Blanchette Ferry Rockefeller

[1] "She had been active in the affairs of the Museum of Modern Art since 1949 and was elected a member of the Board of Trustees in December 1952.

In 1958, at a time when many Americans derided modern art or thought it communist and subversive, Rockefeller lent her support to the International Program that helped send The New American Painting, the first major exhibition of Abstract Expressionism, to eight European cities.

Located at 242 East 52nd Street next to the Turtle Bay Music School, it was one of the first residential buildings in New York City to reflect the influence of the Modern movement.

Two of her most important gifts were Willem de Kooning’s Woman II (1952) and Clyfford Still’s Painting (1951), an Abstract-Expressionist landscape.

She died in her home near Briarcliff Manor, New York, of pneumonia, a complication of Alzheimer's disease, on November 29, 1992, at the age of 83.