Bertha Honoré Palmer Correspondence Collection

Bertha M. Palmer, wife of the famed hotelier Potter Palmer, was both a social leader in Chicago and an astute art patron. As President of the Board of Lady Managers of the World’s Columbian Exposition of 1893, she was instrumental in organizing the exhibits in the Woman’s Building and took particular interest in the fine art exhibition. In addition to correspondence about the world’s fair exhibition, the collection contains letters concerning the acquisition of European paintings for her personal art collection—much of which was bequeathed to the Art Institute of Chicago—including correspondence with Mary Cassatt, Camille Claudel, Isabella Stewart Gardner, Sarah Hallowell, Mary Fairchild MacMonnies, and Augustus Saint Gaudens.

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Contact the Ryerson and Burnham Art and Architecture Archives:
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