Yale Benefactor Mellon leaves vibrant legacy

The name Paul Mellon, Class of 1929, ranks among the Sterlings and the Harknesses in the upper echelon of Yale history.

Mellon was a complex and even anachronistic figure among America's wealthiest families. Eschewing the world of business and commerce, he devoted his life to the pursuit of philanthropy, refusing to assert himself as a public figure. In his 1992 autobiography Reflections in a Silver Spoon, he explained, "To me, privacy is the most valuable asset that money can buy."

Mellon's shyness was part of a complex character that was both contemplative and Epicurean. His greatest legacy was his pursuit of the fundamental experience in scholarship and art. "There is no intellectual or emotional substitute for the authentic, the original, the unique masterpiece," he declared in a 1967 Commencement address. "Just as there is no substitute for original works of art, there is no substitute for the world of direct sensual experience"--from "the evening's first cold and dry martini" to "the thrill and mystery of touching, of love between a man and a woman."

Mellon's desire to help Yalies experience the British culture that shaped his own youth was evident in his two greatest endowments: the Yale Center for British Art and the Paul Mellon Center in London. According to Patrick McCaughey, director of the Yale Center for British Art, Mellon "wanted to create an atmosphere of pleasure as well as intellectual stimulation" for
undergraduates. "The center itself is a
good starting point because it is so small it offers foreigners an experience of different cultures and also an introduction to
London," said a sophomore who recently completed a semester of Yale-in-London at the Mellon Center.

Mellon also donated his family's vast art collection to the National Gallery and endowed the prestigious Mellon fellowships for graduate study anywhere around the world. His gifts to Yale helped construct Morse and Stiles Colleges and fund the DeVane Lecture series.

"Paul Mellon was wise, generous and strikingly modest, a man of exquisite taste and deeply humane values," University President Richard Levin, GRD '74, said. "He demonstrated his great care for the life of the University by sustaining and enriching the experience of undergraduates."

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