Hamilton, Edith, 1867-1963
label: Names
content: Ingersoll, R. Sturgis (Robert Sturgis), b. 1891
label: Names
content: Kahlo, Frida
label: Names
content: Kessel, Dmitri
label: Names
content: MacNeil, Neil
label: Names
content: Mayes, Herbert R., 1900-1987 (Herbert Raymond)
label: Names
content: Mellon, Paul
label: Names
content: Mellon, Timothy
label: Names
content: Orozco, José Clemente, 1883-1949
label: Names
content: Picasso, Pablo, 1881-1973
label: Names
content: Rivera, Diego, 1886-1957
label: Names
content: Salles, Georges
label: Names
content: Wyeth, Andrew, 1917-2009
label: Names
content: Wyeth, Jamie, 1946-
label: Names
content: Wyeth, Nicholas
place: label: Place
content: Europe -- description and travel
topic: label: Occupation
content: Art dealers -- France -- Paris
label: Topic
content: Art -- Collectors and collecting
label: Topic
content: Art, French--19th century
label: Topic
content: Art, French--20th century
label: Topic
content: Art, Modern -- 20th century -- Collectors and collecting
label: Topic
content: Art, Modern--19th century--Collectors and collecting
label: Topic
content: Motion pictures (visual works)
acqinfo: label: Provenance
content: The collection was donated in 1972 by Mary Dale, Chester Dale's second wife, and in 1985 by Mary Dale's estate.
creator: label: Creator
content: Dale, Chester, 1883-1962
setName: label: See more items in
content: Chester Dale papers
abstract: label: Summary
content: The papers of New York art collector Chester Dale measure 8.4 linear feet and date from circa 1883-2003. Dale amassed one of the world's most complete collections of nineteenth and twentieth century French art, was a collector of eighteenth century American portraitists, and a patron and collector of twentieth American artists including George Bellows and Mary Cassatt. The bulk of the collection dates from 1920 to 1970 and documents Dale's activities through biographical material, correspondence, memoirs and other writings, purchase, sales and estate records, printed material, scrapbooks, and photographs.
bioghist: label: Biographical / Historical
content: New York art patron and collector of French and American art Chester Dale (1883-1962), made his fortune as a banker who pioneered the sale of public utility securities. He began purchasing French paintings in the mid-1920s and retired from the investment security business in 1935 in order to focus full time on the acquisition of art. 

Dale was encouraged to begin collecting art by his first wife, Maud Dale, who was an artist, a writer, and a former chairman of the Exhibition Committee of the Museum of French Art. With the benefit of his wife's knowledge, passion, and perception, Dale began to lay the foundation of his collection in 1926, and amassed circa seven hundred pictures within ten years. His collection is considered to be one of the most complete collections of nineteenth and twentieth century French art in the world, and includes some of the finest examples of works by Braque, Corot, Delacroix, Degas, Derain, Dufy, Leger, Matisse, and Renoir, as well as by artists representative of the French tradition in art including Modigliani, Picasso, Rivera, and Van Gogh. 

Although primarily interested in French art, Dale also collected and encouraged American artists. He was a patron of George Bellows and Salvador Dali, and had his portrait painted by both artists. Dale presented the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the National Gallery of Art with their first Dali paintings, the latter being The Sacrament of the Last Supper. Dale also purchased works by Mary Cassatt, representative works by "the Eight," and examples of eighteenth century American portraitists John Smibert, Gilbert Stuart and Thomas Sully. In the early 1940s he visited Diego Rivera and Frida Kahlo in Mexico, and Rivera subsequently completed a portrait of Dale in 1945. 

Dale served as a trustee to the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Chicago Art Institute, and the Philadelphia Museum of Art. He made the first of a series of gifts to the National Gallery of Art when it opened in 1941. In 1955 he was elected president of the museum, by which time his collection occupied ten of its galleries. Dale bequeathed the bulk of his remaining collection to the National Gallery in his will. This final gift included eighty of his favorite pictures, which had been located in his Manhattan apartment at the Plaza Hotel up until his death.  

A year after the death of Maud Dale in 1953, Dale married Mary Towar Bullard, whom he had employed as his secretary for twenty-five years. Mary Dale oversaw the disbursement of her husband's estate, following Dale's death from a heart attack in 1962.
physdesc: label: Extent
content: 8.4 Linear Feet
unitdate: label: Date
content: circa 1883-2003
label: Date
content: bulk 1920-1970
dataSource: label: Archival Repository
content: Archives of American Art
identifier: label: Identifier
content: AAA.daleches
objectType: label: Type
content: Collection descriptions
label: Type
content: Archival materials
label: Type
content: Photographs
label: Type
content: Scrapbooks
label: Type
content: Sound recordings
label: Type
content: Travel diaries
arrangement: label: Arrangement
content: The collection is arranged as seven series.

