The Wrightsman stuff

JAYNE WRIGHTSMAN (1919–2019), otherwise Mrs Charles B. Wrightsman, has been described as ‘a socialite, philanthropist, collector and museum patron’, which is surely the wrong emphasis. Certainly, she was a notable New York socialite, inducted into the International Best Dressed List Hall of Fame in 1965, but her activities as the other three personae were much more significant.

Mr Wrightsman was president of Standard Oil of Kansas and, after his retirement in 1953, the couple formed one of the world’s most important collections ofwould have gone the same way, had it not been saved for London’s National Gallery by the Government.