Ethel Scull, 79; Patron to a New Generation of Artists

They were called the “Mom and Pop of Pop Art” and, in the 1950s and ‘60s, amassed one of the finest collections of contemporary art.

They gave generously to museums, became patrons to a new generation of artists, threw lavish parties in their art-filled home across the street from the Metropolitan Museum of Art on Manhattan’s upper East Side and became one of the most talked-about couples in New York society.

They even became part of the art itself. She ended up in a silk-screen print by Andy Warhol, and they both were cast in plaster by sculptor George Segal.

But that was before the divorce and the decade-long fight over the collection, which at one time included pieces by Warhol, Jasper Johns, Robert Rauschenberg and James Rosenquist.

Ethel Scull, “the Mom of Pop Art” died Aug. 27 at a retirement home in New York City. She was 79 and the cause of death was a heart attack and stroke.

The daughter of the owner of a highly successful taxicab company, Ethel Redner was born in the Bronx and studied advertising art at the Parsons School of Design. She later called Parsons little more than a finishing school. It was during that time that she met Robert Scull, who was scratching out a living as a freelance illustrator and industrial designer.

The couple married before the end of World War II and when her father retired from the cab business, he gave Scull and his other two sons-in-law shares in the business. Under Scull’s direction the company grew dramatically and so did the couple’s fortune.

With their newfound wealth, the Sculls began buying art. They were primarily interested in Abstract Expressionists and amassed a considerable collection of works by Willem de Kooning, Mark Rothko, Franz Kline and others--and the social buzz that went along with it.

Tom Wolfe once called them “the folk heroes of every social climber who ever hit New York.”

When asked about the social-climbing business, Bob Scull admitted it.

“You bet I’m a social climber,” he told a reporter, “and I’d rather use art to climb with than anything else.”

Ethel Scull took a broader view of the situation, noting that her dinner parties were valuable social events.

“We brought the world of collectors, artists and museum directors to each other,” she said.

By the mid-1960s, the Sculls decided to auction off the Abstract Expressionist work and head in a new collecting direction--pop and minimalist art.

Through their patronage they grew close both personally and professionally to a new generation of prominent artists. Andy Warhol did her portrait, which was made up of 36 silk-screen images taken at a photo booth in Times Square. He called it “Ethel Scull 36 Times.” George Segal cast the couple in plaster with Ethel Scull wearing a Courreges dress.

In 1973 the couple created a stir in the art world by selling off 50 pieces by newly emerging artists for $2.2 million, an auction record.

The couple divorced in 1975 after 30 years of marriage.

Ethel Scull spent the next decade fighting her ex-husband for a more equal division of their art holdings. In 1985, a New York judge ruled she should have a 35% stake.

In dividing up the collection, she got one of the most important works--a Jasper Johns piece titled “Out the Window”--through the flip of a coin.

Bob Scull died in 1986 at the age of 70. That same year 10 pieces from Ethel Scull’s collection and 140 from his were auctioned in New York.

Johns’ “Out the Window,” which the Sculls bought for $2,250 in 1960, sold for $3.63 million, which was the highest price ever paid for a work of art by a living artist.

She is survived by her three sons, Stephen Paul of Los Angeles, Jonathan of New York City and Adam of Miami Beach; a sister and two grandchildren.