Monumental Dreams: The Life and Sculpture of Ann Norton

9. The Savior from Chicago

83 9 The Savior from Chicago When Ann Weaver moved from New York to Florida, the Second World War was raging and America had finally entered the conflict. However , Palm Beach, then as now, was not exactly in the mainstream of contemporary international politics or culture, and Ann soon found that it was not the war that preoccupied people there but a social world that was light-years away from the one she had left behind in New York. Gift of $500,000 Galleries Rocks Palm Beach Social Set” The agitated headline published in the Palm Beach Post in April 1940 about the gift of $500,000 was occasioned by the announcement that Ralph H. Norton and his wife, Elizabeth, had donated this sum for an art museum to be called the Norton Gallery and School of Art. What “rocked” the Palm Beach social set was not the amount of money donated —Palm Beach was used to that—but where the galleries were to be built. For Ralph Norton had done a startling thing. He had turned his back on Palm Beach and decided to build his gallery elsewhere—West Palm Beach, to be precise. How could he? Ralph Hubbard Norton came from a large and prosperous Midwestern family. In 1868, his father and four uncles founded a tinplate manufacturing firm in Ohio, which became one of the first companies to make tin cans for the preservation of food. A few years later, they moved the firm “ 84 · Part III. From Annie Vaughan Weaver to Ann Norton: Florida, 1943–1953 to Chicago, where Ralph was born in 1875, one of three siblings. Ralph’s father, Oliver, a Union Army lieutenant in the Civil War, was a passionate music-lover and helped found Chicago’s Orchestra Hall. He also became involved in the Chautauqua Institution, in New York State, where religious and education leaders would gather in the summertime to attend seminars and enjoy concerts and visiting arts companies. The Nortons built a house on the lake there, and the whole family would take the train up every summer. Ralph entered the University of Chicago in 1896, studying engineering and music (violin and guitar). In 1904, rather than go to work for his father , he joined the Acme Steel Goods Company and never left, moving up the ladder and becoming president in 1923. The Acme Steel Company (as it was renamed) became a hugely successful producer of steel strapping for reinforcement of ships and cargo, and Ralph became very rich. He also inherited some of his mother’s fortune, estimated at over $3 million in 2010 dollars. In 1908 Ralph married Elizabeth Calhoun, a southerner born near Montgomery, Alabama. She came from a family just as distinguished as the Weavers, if not more so; her great-uncle was John C. Calhoun, the political theorist, senator, and vice-president from South Carolina, who was a firm believer in states rights and slavery. However, as Ralph Norton ’s biographer William McGuire wryly observed, “Oliver Norton’s devotion to the Union cause apparently did not overshadow his regard for his daughter-in-law.” Elizabeth, heir to a large part of the Calhoun fortune, was educated at the University of Chicago like her husband and was a keen musician. She was a leader in musical activities throughout their marriage, serving as director of the Chicago Chamber Music Society and in many executive capacities at the Norton Memorial Hall in Chautauqua, which was built at enormous cost by Ralph and opened in 1929 in honor of his father and sister. A beautiful art deco building with fluted pilasters and a series of sculptures, it reflects Ralph’s taste at the time. Ralph and Elizabeth had four children, and they lived in a fine house on Woodlawn Avenue in Chicago, spending summers on the lake in Chautauqua. Ralph’s interest in art was inspired by visits to Italy before the First World War. He became a member of the Art Institute of Chicago in 1915 and a life member in 1917. He described how he started buying paintings: “Mrs. Norton and I moved into a new home and decided to buy some The Savior from Chicago · 85 original oil paintings for decorative purposes. We had not bought any paintings before, and knew very little about what was available. After exploring the art galleries in Chicago we bought two or three landscapes.” According to his daughter...