Charles Lang Freer was an American

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

 railroad-car manufacturer from Detroit, Michigan

Detroit, Michigan

Detroit is the major city among the primary cultural, financial, and transportation centers in the Metro Detroit area, a region of 5.2 million people. As the seat of Wayne County, the city of Detroit is the largest city in the U.S. state of Michigan and serves as a major port on the Detroit River...

 who gave to the United States his art collections and funds for a building to house them. The Freer Gallery of Art

Freer Gallery of Art

The Freer Gallery of Art joins the Arthur M. Sackler Gallery to form the Smithsonian Institution's national museums of Asian art. The Freer contains art from East Asia, South Asia, Southeast Asia, the Islamic world, the ancient Near East, and ancient Egypt, as well as a significant collection of...

 founded by him is part of the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C.

Washington, D.C.

Washington, D.C., formally the District of Columbia and commonly referred to as Washington, "the District", or simply D.C., is the capital of the United States. On July 16, 1790, the United States Congress approved the creation of a permanent national capital as permitted by the U.S. Constitution....

.

Early life

Freer was born in Kingston, New York

Kingston, New York

Kingston is a city in and the county seat of Ulster County, New York, USA. It is north of New York City and south of Albany. It became New York's first capital in 1777, and was burned by the British Oct. 16, 1777, after the Battles of Saratoga...

 in 1854 or 1856. As a teen, rather than finish high school, he went to work as a business clerk for a business. There, he was noticed by Frank J. Hecker

Frank J. Hecker

Frank J. Hecker was an American railroad-car manufacturer from Detroit, Michigan-Early life:Frank J. Hecker was born in Freedom, Michigan on July 6, 1846. His family moved to St. Louis, Missouri in 1859, where Frank was educated...

, the manager of a local railroad, who hired Freer as a bookkeeper. In the 1870s, a group of investors from Detroit decided to build a rail line in Logansport, Indiana

Logansport, Indiana

Logansport is a city in and the county seat of Cass County, Indiana, United States. The population was 18,396 at the 2010 census. Logansport is located in northern Indiana, at the junction of the Wabash and Eel rivers, northeast of Lafayette.-History:...

; they hired Hecker to manage the project. Hecker brought the younger Freer along.

Railroads

Although the project was eventually merged out of existence, the investors were happy with Hecker and Freer, and invited the two to Detroit. In 1885, using their own capital and that of investors, Hecker and Freer formed the Peninsular Car Company

Peninsular Car Company

The Peninsular Car Company was a railroad rolling stock manufacturer, founded by Charles L. Freer and Frank J. Hecker in 1885.In 1892, the company merged with Michigan Car Company, the Russel Wheel and Foundry Company, the Detroit Car Wheel Company and several smaller manufacturers to form the...

 to build rail cars. The investment made both wealthy, as Peninsular became Detroit's second largest car manufacturer, merging to become the Michigan-Peninsular Car Company

Michigan-Peninsular Car Company

The Michigan-Peninsular Car Company was a railroad rolling stock manufacturing company formed from the merger of five manufacturing companies in 1892...

 in 1892. At the time, Michigan-Peninsular Car was Michigan's largest manufacturer. It merged again into American Car and Foundry in 1899.

Art Collection

In the latter part of the 19th century, Freer was diagnosed with neurasthenia

Neurasthenia

Neurasthenia is a psycho-pathological term first used by George Miller Beard in 1869 to denote a condition with symptoms of fatigue, anxiety, headache, neuralgia and depressed mood...

, the treatment for which was to concentrate on less stressful activities than business. Freer chose to begin an art collection, and by 1886 began collecting American masters, including a number of impressionist painters.

Early on, Freer met and began collecting the works of James Whistler

James Whistler

James Whistler is the name of:* James Abbott McNeill Whistler , American-born, British-based artist, known for the painting colloquially known as Whistler's Mother...

, eventually becoming perhaps the most important collector of Whistler's work. He collected works by a number of Nineteenth Century American masters, including paintings by Winslow Homer

Winslow Homer

Winslow Homer was an American landscape painter and printmaker, best known for his marine subjects. He is considered one of the foremost painters in 19th century America and a preeminent figure in American art....

, John Singer Sargent

John Singer Sargent

John Singer Sargent was an American artist, considered the "leading portrait painter of his generation" for his evocations of Edwardian era luxury. During his career, he created roughly 900 oil paintings and more than 2,000 watercolors, as well as countless sketches and charcoal drawings...

, Augustus Saint-Gaudens

Augustus Saint-Gaudens

Augustus Saint-Gaudens was the Irish-born American sculptor of the Beaux-Arts generation who most embodied the ideals of the "American Renaissance"...

, Childe Hassam

Childe Hassam

Frederick Childe Hassam was a prolific American Impressionist painter, noted for his urban and coastal scenes. Along with Mary Cassatt and John Henry Twachtman, Hassam was instrumental in promulgating Impressionism to American collectors, dealers, and museums...

, and John Twachtman. He began purchasing paintings from Europe, but his artistic advisors (notably Whistler) suggested Freer concentrate on collecting Asian art.