Series 1: Biographical Material, circa 1897-circa 1960, 2003 (Boxes 1, 7-8; FC 20; 0.45 linear feet)

Series 2: Correspondence, 1911-1984 (Box 1; 0.9 linear feet)

Series 3: Writings, 1904-1963 (Boxes 2, 8; 0.55 linear feet)

Series 4: Chester Dale Collection, circa 1930-1968 (Boxes 2-3; 1 linear foot)

Series 5: Printed Material, 1925-circa 1972 (Boxes 3-4, 8, OV 9; 1.2 linear feet)

Series 6: Scrapbooks, circa 1920s-1963 (Box 4, BVs 10-14; 1.2 linear feet)

Series 7: Photographs, circa 1883-1972 (Boxes 4-6, 19, BVs 15-17, OV 18; 3.3 linear feet)
processinfo: label: Processing Information
content: The collection received a preliminary level of arrangement after donation and was partially microfilmed on reels 927 and 3968-3974. The collection was processed, prepared for digitization, and described in a finding aid by Stephanie Ashley in 2017 with funding provided by The Walton Family Foundation.
altformavail: label: Existence and Location of Copies
content: The bulk of the collection was digitized in 2018 and is available on the Archives of American Art website. Materials which have not been digitized include blank pages, blank versos of photographs, negatives and transparencies for which prints exist, stereo slides, the dictaphone recordings, the home movie, and duplicates. In some cases, exhibition catalogs and other publications have had only their covers, title pages, and relevant pages digitized.
genre_format: label: Genre/Form
content: Photographs
label: Genre/Form
content: Scrapbooks
label: Genre/Form
content: Sound recordings
label: Genre/Form
content: Travel diaries
scopecontent: label: Scope and Contents
content: The papers of New York art collector Chester Dale measure 8.4 linear feet and date from circa 1883-2003. Dale amassed one of the world's most complete collections of nineteenth and twentieth century French art, was a collector of eighteenth century American portraitists, and a patron and collector of twentieth American artists including George Bellows and Mary Cassatt. The bulk of the collection dates from 1920 to 1970 and documents Dale's activities through biographical material, correspondence, memoirs and other writings, purchase, sales and estate records, printed material, scrapbooks, and photographs. 

Biographical material comprises brief genealogical and biographical notes on Dale's father's side of the family; four pieces of miscellaneous artwork; several certificates, membership cards, and programs; circa six unidentified dictaphone recordings; and a home movie of an unidentified social event. 


Correspondence provides scattered documentation of Dale's activities as a collector and benefactor, including correspondence relating to gifts to various museums such as the Dallas Museum of Fine Arts and the Metropolitan Museum of Art, as well as posthumous gifts to the Allentown Art Museum and Amherst College. Also documented is Dale's election as president of the National Gallery of Art in 1955. There are several letters to and from Salvador and Gala Dali, copies of two letters from Diego Rivera, and letters from other friends and business associates, including historian Georges Salles. Over one third of the correspondence consists of condolence telegrams and letters sent to Mary Dale following Dale's death. Other correspondence documents Mary Dale's work as exhibition chairman for the Parrish Museum of Art, and includes letters from Andrew, Jamie, and Nicholas Wyeth.

Writings include typed drafts of Dale's memoirs which recall the beginning of his career in banking, and include stories of his early experiences in buying art. Dale credits the highly discerning and influential eye of his first wife, Maud Dale, for guiding him in his early selections, and his memoirs recall his unconventionally direct way of doing business with the Paris art dealers. Two travel diaries record a 1904 trip to Europe, and five trips to Europe and the Caribbean between 1949 and 1953. Writings by others include several essays on Dale by various authors, several essays on art by Maud Dale, and a typed draft of a manuscript on Dale's life by Neil MacNeil.

Extensive inventories, estate appraisals, and will disbursement records document the contents of the Chester Dale collection in Series 4. Also found here are receipts for specific purchases of works by Cezanne, Cassatt, Dali, Dufy, Picasso, and others.

Printed material includes catalogs for auction sales annotated with sales prices and other purchase information; catalogs of Dale's collection; and exhibition catalogs and announcements for the Parrish Museum of Art during Mary Dale's tenure as exhibition chairman. Some of the catalogs include essays by Maud Dale. News clippings and magazine articles document press coverage of Dale's activities at home and abroad.

Scrapbooks contain additional printed material, primarily news clippings, documenting press coverage of Chester Dale's life from the 1920s until his death. One of the scrapbooks includes multiple photographs of Dale and others, including a photo of Frida Kahlo and Jose Orozco. An additional scrapbook of photographs and clippings documents Mary Dale's life before and after her marriage to Dale.


Photographs are of Dale, Mary Dale, Maud Dale, family, friends, and colleagues. There are photographs of Dale and Mary Dale with artists including George Braques, Salvador and Gala Dali, Diego Rivera and Frida Kahlo, and Jamie and Nicholas Wyeth; and friends and associates Renee and Claire Batigne, Veronica "Rocky" Cooper and Maria Cooper, Robert Sturgis Ingersoll, Edith Hamilton with Robert Frost, Neil MacNeil, Herbert Mayes, and Paul and Timothy Mellon. There are individual photos and three photograph albums of Dale's various residences and his collection, including photographs taken shortly before his death at his Plaza Hotel apartment showing some of his favorite pictures. Photographers include Rudolph Burkhardt, Irving Cantor, Ivan Dmitri, and Dmitri Kessel. There are also many photographs of exhibition openings and museum events, especially events at the National Gallery of Art, including the presentation of Dale's gift of Dali's The Sacrament of the Last Supper to the museum in 1956, and the occasion of Queen Elizabeth II of England's visit to the museum in 1957. Photographs also include photographs of artwork in Dale's collection.
relatedmaterial: label: Related Materials
content: Holdings at the Archives of American Art also include the Chester Dale papers concerning George Bellows, 1919-1956, comprising correspondence, a photograph, and invoices relating to Chester Dale's relationship with George Bellows and Dale's interest in artwork by Bellows; and the Chester Dale eulogy, consisting of one 35 minute, 9 second sound tape reel of a eulogy delivered by an unidentified speaker.