Larry Aldrich, 95, museum founder,
championed artists and open space
Larry Aldrich, a prominent fashion designer who championed contemporary artists and founded a museum to display their work, died early Friday morning, Oct. 26, in New York City. He was 95 years old and the husband of Wynn Payne Aldrich.
In 1964, Mr. Aldrich established the Aldrich Museum of Contemporary Art, which has become one of the leading centers in the Northeast for showing the work of contemporary artists. The museum "celebrates his vision by continuing to support new and emerging artists and embracing his willingness to take risks and champion the different and unfamiliar art of our time," said Harry Philbrick, its director. 
Mr. Aldrich also gave the town the 37 acre Aldrich Park, the home of both nature trails and a popular Little League field.
Lawrence L. Aldrich was born in Manhattan in 1906 as Lawrence Orlevich, the son of Russian Jewish immigrants. His first exposure to art was as a young schoolboy living on East 99th Street and being unwillingly dragged to the Metropolitan Museum of Art on a class trip. "Like most youngsters today," he said many years later, "I was far more interested in baseball and basketball."
At the age of 18, expecting to attend Columbia University to pursue a career in law, he took a summer job as a salesman for a local dress manufacturer. Within two years, he had organized his own firm and in 1927, the first Larry Aldrich dress collection was marketed. 
"My dress collections were an immediate success and sold in all the best stores," he told The Press in 1996 when he turned 90. "I never had an unprofitable year." 
Larry Aldrich dresses sold from $200 to $2,000, even during the Depression. By the 1950s, his company had seven factories plus showrooms, and employed more than 500 people.
In 1937, inspired by a book on Impressionists he picked up while waiting for a train, Mr. Aldrich acquired his first ten paintings. Three years later, he married Wynn Payne, an artist who encouraged his collecting, and he eventually began making bolder purchases. The acquisition of a Renoir and Utrillo led to the formation of a serious collection of impressionist, post-impressionist, and expressionist works, including paintings by Monet, Gauguin, Kirchner, Vuillard, and Manet.
In the 1950's his focus turned to contemporary art, especially as he became increasingly involved in the art world and the rapidly expanding New York art scene, most notably making the acquaintance of Alfred H. Barr, Jr., director of the Museum of Modern Art. 
Through his friendship with Mr. Barr, Mr. Aldrich decided to finance a purchase program for MoMA to support the work of emerging artists by buying their work for the permanent collection. The Aldrich Purchase Fund added 112 works to MoMA's collection, including their first acquisitions by Frank Stella, Robert Indiana, Tom Wesselman, Agnes Martin, Brice Marden, and Lucas Samaras. Mr. Aldrich financed a similar program at The Whitney Museum of American Art, which ran from 1963 to 1970.
The Aldriches moved to Nod Road in 1939 and by 1960, had amassed a museum quality collection. In fact, that year, 61 of their paintings and 12 pieces of sculpture began a two-year tour of museums across the country. 
The Aldriches were also running out of space for their art collection. Around the same time, Mr. Aldrich recalled later, Alfred Barr, the MoMA director, told him, "There is no real museum of contemporary art in the country, and you are the ideal person to start one."
In 1963, with the aim of creating a private museum, Mr. Aldrich acquired three acres and a Main Street house that had once been The Old Hundred, a 19th Century country store and later was the home of the First Church of Christ, Scientist. To finance the new institution, called The Larry Aldrich Museum, he sold most of the collection that had toured the country, including works by Monet, Matisse, Gauguin, Picasso, Miro, Chagall, and Klee - established modern art that Mr. Aldrich began to find "pallid" in comparison with more contemporary works. The auction at Parke Bernet brought in more than $1.1 million. The Monet, "Water Lilies," alone fetched $137,500, but Mr. Aldrich donated the income from that sale to the Museum of Modern Art and the Whitney Museum to buy paintings of younger artists.
The Aldrich Museum opened in 1964 and has twice expanded over the years -- yet another expansion is planned soon.
Mr. Aldrich knew that his museum would take a while to catch on. He recalled in an interview times when he paid a $1,500 fee for a speaker and had only 10 people show up to listen. 
"Many people have expressed to me that they think the existence of the museum and its cultural activities are one of the things that have made living in Ridgefield worthwhile," he said in 1996. "I think that's a recognition that took a long time to come. I think when I first opened the museum, a lot of people weren't exactly enthusiastic that what was shown was of a contemporary nature."
In 1966 Mr. Aldrich sold his company and retired from the fashion industry. A year later, The Larry Aldrich Museum became The Aldrich Museum of Contemporary Art, and a formal board of trustees was established including Mr. Barr, Joseph Hirshorn, Phillip Johnson, and Vera List.
In 1973, Mr. Aldrich opened the Soho Center for Visual Artists, a non-profit exhibition space on Prince Street in Manhattan, dedicated to the work of emerging artists without gallery representation. Adjacent to the gallery, he created an art library, open to the art community free of charge. The library eventually grew to more than 10,000 volumes. The center was open until 1990, and the library was donated to The New Museum.
Through the 1970's and 1980's The Aldrich Museum of Contemporary Art grew, with a major expansion project that doubled the exhibition space in 1986. Mr. Aldrich retired as chairman of the board in 1991, at the age of 85. He established The Larry Aldrich Foundation Award in 1992 to provide support for emerging artists. 
Even in his 90s, Mr. Aldrich remained actively involved with the museum and was looking forward to the museum's expansion and renovation. He saw every exhibition mounted, including the current exhibitions "Best of the Season" and "Jordan Tinker." 
Mr. Aldrich celebrated his 90th birthday on June 13, 1996, and was presented that summer with an honorary doctor of fine arts degree by the University of Connecticut. "The museum is one of Connecticut's true treasures and a living example of Larry Aldrich's vision and commitment to the arts and to his community," UConn Chancellor Mark Emmert said when he awarded Mr. Aldrich the degree.
That June, Mr. Aldrich donated $50,000 to the acquisition of more open space in Ridgefield. "It's all part of my birthday celebration," Mr. Aldrich said, "because I'll never be 90 again."
Mr. Aldrich's first land donation was in 1958, the town's 250th anniversary year, and in keeping with his taste for making gifts quietly, he asked only that the Farmingville land be called Anniversary Park. Town fathers found the name unsatisfactory and asked Mr. Aldrich for permission to name the park after him - as Ballard, Richardson, Levy, and Martin Parks recall their donors.
Besides his wife, Mr. Aldrich is survived by his daughters Georganne Heller, Susan Huberth, and Kate Strassman, three grandchildren, and five great-grand children. 
A memorial service will take place in Ridgefield at a time to be announced.
© 2001 The Ridgefield Press