Beverly Whitney Kean (1921-2011)

Beverly Whitney Kean (1921-2011) died aged 89 

Her book All the Empty Palaces: The Merchant Patrons of Modern Art in Pre-Revolutionary Russia is still the definitive account of the two great Moscow collectors (Sergei Shchukin & Ivan Morozov) who put together before 1914 the finest collection of impressionist & modern French painters.

Early in her career she sang with the San Francisco Light Opera Company; starring roles in two Hollywood movies (Ladies of Washington & Irish Eyes Are Smiling, both with Anthony Quinn in 1944); appeared as a guest star in a dozen TV series in the early 1950s; made commercials (notably as the Marlboro Girl); & was even licensed to trade on the NY stock exchange; with her first husband, she was friends with the likes of the Shah of Iran & composer Richard Rodgers.

By the time Lenin & the Bolsheviks swept to power in Russia in 1917, the Moscow textile merchant Sergei Shchukin had managed to assemble the most important collection in the world of modern Western art. On the walls of his home, the Trubetskoy Palace, were eight canvases by Cezanne, 16 by Gauguin, 39 by Matisse, 13 by Monet, & 51 works by Picasso. Today, these works hang in the Hermitage Museum in Leningrad & the Pushkin Museum in Moscow.