Severance, John L. (John Long) (1863-1936)

Dates

• Existence: 1863 - 1936

Biography

John Long Severance, brother of benefactor Elisabeth Severance Allen Prentiss, was himself a major benefactor of the CMA. A successful Cleveland industrialist, Severance graduated from Oberlin College in 1885. In 1914 he was elected member of the CMA Advisory Council, and in 1915 he succeeded his late brother-in-law, Dudley P. Allen, on the museum’s Board of Trustees. In 1920 he was made a member of the Accessions Committee, and in 1926 he was elected president of the CMA, a post he held until his death. His other positions included president of the Cleveland Orchestra, for which he gave $3 million for its concert hall, and trustee at Oberlin College, Western Reserve University, and Nanking University in China. Additionally, he was sponsor of the Severance Medical School and Hospital at Seoul, Korea, founded by his father.

John Severance and his wife’s gifts of artworks to the CMA are numerous and exceptional. In 1916, the year the CMA opened to the public, the Severances gifted 631 examples of arms and armor displayed in the Mandel Armor Court. Other of their donated works from the medieval period are a group of French Romanesque stone capitals of the twelfth century; a Byzantine ivory casket of the eleventh or twelfth century; a panel of a French ivory tabernacle of the fourteenth century; an ivory plaque from a portable altar of about eleven hundred; and two plaques from a crucifix of the late fourteenth or early fifteenth century. Severance’s interest in Asian art is evidenced by his gifts of a Chinese fresco and a large collection of Korean pottery.

John Severance was the first to contribute to the fund established by the Friends of the Cleveland Museum of Art, of which he was chairman. He had a part in the acquisition of all the important paintings which the Friends had given, including El Greco’s "Holy Family." He was a generous contributor to the Seleucia Excavation, in which the CMA participated with the Toledo Museum of Art and the University of Michigan. His monetary gifts during the drive for an adequate endowment, in 1922, went far towards assuring the success of the fund. In recognition of all his gifts he was elected an endowment benefactor of the museum.

Upon his death in 1936, John Severance bequeathed his private collection from his estate in Cleveland Heights to the CMA, having no children. His wife, Elizabeth Huntington DeWitt, predeceased him in 1929.

-Biography by Anne Cuyler Salsich, 2025

Found in 11 Collections and/or Records: