Arensberg, Walter

Arensberg, Walter (Conrad)

(1878–1954) art collector; born in Pittsburgh, Pa. He studied at Harvard (B.A. 1900; 1903–04), lived in New York City and worked as a newspaper reporter, then married and settled in Boston (1907). He collected works by cubist artists, was a founder of the literary magazine, Others (1917), and attempted to prove through the use of cryptology that Francis Bacon wrote the works of Shakespeare. He moved to California (1922), purchased pre-Columbian artworks, and donated his collection to the Philadelphia Museum of Art (1950).

The Cambridge Dictionary of American Biography, by John S. Bowman. Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1995. Reproduced with permission.