Charles Lang Freer- Born at Kingston, N.Y.,Feb 2, 1854, died Oct 25 1919, art collector, notable as the donor of the Freer Gallery of Art at Washington, D.C. He was one of the organizers of the Peninsular Car Works at Detroit, Michigan, and became a managing director of the Michigan Car Company; a year after participating (1899) in the establishment of the American Car and Foundry Company, he retired from business and gave much of his time to collecting art works, travelling in Europe and Asia to amass more than 8,000 items of Oriental Art. He was also responsible for bringing together the first comprehensive collection of works by Jame s McNeill Whistler. Noteworthy in his collections (donated in 1906 and now housed in the Freer Gallery) are Chinese and Japanese paintings and a number of glazed pottery items dating from ancient Oriental times. The Freer Gallery of Art is now under the direction of the Smithsonian Institution.

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FREER GALLERY OF ART

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