Guide to the Jere Abbott Papers, 1879-1934

Jere Abbott was born on October 5, 1897, to Arthur and Flora (nee Parkman) Abbott in Dexter, Maine. After graduating from Bowdoin in 1920, he did graduate work in science at Harvard and was an instructor of physics at Bowdoin from 1921-1922. During the next six years, he studied art and the history of art in France and Russia, and at Princeton and Harvard. In the spring of 1929 Abbott was invited to start a department of fine arts at Wesleyan University; later in 1929 he helped establish the Museum of Modern Art in New York City. Abbott was associate director of the Museum of Modern Art when he resigned in 1932 to become director of the Smith College Museum of Art in Northampton, Massachusetts, a position he held until 1947. Abbott also served for many years as treasurer of the Amos Abbott Co. in Dexter, was a trustee of the Abbott Memorial Library in Dexter for thirty-five years, and received an honorary Doctor of Fine Arts degree from Colby College in 1970.

Jere Abbott died in Dexter, Maine on July 9, 1982, survived by four cousins.

Family papers, chiefly letters dated 1916-1934 from Jere Abbott to his parents, including letters while he was a student at Bowdoin. There are also two sketchpad albums of European sites, drawings, newspaper clippings, programs, and other printed ephemera.