Samuel Putnam Avery

Samuel Putnam Avery (1822–1904) was an American connoisseur and dealer in art. Biography Samuel Putnam Avery was born on March 17, 1822 in New York City, where he studied wood and copper engraving and was extensively employed by leading publishers. He married the artist-collector Mary Ann Ogden in 1844 and began business as an art dealer in 1865. In 1867 Mr. Avery was appointed commissioner in charge of the American art department of the Exposition Universelle in Paris. He was among the founders, and for a long time a trustee of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and was a life member of several important scientific, artistic and educational associations. He founded the Avery Architectural Library at Columbia University in memory of his son Henry Ogden Avery, an architect of note who died in 1890. In 1900 he donated his collection of 17,775 etchings and lithographs to the New York Public Library. Avery died at his home in New York City on August 11, 1904. In 1912 Avery Hall, in memory of father and son, was erected on the Columbia campus. Its first floor houses the Avery Library, now rated the richest collection in the country of works on architecture and the allied arts.