Flora Miller Biddle

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Flora Miller Biddle
Born
Flora Miller

1928
Education
Manhattanville College
OccupationPatron of the arts
Spouses
Michael Henry Irving
​
​
(m. 1947; div. 1979)​
Sydney Francis Biddle
​
​
(died)​
Children4, including Fiona Donovan
Parent(s)Flora Payne Whitney
George Macculloch Miller III
FamilyWhitney family
Vanderbilt family

Flora Miller Biddle (born 1928) is an American author, honorary chairman, and former president of the

Whitney Museum of American Art, serving from 1977 to 1995.[1] She is a granddaughter of Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney, the founder of the Whitney Museum.[2][3]

Biography

Biddle was born to

Cleveland administration and a descendant of Eli Whitney, inventor of the Cotton gin.[4]

She attended

DuPont company.[5] They married in June 1947 and had four children.[6][7]

She became a museum trustee in 1958 and president of the Whitney in 1977.

Whitney Museum of American Art, she worked closely with director Thomas N. Armstrong III to expand the museum's modern art collection and was responsible for the fundraising.[2] Biddle once rode in the trunk of a Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus elephant on Madison Avenue in a nationally publicized stunt to help acquire Cirque Calder into the museum's permanent collection.[2][9] She also oversaw the moving of the museum into the Marcel Breuer-designed structure on 945 Madison Avenue in the Upper East Side.[8]

Biddle obtained her degree from

Manhattanville College in 1978. From 1980 to 1990, she served on the New York City Art Commission.[10]

She divorced Irving in 1979 and married Sydney Francis Biddle (1918-2004), a lawyer turned artist trained at Harvard College and Columbia Law School. Biddle was a member of the Biddle family of Philadelphia and a nephew of Francis Biddle, who was Attorney General of the United States during World War II and the main American judge during the Nuremberg trials.[11][12][13]

She stepped down as president and chairman during the mid-1990s. Her daughter, Fiona Donovan, a Barnard College and Columbia University-trained art historian,[14] served as trustee until 2003. Donovan was brought back to the board in 2014 by director Adam D. Weinberg.[2][15] Biddle's granddaughters, fifth-generation members of the Whitney family, Flora Donovan and Flora Irving, were also made trustees of the Whitney in the same year.[2]

Written works

  • The Whitney Women and the Museum They Made: A Family Memoir, Arcade Publishing, 1999
  • Embers of Childhood: Growing Up a Whitney, Arcade Publishing, 2019

References

  1. OCLC 1076476310
    .
  2. ^ a b c d e Kazanjian, Dodie. "Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney's Heirs Are Back on the Board at the Family's Spanking-New Museum". Vogue. Retrieved August 9, 2020.
  3. ^ "Michelle Obama: The Whitney Is for 'Dreaming'". Vulture. Retrieved August 9, 2020.
  4. ^ Columnist, DR TOM MACK. "ARTS AND HUMANITIES: Aiken-based memoir republished last year". Aiken Standard. Retrieved August 9, 2020.
  5. ^ "Hagley Museum and Library: Carolyn M. Irving collection of prints and photographs (1969.065) -- Audiovisual Collections and Digital Initiatives Department". findingaids.hagley.org. Retrieved August 9, 2020.
  6. ^ a b "The Whitney Women and the Museum They Made". The New York Times. Retrieved August 9, 2020.
  7. ISSN 0362-4331
    . Retrieved August 9, 2020.
  8. ^
    ISSN 0362-4331
    . Retrieved August 9, 2020.
  9. ^ "CALDER'S CIRCUS: The Artist as Reporter and Inventor". Voices in Contemporary Art. Retrieved August 9, 2020.
  10. ^ "Flora Biddle". kentpresents.org. Retrieved 2020-08-09.
  11. ISSN 0362-4331
    . Retrieved August 9, 2020.
  12. OCLC 318877218
    .
  13. ^ "biddle-descendants - Main". www.picton.us. Retrieved August 9, 2020.
  14. ^ "FIONA IRVING BECOMES A BRIDE". The New York Times. Retrieved August 9, 2020.
  15. ^ "Whitney Stories: Fiona Donovan". whitney.org. Retrieved August 9, 2020.
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