Full Name: Abbott, Jere
Gender: male
Date Born: 1897
Date Died: 1982
Place Born: Dexter, Penobscot, ME, USA
Place Died: Dexter, Penobscot, ME, USA
Home Country/ies: United States
Subject Area(s): American (North American) and Modern (style or period)
Overview
Americanist art historian; first associate director of the Museum of Modern Art in New York. Abbott was born to Arthur Abbott and Flora Parkman (Abbott). After attending Dexter High School, Abbott graduated from Bowdin College with a bachelor’s degree in science and attended graduate school at Harvard University in physics. At Harvard he met Alfred H. Barr, Jr., who would become the first director of the Museum of Modern Art. Barr and Abbott spent time in Paris studying art. Barr appointed Abbott to be his first associate director, taking care of much of the day-to-day operations of the museum. In 1932 Abbott accepted a position as Director, Smith College Museum of Art, Northampton, Massachusetts where he remained until 1946. As director, Abbott was instrumental in acquiring modernist works such as Picasso’s cubist Table, Guitar, and Bottle (1919) as he had done for the Museum of Modern Art. He was adjunct faculty at Smith and taught courses in art history. He was a fellow of the Pierpont Morgan Library in New York. After his retirement from Smith, Abbott moved to his hometown of Dexter, Maine, where his family operated the Amos Abbott Woolen Manufacturing Company. Abbott served as the treasurer for the Company. At his death, Abbott left a $4.3-million acquisition fund to the Colby College Museum of Art.
Selected Bibliography
Lautrec-Redon. Tenth Loan Exhibition. February 1-March 2, 1931. New York: Museum of Modern Art, 1931.
Sources
Kantor, Sybil Gordon. Alfred H. Barr, Jr. and the Intellectual Origins of the Museum of Modern Art. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2002; Marquis, Alice Goldfarb. Alfred H. Barr, Jr.: Missionary for the Modern. Chicago: Contemporary Books, 1989; [obituaries:] New York Times July 22, 1982, p. D 19.
Archives
- Jere Abbott Papers 1932-1982, Smith College. https://asteria.fivecolleges.edu/findaids/smitharchives/manosca370.html, CA.MS.00370.
- Jere Abbott Papers, Bowdoin College. https://library.bowdoin.edu/arch/mss/japg.shtml, M284.
Contributors: Emily Crockett and Lee Sorensen