The Kress Collection

Samuel H. Kress (1863 - 1955), born into a middle-class family in rural Cherryville, Pennsylvania, was the second eldest of seven children descended from German and Irish immigrants. He went on to build a successful retail empire with the opening of the first S.H. Kress & Co. five-and-ten-cent store in 1896, in Memphis, Tennessee. His wealth allowed him to amass a collection of more than 3,000 Old Master paintings and art objects unparalleled in the United States.

Kress shared his passion for the arts through a nationwide tour of 50 of his cherished works during the 1930s. This philanthropic spirit culminated with the donation of his entire collection to nearly 90 institutions in 33 states. The Georgia Museum of Art benefited from the generosity of the Kress Foundation with a donation of 12 paintings in 1961. Artists from this gift include 14th-century painters Pietro Lorenzetti and Simone dei Crocefissi, as well as Salvator Rosa, one of the most important figures of the Baroque.

The History of the Kress Collection and the Kress Foundation

The Kress Collection as a whole encompasses European art from the 13th to the early 19th century. Outstanding examples of French, German, Flemish and Spanish schools are represented by artists like Poussin, Chardin, Fragonard, Dürer, Holbein, Cranach, Bosch, El Greco, Rubens, Van Dyck and Goya. The collection is especially celebrated for its wealth of Italian art, which consists of more than 2,800 paintings, sculptures, drawings, medals and furniture by masters such as Giotto, Botticelli, Raphael, Correggio, Titian, Tintoretto, Bernini, Tiepolo, Bellotto and others.

Kress’ journey into the world of art collecting began in the early 1920s, when his trips to Europe included visits to museums and galleries. This pastime ignited an interest in art and inspired a lifelong passion for collecting. Kress “believed that great works of art enrich life and that the opportunity for this enrichment should be available to everyone.” This principle led him to share his passion with the general public. In 1929, he established the Kress Foundation, which has donated thousands of works of art to American museums and universities, “fostering local pride and often providing the only Old Master paintings in a given town.”

In 1932, in the midst of the Great Depression, Kress put together a traveling exhibition of more than 50 Renaissance works from his private collection to introduce art from that period to a wider audience. The tour, which was initially slotted to visit eight cities over a nine-month period, captivated the nation. In response, the event was extended to include a total of 25 venues, starting at the High Museum of Art in Atlanta, Georgia, and finishing three years later at the Mint Museum of Art in Charlotte, North Carolina.

After the traveling exhibition’s unequivocal success, Kress continued to make his vast collection available to the public. As the Kress Collection continued to grow, both during and after World War II, the Kress Foundation began a regional galleries program in order to distribute representative surveys of Italian art to selected museums across the country, including the Georgia Museum of Art.

The Kress Foundation and the Georgia Museum of Art

The Samuel H. Kress Foundation has a long history of supporting the Georgia Museum of Art since its initial gift. Throughout the years, the foundation has sponsored the building of a dedicated gallery to house the museum’s Kress Collection, temporary exhibitions, publications, symposia, conservation treatments and special projects. The fruitful partnership has also allowed national and international scholars to conduct original research and share their findings with a wider audience.

Special events have included the Georgia Museum of Art’s Kress Project, a two-year initiative that began in 2010 to celebrate 50 years of friendship between the foundation and the museum. The project offered an international juried art competition and an online exhibition of creative responses inspired by the museum’s Kress Study Collection as well as a multimedia book with the winners of the competition.

In 2019, the Foundation sponsored the biennial emerging scholars symposium organized by the Association of Graduate Art Students at the University of Georgia’s Lamar Dodd School of Art and held at the museum. Centered around the exhibition “Life, Love and Marriage Chests in Renaissance Italy,” the event brought in young scholars from different fields of studies and around the world.

The generosity of the Kress Foundation has helped the Georgia Museum of Art cement its standing as one of the major centers for the study of Italian Renaissance art in the country. The success of this partnership is the result of shared goals to further knowledge, appreciation and preservation of European art.