In 1890 Freer contracted with Wilson Eyre

Wilson Eyre

Wilson Eyre, Jr. was an influential American architect, teacher and writer who practiced in the Philadelphia area...

 to design a home in Detroit. The house

Charles Lang Freer House

The Charles Lang Freer House is located at 71 East Ferry Avenue in Detroit, Michigan. Originally built by the industrialist and art collector Charles Lang Freer whose gift of the Freer Gallery of Art began the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, DC. The house is currently the Merrill Palmer...

 (now on the National Register of Historic Places

National Register of Historic Places

The National Register of Historic Places is the United States government's official list of districts, sites, buildings, structures, and objects deemed worthy of preservation...

), on Ferry Street next door to Hecker's home

Col. Frank J. Hecker House

The Col. Frank J. Hecker House is located at 5510 Woodward Avenue in Detroit, Michigan. The mansion serves as the Royal Danish Consulate in Detroit. It was designated a Michigan State Historic Site in 1958 and listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1971.-Col. Hecker:Col. Frank J...

, was completed in 1892. Later additions above the stable included space for an art gallery. In 1903, the year of Whistler's death, the Peacock Room was carefully removed from Frederick Leyland's home at 49 Princess Gate, London, and offered for sale at Orbach's gallery in Bond Street. Freer bought the room in 1904 and had Eyre design another room in the carriage house in which to install it.

In 1899, Freer began to disengage from the rail car business, selling his stocks and collecting art over the next 20 years until his death. He traveled several times to Asia, specifically Japan, Korea, and China, purchasing the best art he could find. Freer amassed what may have been the largest private art collection in the country, including over 30,000 pieces.

Freer Gallery of Art

Early in the 20th century, Freer decided he should donate his art collection to the public, to be housed in Washington DC. Freer was friends with James McMillan

James McMillan (Senator)

James McMillan was a U.S. Senator from the state of Michigan.-Biography:McMillan was born in Hamilton, Ontario to William and Grace McMillan, both Scottish natives...

, a US Senator and owner of the Michigan Car Company

Michigan Car Company

The Michigan Car Company was a railroad rolling stock manufacturer located in Detroit, Michigan.The Michigan Car Company was organized in 1864 by John S. Newberry and James McMillan to manufacture railroad cars for the Union Army. In 1873 it relocated its main factory to Grand Trunk Junction...

 that had merged with Hecker and Freer's Peninsular Car Company. McMillan championed the idea of a beautiful capital city, and Freer approached the Smithsonian Institution

Smithsonian Institution

The Smithsonian Institution is an educational and research institute and associated museum complex, administered and funded by the government of the United States and by funds from its endowment, contributions, and profits from its retail operations, concessions, licensing activities, and magazines...

 to propose building a Washington art gallery for his collection.

The then-director of the Smithsonian, Samuel P. Langley, turned down the idea, perhaps afraid of the cost of upkeep of such a bequest. Freer persevered, contacting President Theodore Roosevelt

Theodore Roosevelt

Theodore "Teddy" Roosevelt was the 26th President of the United States . He is noted for his exuberant personality, range of interests and achievements, and his leadership of the Progressive Movement, as well as his "cowboy" persona and robust masculinity...

 (and commissioning Gari Melchers

Gari Melchers

Julius Garibaldi Melchers was an American artist. He was one of the leading American proponents of naturalism.-Biography:...

 to paint a portrait of Roosevelt), and later his wife Edith

Edith Roosevelt

Edith Kermit Carow Roosevelt was the second wife of Theodore Roosevelt and served as First Lady of the United States during his presidency from 1901 to 1909.-Early life:...

. Edith prevailed on Roosevelt to back the project, and Roosevelt essentially directed the Smithsonian to accept Freer's gift.

In 1916, construction began on what is now known as the Freer Gallery in Washington. The building cost one million dollars, all of which was paid by Freer. Completion was delayed by World War I

World War I

World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...

 and the galley was not opened until 1923.

Death

Freer died in 1919, leaving the bulk of his art collection to the federal government; it is now housed in the Freer Gallery of Art, Smithsonian Institution. Freer had no wife or children.

Other

Freer is famous not only for being an industrialist and art collector, but also an avid writer. His personal communications (letters and telegrams) between himself and Whistler have been published and are legendary in the art community. He also shared decades-long communications between himself and other important American art collectors and patrons.

A few of these early patrons went on to establish collections similar in importance (if not necessarily volume) to that of Freer. See: The Phillips Collection, The Vess Collection, The Roosevelt Collection, and others.

Sources

• With kindest regards: the correspondence of Charles Lang Freer and James McNeill Whistler, 1890-1903, Authors Charles Lang Freer, James McNeill Whistler, Editor Linda Merrill, Freer Gallery of Art, Smithsonian Institution Press, 1995

External links

• About Charles Lang Freer and the Smithsonian's Freer Gallery of Art
• Freer and Sackler Galleries, the Smithsonian's national museums of Asian art
• Charles Lang Freer papers from the Smithsonian
• George Bulanda, "The Legacy of Charles L. Freer," Hour Detroit, February 2008