Louise
Crane (November 11, 1913 – October 20, 1997), a prominent American
philanthropist. Crane was a friend to some of New York City’s leading
literary figures, including
Tennessee
Williams and
Marianne Moore. Partner Elizabeth Bishop and Victoria Kent, buried together with Kent
Queer Places:
Vassar College (Seven Sisters), 124 Raymond Ave, Poughkeepsie, NY 12604
58 Rue de Vaugirard, 75006 Paris, France
820 5th Ave, New York, NY 10065, Stati Uniti
Driftwood, Penzance Rd, Falmouth, MA 02543, Stati Uniti
Umpawaug Cemetery, 149 Umpawaug Rd, Redding, CT 06896, Stati Uniti
Louise
Crane (November 11, 1913 – October 20, 1997), a prominent American
philanthropist. Crane was a friend to some of New York City’s leading
literary figures, including
Tennessee
Williams and
Marianne Moore.
Crane's father was Winthrop Murray Crane, an American millionaire and former governor of Massachusetts. Her mother was Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) co-founder Josephine Porter Boardman. Louise smoothly moved into the role of patron of the arts. She was a prominent supporter of jazz and orchestral music, initiating a series of "coffee concerts" at MoMA and commissioning a vocal and orchestral work by Lukas Foss. She represented musicians, including Mary Lou Williams. Crane collaborated also with her mother in sponsoring musical works.[2]
Crane met Elizabeth Bishop while classmates together at Vassar in 1930. The pair traveled extensively in Europe and bought a house together in 1937 in Key West, Florida. In Key West most of their friends were women, including Pauline Pfeifer Hemingway, Ernest Hemingway's second wife.
While Bishop lived in Key West, Crane occasionally returned to New York. Crane developed a passionate interest in Billie Holiday in 1941.
Crane published Ibérica, a Spanish-language review, with her companion, Victoria Kent, from 1954 to 1974. Ibérica featured news for the expatriate Spanish community in the United States. Kent was a prominent member of the Spanish Republican party, opposed to Franco. Many prominent writers, including Salvador Madariaga, contributed to Ibérica.
Chester Page came to New York from Georgia as an aspiring concert pianist. His intimate friendships with Marianne Moore and Djuna Barnes are described in Memoirs of a Charmed Life in New York. For thirty years he acted as secretary to Louise Crane at her residence.
Following her mother's death in 1972, Crane and Kent lived together in Woods Hole, Massachusetts, and Redding, Connecticut. Crane was the executor of Marianne Moore's estate after her death in 1972.
.JPG)
Driftwood, Woods Hole, MA
820 5th Ave, New York
Crane lived for years in an 18-room apartment on the fourth floor of the 820 Fifth Avenue building, a luxury cooperative in Manhattan, New York City. Located at the northeast corner of East 63rd Street on the Upper East Side, the 12 story limestone-clad was designed in the neo-Italian Renaissance palazzo style by Starrett & van Vleck, and was built by Fred T. Ley in 1916. The fourth floor is one of only a few units in the building which have changed hands multiple times in the last 10 or 20 years. After Crane’s death in 1997, the apartment was sold to Tommy Hilfiger for around $10,000,000.[2]
Crane and Kent are buried alongside each other at Umpawaug Cemetery, Redding, Connecticut.
My published books:
