Ethel Scull
Ethel Scull by Jimmy De Sana
Born
Ethel Redner

1921
New York City, US
DiedAugust 27, 2001(2001-08-27) (aged 79–80)
Known forArt collector

Ethel Redner Scull (1921 – August 27, 2001) was an American art collector, best known for the collection of pop and minimal art that she assembled with her husband, Robert Scull.

Early life

Ethel Redner was born into a wealthy family in the Bronx in 1921. She studied advertising art at the Parsons School of Design.[1] Her father, Ben Redner, owned a taxicab company that she and her husband, Robert Scull, would later inherit and run together under the name "Scull's Angels." Born in the Bronx in 1921, Ethel Scull began her engagement with the New York art world as a student in the advertising art program at Parsons School of Design (she would later characterize her alma mater as “more of a finishing school then. During the same period of time, she met Robert Scull—the man she would marry, and the partner alongside whom she would become a fixture in the Society pages of the New York media, and a significant patron of the arts.

Marriage

Ethel Redner married Robert Scull, and they had three sons, Jonathan, Stephen and Adam.[2] Robert Scull inherited a share of Redner's father's taxi cab company following Mr. Redner's retirement. After accumulating wealth in the taxi industry the couple broke into the art scene by collecting abstract and contemporary art. With the revenue from their first auction in 1965, they established the Robert and Ethel Scull Foundation, the primary goal of which was to support young artists. The Sculls' filed for divorce in 1975. In 1986, Robert Scull died.

Commissions

Ethel Scull was the subject of Ethel Scull 36 Times, a 1963 painting by the American artist Andy Warhol, currently in the collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art.[3] It was Warhol's first commissioned work.[4][5][6] The work consists of a grid of four rows of nine columns[7] depicting Scull in 36 different poses.[8] The artwork is jointly owned by the Whitney Museum of American Art and the Metropolitan Museum of Art.[4]

Another notable commission, Scull had George Segal create a portrait sculpture titled Portrait of Robert and Ethel Scull. The plaster sculpture features Scull wearing sunglasses sitting in a Victorian chair with Robert Scull standing behind her. This artwork is currently in the collection of Aichi Prefectural Museum of Art[9] Segal cast Scull in two separate casts the first being from her neck down. Scull's boots continue to be stuck inside the sculpture.[10]

Death and legacy

In 2001, while living in a retirement home in Manhattan, New York, Scull suffered from a heart attack and stroke that resulted in her death.[1] Scull has been immortalized as "the Mom of Pop Art."[11] She and her husband were also the subject of significant criticism because of their accumulated wealth from trading in works of art by living artists who themselves saw no share of any realized profits. For example, the October 18, 1973 Sotheby's Parke Bernet auction where one of their art pieces, originally purchased from a still-living artist for $900, sold for $85,000. The Sculls saw themselves as fostering the careers of unknown artists; their critics accused them of profiteering and social climbing.

References

  1. 1 2 Glueck, Grace (September 1, 2001). "Ethel Scull, a Patron of Pop and Minimal Art, Dies at 79". The New York Times. Retrieved October 19, 2016.
  2. ↑ Glueck, Grace (January 3, 1986). "Robert Scull, Prominent Collector of Pop Art". The New York Times. Retrieved December 31, 2021.
  3. ↑ "Ethel Scull 36 Times". Metropolitan Museum of Art. Retrieved February 9, 2013.
  4. 1 2 Landi, Ann (July 1, 2010). "How the Met and the Whitney came to share an iconic Warhol". ARTnews. Retrieved February 9, 2013.. Ethel Scull 36 Times
  5. ↑ Feinstein, Roni (June 4, 2010). "The Scull Collection". Art in America. Retrieved February 18, 2013.
  6. ↑ "Court painter to the rich and famous". The New Zealand Herald. APN News & Media. April 3, 2009. Archived from the original on June 11, 2014. Retrieved February 16, 2013 – via HighBeam Research.
  7. ↑ Girard, Bartholomé (March 18, 2009). "Warhol, en couleur et argenté". Radio France Internationale. Retrieved February 9, 2013.
  8. ↑ Grace Glueck (September 1, 2001). "Ethel Scull, a Patron of Pop and Minimal Art, Dies at 79". The New York Times. Retrieved February 9, 2013.
  9. ↑ "［ID:6322］ Portrait of Robert and Ethel Scull ： Detail | The Collection | Aichi Prefectural Museum of Art". Aichi Prefectural Museum of Art - The Collection. Retrieved May 2, 2019.
  10. ↑ "Sculpture: The Casting of Ethel Scull". Time. Vol. 87, no. 13. April 1, 1966. p. 77.
  11. ↑ Thurber, Jon (September 6, 2001). "Ethel Scull, 79; Patron to a New Generation of Artists". Los Angeles Times. Retrieved January 18, 2023.
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