Sarah Campbell Blaffer and the SCBF
The art collection of the Sarah Campbell Blaffer Foundation exists as a result of the generosity and vision of Sarah Campbell Blaffer (1885-1975). Born in Waxahachie, Texas, Mrs. Blaffer's youth was spent in Lampasas and Houston. As a student in Boston, she visited the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum at Fenway Court, but it was not until her wedding trip to Paris in 1909, and she dutifully visited the Louvre, that she had her first mature encounter with great works of art. The experience, as she recalled later, was overwhelming, and transformed her whole life. She became a connoisseur and an avid collector at a time when few people in Texas shared her understanding and love for art. Her philanthropies were largely devoted to encouraging a similar appreciation among her fellow citizens.
An extention of Mrs. Blaffer's desire to share the beauty of great works of art with others was her commitment to take her art to communities located far away from major museums. She had the firm belief that making such works available for viewing by the members of those communities would enrich their lives, as it had enriched her own. "It is an experience I want everyone to share: poor, rich, townfolk and country," she said. In 1971 the trustees of the Sarah Campbell Blaffer Foundation, which she had established in 1964, decided to focus more of the SCBF's resources on acquiring works of art that would be exhibited to people throughout Texas in a "museum without walls." The Sarah Campbell Blaffer Foundation maintains, exhibits, and continues to develop the collection that now contains over 150 Old Master paintings, several modern paintings, and hundreds of works on paper. Special attention has been given to creating comprehensive collections that reveal the breadth of subject matter and genre of painting in a given period or region. Until 2000, the SCBF had never had its own permanent exhibition space, but now the finest works in its collection occupy five galleries in the Audrey Jones Beck Building of the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston.
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Sarah Campbell Blaffer, 1885-1975
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