Charles Lang Freer (1854-1919) made his money as a railroad-car manufacturer. A discerning collector

Charles Lang Freer (1856-1919) was a shrewd businessman, world traveler, self-taught aesthete, and a highly disciplined collector whose enduring legacy was the museum on the National Mall that bears his name: the Freer Gallery of Art, the first art museum of the Smithsonian. This richly illustrated narrative tells the story of Freer's humble beginnings in Kingston, New York, his rise to prominence in the railroad manufacturing industry in Detroit, and his transformation from capitalist to connoisseur of both Asian and American art. Other sections of the book explore Freer's friendships with artists, the decorative transformation of his home in Detroit, and his quest for masterpieces from Turkey to Tokyo. Drawing on Freer's voluminous correspondence and personal papers, the book frames Freer's biography against the background of Gilded Age culture and the rise of America as an international power in the early decades of the twentieth century.

"With Kindest Regards records the extraordinary friendship between the American expatriate artist James McNeill Whistler (1834-1903) and his most significant patron, Charles Lang Freer (1854-1919). By the time the industrialist from Detroit met the artist in 1890, Whistler was as notorious for his irascibility as he was famous for his artistic productions. Freer, however, would always maintain that he had never met a truer, nobler man. Their correspondence reveals a warmth and generosity in Whistler that has gone largely unobserved." "The eighty-nine letters, telegrams, cablegrams, and calling cards chronicle the growth of Freer's Whistler collection, the largest and most important in the world. Linda Merrill sets the correspondence in context and traces the contacts between the two men during their long acquaintance. She observes how the previously unpublished letters cast new light on Freer's aesthetic education and expand the history of Whistler's later years. Even Freer's outstanding collection of Asian art began with the keen interest in Japanese art he shared with Whistler." "Illustrated with works from the Freer collection and vintage photographs from the Freer Gallery Archives, With Kindest Regards makes important original documents accessible for the first time, augments the legends of Whistler's personality, and reveals the foundation of Charles Freer's legacy to the United States."--BOOK JACKET.Title Summary field provided by Blackwell North America, Inc. All Rights Reserved

Published on the occasion of the exhibition The Art of the Qur'an: Treasures from the Museum of Turkish and Islamic Arts, Istanbul, held at the Arthur M. Sackler Gallery, Washington, D.C., October 15, 2016-February 20, 2017.

When the railroad car manufacturer Charles Freer retired from business at age forty-five, he set out to create a world-class art collection that combined ancient Asian art and American paintings of his own Gilded Age. The extraordinary artworks he amassed formed the core of what became one of America's first national art museums"e"the Smithsonian's Freer Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C. This engrossing biography of Freer traces his journey from his humble childhood in rural New York to his industrial career in the rapidly growing Detroit of the 1880s. Drawing on Freer's diaries and letters, it describes his adventures around the world in search of art. He owned the largest collection of artworks by his feisty friend, James McNeill Whistler, whose love of Asian art inspired Freer to explore that field.