Wendy Reves, 90; gave collection of French art to Dallas museum

Wendy Reves, 90, who with her husband donated more than 1,400 artworks to the Dallas Museum of Art, died Tuesday in a hospital in Menton, France, her attorney’s firm said.

The collection, which includes works by Auguste Rodin, Paul Cezanne, Vincent van Gogh, Claude Monet and Edgar Degas, among others, is housed in a wing of the museum that re-creates five rooms from the home she and her husband, Emery Reves, shared in the south of France.

Wendy Reves was born Wyn-Nelle Russell in Marshall, Texas, in 1916. She became a model in New York, appearing in Vogue and Harpers Bazaar, according to a news release from her attorney’s firm. Emery Reves, a journalist and publisher, helped Winston Churchill organize the publication of Churchill’s war memoirs.

After her husband’s death in 1981, she made several philanthropic endeavors to honor her husband, including establishing the Wendy and Emery Reves Center for International Studies at the College of William & Mary in Williamsburg, Va. She lived in Switzerland.