Dates
Biography
In his 77 years as a Cleveland native, Ralph Mortimer Coe enjoyed two divergent but successful careers—as an industrialist who carried on a family tradition by directing the forge company his family founded in 1864, and as an influential patron of the arts.
Ralph Coe was a member of the CMA’s Advisory Council beginning in 1919, and a trustee and member of the Accessions Committee for thirty years beginning in 1928. He was an active initiator in helping to found the Print Club of Cleveland, incorporated in 1919, serving terms as secretary, vice president, president, and trustee between 1919-36. He served as president of the Cleveland Institute of Art from 1931-41 and trustee until 1956.
Beginning in his years just out of college, Coe acquired an internationally respected collection of modern French art and works by contemporary American artists. Later in life he collected pre-Columbian American and Arican art objects. After his death an auction of pieces from the collection included works by Van Gogh, Pissarro, Monet, Morisot, Courbet, Rodin, Daumier, Moore and others. In 1956 he participated in an exhibition of works collected by Yale alumni. For this he lent Gauguin’s Femmes Assises a l’Ombre des Palmiers, Cezanne’s La Maison Abandonnée, and his favorite Renoir, Baigneuse Debout dans l’Eau.
Ralph Coe was born on Euclid Avenue in Cleveland, graduated from Yale in 1906, and served as president of three companies. He married Dorothy deWolf Tracy in 1923, the year that he became president of his father’s company. With his wife and three children he lived in Bratenahl on Lake Erie just outside of Cleveland. Coe died in a rest home in Bratenahl in 1959.
Source: Ingalls Library clipping file
-Biography by Anne Cuyler Salsich, 2025
Occupations
Found in 4 Collections and/or Records:
File — Box: 59, Folder: 10
Scope and Contents note
From the Series:
This is the largest series of records documenting Whiting's tenure as director of The Cleveland Museum of Art. Most of the series dates from 1913 to 1930, the years that Whiting was director, although a small percentage predates his arrival in Cleveland (see, for example, Henry Kent's correspondence with the building committee from 1912-1913, located in box 1). These records reflect a time when museum functions and departments were not yet fully delineated. Together, they...
Dates:
1917-1931
Scope and Contents note
From the Series:
The CMA Portraits series includes two subseries: named individuals and groups/events/programs. Named individuals are arranged alphabetically, and groups/events/programs are arranged chronologically. Most photographs are of staff, trustees, donors, visiting lecturers, organists and other performers. Files for the museum directors include the director's family and group photographs. The people in the photographs in the groups subseries may or may not be directly related to the museum. Not all...
Dates:
approximately 1880-2014
File — Box: 14, Folder: 6
Scope and Contents note
From the Series:
This series contains the bulk of the records Sherman Lee created. They cover all of the years that Lee directed the museum and a few years prior to his appointment as director, when he was curator of Oriental art. The records are organized alphabetically, usually by the name of the correspondent but occasionally by subject heading. Materials within the folders are organized chronologically. At the end of each alphabetical letter there are folders for miscellaneous correspondence, also...
Dates:
1958-1965
File — Box: 11, Folder: 9
Scope and Contents note
From the Series:
This is the central correspondence file from Milliken's tenure as director, dating from 1930-1958. When Milliken became director, he apparently continued Whiting's numerical filing scheme for awhile, but at some point he (or someone on his support staff) decided to establish a new central file of director's correspondence in an alphabetical sequence by correspondent names and subject terms. Materials in each file are usually arranged chronologically, although general files, such as those...
Dates:
1932-1955
