17. | WARBURG, Edward Mortimer Morris (5.Felix2, 1.Moritz1) was born on 5 Jun 1908 in New York; died in Sep 1992 in Norwalk, Fairfield County, CT. Notes:
Edward M. M. Warburg, a philanthropist and benefactor of the arts, died yesterday afternoon in Norwalk Hospital in Norwalk, Conn. He was 84 years old and lived in Wilton, Conn.
He died of heart failure after he was admitted to the hospital four days earlier for heart disease, said his son, David.
In 1933, Mr. Warburg was a founding father of the American Ballet, which was George Balanchine's first American company and the precursor of the New York City Ballet. In that era, ballet was nearly an unknown quantity in the United States. "No one in their right mind would have gotten involved," Mr. Warburg cheerfully said in an interview in 1984.
He was also a founder of the Museum of Modern Art and served on its board of trustees from 1932 to 1958. In addition, he was a trustee and organizer of the museum's film library. From an Author
Of Mr. Warburg's pioneer role in ballet and modern art, the cultural historian Nicholas Fox Weber wrote in his book "Patron Saints: Five Rebels Who Opened America to a New Art, 1928-1943" (Alfred A. Knopf, 1992) that Mr. Warburg "gave the public its first look at one startling art form after another."
In a telephone interview from his home in Bethany, Conn., yesterday, Mr. Weber said, "Through the Harvard Society for Contemporary Art, which he helped found in 1928, he established a precedent for a lot of what was later done at the Museum of Modern Art: a show of Alexander Calder's wire sculpture, exhibitions of the latest American and Parisian art and Bauhaus design."
Mr. Warburg was long active in philanthropic and relief organizations. From 1939 to 1965, with time out for military service in World War II, he was a co-chairman of the Joint Distribution Committee. He was also the national chairman of the United Jewish Appeal from 1950 to 1955 and served for a time as president of the United Jewish Appeal of Greater New York. In addition, he was a member of the New York State Board of Regents from 1958 to 1975. Father a Philanthropist
Edward Mortimer Morris Warburg was born June 5, 1908, in White Plains. He was the youngest of five children of Felix and Frieda Warburg. His mother was the only daughter of Jacob Schiff, the merchant banker and financier. His father was a partner in Kuhn, Loeb & Company, the investment banking firm, and a philanthropist.
Edward Warburg grew up in New York City and graduated from Middlesex School in Concord, Mass., and in 1930 from Harvard.
While an undergraduate at Harvard, he joined his classmates Lincoln Kirstein and John Walker in forming the Harvard Society of Contemporary Art, which held exhibitions, in rented rooms in Cambridge, Mass., of work by such artists as Edward Hopper and Georgia O'Keeffe.
After Harvard, Mr. Warburg taught Modern Art at Bryn Mawr College and then returned to New York, where he was a co-founder, with Mr. Kirstein, of the American Ballet.
Of that experience, Mr. Warburg said in 1984,: "I was visually trained, but music was quite foreign to me. It became meaningful to me by being interpreted through gesture."
In the years before World War II, Mr. Warburg was also active as an art collector, and he aquired works by such modern artists as Picasso, Matisse, Hopper, O'Keeffe, Lachaise, Klee, Miro, Brancusi and Calder, some of which he later donated to the Museum of Modern Art and other museums.
During World War II he served in the Army, going ashore in Normandy shortly after D-day. He was awarded the Bronze Star and also received decorations from the Belgian and Italian Governments for his work with the displaced in Europe after the war.
From 1971 to 1974, he was vice director for public affairs of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, of which he was an honorary trustee from 1983 to his death.
In addition to his son, of Wilton, Mr. Warburg is survived by his wife, the former Mary Whelan Prue Currier; a daughter, Daphne Astor of Cambridgeshire, England; eight grandchildren, and four great-grandchildren.
A memorial service will be held at a later date.
From New York Times - 9/22/1992
Edward married PRUE, Mary Whelan in 1939. Mary was born on 6 Dec 1908 in Colorado City, TX; died on 8 Mar 2009. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]
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