Collection of William R. Hearst

Description

The media mogul William Randolph Hearst (San Francisco, California, 1863-Beverly Hills, Los Angeles, California, 1951) was one of the greatest collectors of the 20th century. The son of George Hearst and Phoebe Apperson Hearst, he received his passion for art and collecting from his mother, whom he accompanied from an early age during his travels in Europe, while his father, an American businessman and senator, bequeathed him a substantial fortune that allowed him to increase his investments in art and antiques at an extraordinary rate, especially during the 1920s. But the fact is that by the time W. R. Hearst received his father's inheritance, he had already been dominating the world of American media for years and had built up a substantial fortune. The key to his success was a very personal vision of the publishing business based on sensationalism, which is why, from a modest local newspaper, The San Francisco Examiner, he ended up forging a business complex made up of media outlets in various states of the union.

His role in the war in Cuba was fundamental, thanks to the headlines in his newspapers, such as the Morning Journal, whose newspaper published the image of the sinking of the Maine, accompanied by a sensationalist discourse that ended up triggering the war between the USA and Spain. At the same time, Hearst liked Spanish culture, as evidenced by the large number of works of art that he acquired in Spain and which formed part of his enormous collection, now dispersed in numerous museums and institutions. He even built a mansion, one of the few of his property that has survived practically intact to the present day, on the Cuesta Encantada ranch in San Simeon, California, with a distinctly Spanish feel; a residential complex designed by the architect Julia Morgan, which is still today one of the most representative architectural ensembles of the Spanish Colonial Revival Style in the USA. Among the artistic treasures he acquired from Spain were: the monastery of Sacramenia (Segovia), the monastery of Óvila (Guadalajara), the grille of the cathedral of Valladolid, an extraordinary volume of ceilings from the 14th, 15th and 16th centuries, a large collection of Manises-style gilded ceramics, as well as furniture, tapestries, paintings, sculptures, forged pieces, notable works of goldsmithing... To tell the truth, everything and in large quantities, after all, excess was one of its hallmarks, as Orson Welles revealed very well in the alter ego he created of W. R. Hearst for the big screen in his film Citizen Kane (RKO, 1941) (Merino de Cáceres, J. M. and Martínez Ruiz, M. J., 2012). 

Bibliography

• LEVKOFF, Mary (2008): Hearst. The Collector, Harry N. Abrams, Nueva York.
• MARTÍNEZ RUIZ, María José (2008): La enajenación del patrimonio en Castilla y León (1900-1936), tomo I, Junta de Castilla y León, Salamanca.
• MERINO DE CÁCERES, José Miguel (1978): "El exilio del monasterio de Santa María de Sacramenia", vol. 29, nº 85, Boletin de la Real Academia de Historia y Arte de San Quirce de Segovia.
• MERINO DE CÁCERES, José Miguel (1991): "El traslado del claustro de Sacramenia. Arthur Byne y su planimetría sobre el monasterio", Segovia cisterciense. Estudios de historia y arte sobre los monasterios segovianos de la orden del Císter, Monasterio de Santa María y San Vicente el Real, Segovia.
• MERINO DE CÁCERES, José Miguel (2010): "Arthur Byne, un expoliador de guante blanco", nº 3, e-artDocuments: revista sobre col·leccions i col·leccionistes.
• MERINO DE CÁCERES, José Miguel (2021): Santa María de Sacramenia. Un monasterio en dos continentes, Diputación de Segovia, Segovia.
• MERINO DE CÁCERES, José Miguel (1987): "La reja de la catedral de Valladolid en Norteamérica", nº 53, en BSAA.
• MERINO DE CÁCERES, José Miguel (1985): "En el cincuentenario de la muerte de Arthur Byne", nº 61, en Academia.
• MERINO DE CÁCERES, José Miguel y MARTÍNEZ RUIZ, María José (2012): La destrucción del patrimonio artístico español. W. R. Hearst “el gran acaparador", Cátedra, Madrid.
• MERINO DE CÁCERES, José Miguel y MARTÍNEZ RUIZ, María José (2022): "Arthur Byne, Mildred Stapley, José Costa y el Patio de la Casa Ayamans (Palma de Mallorca): detalles de un despojo artístico en el contexto de la promoción turística balear", nº 10, Espacio, Tiempo y Forma Serie VII: Historia del Arte.