Mary Quinn Sullivan

Mary Josephine Quinn was born in Indianapolis, Indiana, on November 24, 1877. She was the eldest of Thomas F. and Anne E. (Gleason) Quinn's eight children (six daughters and two sons). Thomas Quinn, came to Indianapolis in 1857 and by 1877 was farming land outside the city.

Interested in art from an early age, Mary Quinn attended public schools in Indianapolis, including the Shortridge High School. Quinn took classes from Roda Selleck, the head of the high school's art department, and served as Selleck's assistant. In 1899, Quinn received a scholarship to study art at the Pratt Institute in Brooklyn, New York, and moved to New York City to pursue a career as an artist. While living in New York, she met Katherine Dreier, a fellow art student and the two became a lifelong friends through a shared interest in modern art. Quinn resided in the Brooklyn Heights home of Katherine Dreier's father, Theodor Dreier, during the early 20th century.

In 1901, Quinn was hired as an art teacher in the Queens, New York school system. In 1902, the New York Board of Education sent her to Europe to observe the curriculum of art schools. Katherine Drier accompanied Quinn during the trip, which included visits to France and Italy. Their travels exposed the two women to the modern art movements of the time (Impressionism and Post-Impressionism). Dreier went on to establish the Société Anonyme in 1920, a group of art patrons that promoted modern art. Its collection, which was presented to Yale University in 1941, became "the core collection of the Yale University Art Gallery." Mary Quinn Sullivan is listed as a member of the Société Anonyme in Dreier's archives.

Quinn taught art at the DeWitt Clinton High School in New York City for several years, becoming head of the school's art department by 1909. However, she resigned from teaching and returned to Europe to study at the Slade School of Fine Art in London, England, during the fall term of 1909. Quinn also attended lectures from critic and artist Roger Fry. Upon her return to New York in 1910, Quinn accepted a faculty position at Pratt Institute as an instructor of drawing and design at its School of Household Sciences and Arts. She later became supervisor of design.

In addition, Quinn served as secretary of the New York High School Teacher's Association. She also authored a textbook, Planning and Furnishing the Home: Practical and Economical Suggestions for the Homemaker (1914). Quinn resigned from the Pratt Institute and left the teaching profession in October 1917.

Mary Quinn married Cornelius J. Sullivan, a prominent New York lawyer, on November 21, 1917. The couple had no children. The Sullivans established a home in the Hell's Gate area of Astoria, Queens, where they entertained artists, writers, and politicians. (The neighborhood is now occupied by a Con Ed power plant.) The Sullivans often spent summers in Ireland, and maintained a second home on Block Island, Rhode Island.

Cornelius Sullivan, who specialized in managing large trusts and divorce proceedings for the wealthy, was a member of the New York Board of Education. He was also a friend of John Quinn a Harvard Law School classmate and an art and manuscript collector. C. J. Sullivan was a collector of rare books and manuscripts, antiques, and art. John Quinn and C. J. Sullivan also shared an enthusiasm for collecting and identifying themselves as "Irish patriots."

Mary and Cornelius Sullivan made frequent trips to Europe and visited galleries in New York to amass their private collection of European and American art. The couple displayed their collection of modern French art in their home in Astoria, Queens. Mary Sullivan began her own art collection in the 1920s. She made her first major purchase in February 1927 at the estate auction of John Quinn. Over the years the Sullivans' collection expanded to include American and Irish antiques, as well as modern art such as Modigliani's Sculptured Head of a Woman (acquired from Leopold Zborowski), Paul Cézanne's Madame Cézanne, a Hepplewhite desk which once belonged to Edgar Degas, Georges Rouault's Crucifixion, Vincent van Gogh's Mlle. Ravoux, and Winslow Homer's The New Novel to name but a few.

After her marriage, Mary Sullivan also became a strong supporter of philanthropic causes. She served as the president of the Needle and Bobbin Club in New York City. This women's group sold lacework for charity, most notably works by women in poorhouses at Blackwell's Island. She also gave lectures about the history of lacework on behalf of the club. In addition, Sullivan supported causes such as the Handwork Centre at 511 Madison Avenue that sold toys made by the elderly, infirm, and unemployed. As late as 1921, Sullivan was noted to be the secretary and chairman of the New York Society of Occupation Therapy, which operated a summer program at Byrdcliffe Colony in Woodstock, New York. The program taught the basics of art and applied arts instruction to hospital aides and nurses.