Background
She was born into the wealthy Vanderbilt family on April 19, 1877 in New York City. She was a great-granddaughter of Cornelius Vanderbilt.
sculptor collector art patroness
She was born into the wealthy Vanderbilt family on April 19, 1877 in New York City. She was a great-granddaughter of Cornelius Vanderbilt.
She studied sculpture under Henry Anderson and James Earle Fraser and at the Art Students League in New York.
She created both large monuments and smaller pieces, infused with a flickering intensity.
Her best-known sculptures are the Aztec Fountain (1910) in the Pan-American Building, Washington, D. C. ; the Titanic Memorial (1914), Washington; the War Memorial (1924) in St. Nazaire, France; and the Peter Stuyvesant Memorial (1936) in New York.
In 1931 she established the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York.
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In 1896 she married Harry Payne Whitney, the well-known financier and sportsman.