Cone, Etta (1870–1949)

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Cone, Etta (1870–1949)

American art collector. Born Nov 30, 1870, in Jonesboro, Tennessee; died Aug 31, 1949, in Blowing Rock, North Carolina; dau. of German immigrants.

Became interested in the French Impressionists; began purchasing paintings (1896); with sister, became an ardent collector and purchased a Picasso (1905), followed by a Matisse (1906); left the Cone collection, one of the world's great assemblages of modern art, especially the work of Matisse, to the Baltimore Museum of Art, and $400,000 for the new wing to be built for the purpose of housing it.

See also Mary Gabriel, The Art of Acquiring: A Portrait of Etta and Claribel Cone (Bancroft, 1999); and Women in World History.