Wendell Cherry (September 25, 1935 – July 16, 1991) was an American lawyer, entrepreneur, art collector and patron.
He attended the University of Kentucky and was a member of Kappa Sigma fraternity, studied business administration and graduated in 1957.
The reputation of his collection was not only because of the quality of the works, but also for the sometimes very high prices that he paid for these pictures and scored from subsequent sales.
Cherry purchased the picture in 1981 at Sotheby's for $5.3 million,[2] at the time the highest amount ever paid for a Picasso painting.
In 1990, he acquired the painting Funeral of a Mummy on the Nile by American painter Frederick Arthur Bridgman at an auction and donated it to the Speed Art Museum in Louisville, on whose board he was a member.