Richard Manoogian, the Detroit industrialist and collector whose American paintings were shown at four museums, died at 90 on Friday, Masco Corporation confirmed. He had collected since the mid-1970s and appeared six times on ARTnews’s Top 200 Collectors list, beginning with its first edition in 1990. His collection brought together works by major American artists and reflected his stated aim of encouraging wider appreciation for American art.
A collection built over decades
Manoogian’s collecting began in the mid-1970s and was centred on American painting. The scale and range of his holdings became visible to a broad museum audience in June 1989, when the National Gallery of Art in Washington, DC, presented “American Paintings From the Manoogian Collection.” The exhibition included 63 paintings, among them works by Thomas Eakins, John Singer Sargent and Mary Cassatt.
The National Gallery’s presentation was not the collection’s only public appearance. The exhibition also travelled to the M.H. de Young Memorial Museum in San Francisco, the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York and the Detroit Institute of Arts. Showing the works across four institutions placed Manoogian’s privately assembled holdings before audiences in different cities, while making American painting the focus of a sustained museum presentation.
The Bingham purchase that made headlines
One of Manoogian’s best-known acquisitions was George Caleb Bingham’s The Jolly Flatboatmen, painted in 1846. In 1987, he bought it from the Pell Family Trust for $6 million, a sum described at the time as among the highest paid for an American painting, whether at auction or in a private sale. The source material gives the equivalent value as $17.69 million today.
The painting had been on loan to the National Gallery of Art since 1953, decades before Manoogian acquired it. He was a member of the museum’s Trustee Council, linking his collecting to an institution that had already displayed the work. The purchase therefore joined a celebrated American painting to a collector whose holdings would soon feature in the Gallery’s 1989 exhibition.
Sharing art—and a point of view
Manoogian described his purpose in collecting as more than ownership: he wanted to promote American artists. Speaking about the 1989 exhibition, he said he hoped it would demonstrate the “quality and diversity” of American art and encourage appreciation of it. That aim was reflected in a show that brought 63 paintings together, with familiar names such as Cassatt and Sargent alongside a broader selection.
He also connected sharing the collection to his family’s experience. His parents, Alex and Marie Manoogian, immigrated to the United States in 1920; in his account, displaying the art was a way to express gratitude for the opportunities the country had offered families like theirs. The exhibition’s journey from Washington to San Francisco, New York and Detroit gave that act of sharing a reach beyond a single museum or city.
Business, philanthropy and collecting
Masco Corporation confirmed Manoogian’s death and identified him as its chairman emeritus. His parents founded the company in 1929, and it became known for selling the single-handle Delta faucet. Masco president and CEO Jon Nudi said in a statement that Manoogian’s legacy included his work at the company as well as his contributions as a philanthropist, art collector and community leader.
Manoogian also owned Beacon Hill, an art gallery at 980 Madison Avenue. He sold it in 1998, and the gallery’s art collection went to auction at Sotheby’s; the New York Times put its estimated value at $10 million, or $20.55 million in today’s terms. Together with the museum exhibitions and the Bingham acquisition, that sale traces several ways his involvement with art extended from collecting to public display and the art market.
Manoogian’s legacy is a collection that made American painting visible across four museums—and a commitment to sharing it.
