Description:
Charles Lang Freer (1856–1919) was a shrewd businessman, world traveler, self-taught aesthete, and a highly disciplined collector whose enduring legacy was the museum on the National Mall that bears his name: the Freer Gallery of Art, the first art museum of the Smithsonian. This richly illustrated narrative tells the story of Freer’s humble beginnings in Kingston, New York, his rise to prominence in the railroad manufacturing industry in Detroit, and his transformation from capitalist to connoisseur of both Asian and American art. Other sections of the book explore Freer’s friendships with artists, the decorative transformation of his home in Detroit, and his quest for masterpieces from Turkey to Tokyo. Drawing on Freer’s voluminous correspondence and personal papers, the book frames Freer’s biography against the background of Gilded Age culture and the rise of America as an international power in the early decades of the twentieth century.
