111979

Study portrait

Mrs William A. M. Burden, née Margaret Livingston Partridge 1932

Half-length to the right, head turned full face looking to the viewer, wearing a white camisole and a blue stole round her shoulders, her left hand raised to her shoulder and holding a pearl necklace

Oil on board, 89 x 69.5 cm (35 x 27 ⅓ in.)

Inscribed lower right: de László / N.Y. 1932 II  

Juley negative J0058583: Burden, Mrs., 10 Gracie Square, N.Y.

Sitters’ Book II, opp. f. 72: Margaret L. Burden Feb. 12th 1932

Private Collection

De László made his third visit to America in October 1931 and stayed until March 1932. He travelled to Washington, D.C., New York and Miami to fulfil commissions. Among the most important were those of President Herbert Hoover [5787] and First Lady Lou Henry Hoover [5789], Harvey Firestone Snr [110649] and Andrew Mellon [6417].

Margaret Livingston Partridge was born in Manhattan 6 March 1909, the daughter of William Ordway Partridge (1861-1930), a sculptor, poet, novelist and critic, and his wife the poet Margaret Ridgely Schott (1872-1963). The family spent their time between their home in New York at 14 E. 60th St and Bar Harbor, Maine. Margaret was educated at the Nightingale Bamford School and studied at the Arts Students League in New York. On 6 October 1930 the New York Times announced her engagement to William Armstead Moale Burden (1906-1984) son of the late William Burden and his wife Florence Vanderbilt Twombly (1881-1969), who was a direct descendant of the railway and shipping magnate Cornelius Vanderbilt. The couple married on 16 February 1931 at St Thomas’s Church, New York and honeymooned in Europe for four months before settling at 10 Gracie Square, New York.^[1] There were four sons of the marriage: William (born 1931), Robert (born 1934), Hamilton (born 1937) and Ordway (born 1944).

Burden and his wife were avid art collectors and he served on the board of the Museum of Modern Art in New York from 1943-1984. In 1959 he was appointed Ambassador to Belgium by Dwight D. Eisenhower and he and Margaret lived in Belgium until 1961. He published an autobiography, Peggy and I: A Life Too Busy for a Dull Moment, in 1982. Margaret donated an important collection of pictures to MOMA after her husband’s death in 1984. It included works by Van Gogh, Monet, Seurat, Picasso, Brancusi and Mondrian.

The sitter was involved with a number of charities and particularly supported the Community Service Society, of which she was a trustee. She also worked for many years with the International Council of the Young Women’s Christian Association (YWCA) and the President’s Activities Committee of the Museum of Modern Art.

She died at home 25 April 1996.^[2]

MD 2020