REED COLLECTION
WITH PAINTINGS DONATED TO THE GALLERY OF THE SOCIETY
[LUMAN REED]
Luman Reed was born in Green River, Columbia County, N. Y., in 1785, and died in 1836. He removed when a boy to Coxsackie, N. Y., where he was educated in an ordinary school at the expense of an uncle. Later he was employed in a country store and subsequently became the partner and brother-in-law of his employer.
He made frequent trips to New York City on a sloop called the "Shakespeare," belonging to the firm, selling produce of the farms around Coxsackie and purchasing goods in New York for his country store. Later he became a merchant in New York and between the years 1815 and 1832 he gained a fortune. It was then that he began to gratify other instincts and art attracted his attention. He became the patron of American Art and sought the acquaintance of artists, interesting himself in their labors, giving them many commissions for work.
Mr. Reed lived at 13 Greenwich Street, this city, the third story of which building he used as a picture gallery, to which visitors were admitted one day each week. This room was also a meeting place for the artists and literary men of the time. The paintings after Mr. Reed's death were purchased by his friends and subsequently constituted the New York Gallery of Fine Arts which, after an uncertain existence of about twelve years, was forced to close its affairs. Eighty of these paintings, presented in 1858, are now in the possession of this Society and known as the New York Gallery of Fine Arts.
The death of Mr. Reed was greatly lamented by the artists of his time and his name has come down to this generation as the Patron of American Art.