Gabrielle Keiller

Keiller was born on 10 August 1908 in North Berwick, Scotland, during a golf trip by her parents, Englishwoman Daisy Muriel Hoare and J. Wadsworth Ritchie, an American rancher. She was the older sister of Montgomery Harrison Wadsworth Ritchie, who ran the family's Texas ranch, known as JA Ranch.{{cite news |title=Montgomery H.W. Ritchie {{!}} Owner, operator of Texas' JA Ranch |url=https://www.newspapers.com/image/91795818/?terms=Montie%2BRitchie |access-date=18 July 2018 |work=Pittsburgh Post-Gazette |date=July 30, 1999 |page=32 |language=en}} During World War II she served as an ambulance driver.

Her paternal grandmother was Cornelia Adair, the American-born matriarch of Glenveagh Castle in County Donegal, Ireland who was married to John George Adair, a Scottish-Irish businessman and landowner.

Keiller's amateur golf career began in the 1930s under the surname of her second husband, Style. She won the 1948 Ladies' Open Championships in Luxembourg, Switzerland and Monaco, and again in Monaco in 1949. In 1951 she was a finalist in the English Women's Amateur Championship.

In the 1930s, Keiller inherited part-ownership of an Adair ranch in Texas from her grandmother. Proceeds from the later sale of this asset enabled her to begin collecting art. As an art patron, Keiller focused upon 20th-century avant-garde art.{{Cite book|last1=Gere|first1=Charlotte|title=Great women collectors|last2=Vaizey|first2=Marina|date=1999|publisher=P. Wilson; H.N. Abrams|isbn=0856675032|location=London; New York|language=en|oclc=491333517}} She became interested following a 1960 visit to the Peggy Guggenheim Collection in Venice, and through exposure to the work of Eduardo Paolozzi at the 1960 Venice Biennale.{{Cite book|title=Victor Pasmore, paintings and constructions: Eduardo Paolozzi, sculpture and drawings : Geoffrey Clarke, Henry Cliffe, Merlyn Evans, engravings : XXX Biennale Venice 1960 British Pavilion.|last1=Bowness|first1=Alan|last2=Melville|first2=Robert|last3=Pasmore|first3=Victor|last4=Paolozzi|first4=Eduardo|last5=Clarke|first5=Geoffrey|last6=Cliffe|first6=Henry|last7=Evans|first7=Merlyn|last8=British Council|last9=Biennale di Venezia|date=1960|publisher=British Council|location=London|oclc = 50723557|language=en}}

Keiller developed her collection of Dada and Surrealist art with the advice of the artist Roland Penrose. Her bequest to the Scottish National Gallery comprised over 170 artworks (including paintings, sculptures, prints and drawings) in addition to a library of manuscripts, rare books, and journals.{{Cite web|url=https://www.nationalgalleries.org/art-and-artists/collections/surrealism|title=Surrealism {{!}} National Galleries of Scotland|website=www.nationalgalleries.org|language=en|access-date=2018-03-03}} The collection was exhibited there anonymously in 1988. In 1996, the collection was enhanced by 26 works from the collection of Penrose.

Keiller became a patron of both Paolozzi (who was said to have been inspired by her Surrealist collection){{Cite web|last=Whitford|first=Frank|date=2005-04-22|title=Obituary: Sir Eduardo Paolozzi|url=http://www.theguardian.com/culture/2005/apr/22/obituaries|access-date=2021-08-01|website=the Guardian}} and Richard Long. She also commissioned Andy Warhol to make a 1976 portrait of her dachshund Maurice.{{Cite news|url=https://www.nationalgalleries.org/art-and-artists/41712/portrait-maurice|title=Portrait of Maurice|work=National Galleries of Scotland|access-date=2018-03-04|language=en}}

Beginning in the 1950s, Keiller became involved with several arts institutions. She volunteered at the Tate from 1976 to 1987, where she was known as the "Marmalade Queen". From 1978 to 1985, she was a member of the Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art's advisory committee.

Her third husband, Alexander Keiller, had used wealth from his family's marmalade business to pursue interests in archaeology, particularly the stone circles at Avebury in Wiltshire and the surrounding prehistoric landscape. He bought land to ensure the preservation of the monuments, and in 1938 created a museum at Avebury. After his death in 1955, Gabrielle employed Isobel Smith to make archival records of Alexander's excavations in the 1920s and 1930s.{{Cite web|title=Breaking ground: Female archaeologists at Avebury|url=https://www.nationaltrust.org.uk/avebury/features/breaking-ground-female-archaeologists-at-avebury|access-date=2021-08-01|website=National Trust|language=en}} Gabrielle gave the contents of the museum to the nation in 1966,{{Cite book|author-last1=Baggs|author-first1=A. P.|url=https://www.british-history.ac.uk/vch/wilts/vol12/pp86-105|title=A History of the County of Wiltshire, Volume 12|author-last2=Freeman|author-first2=Jane|author-last3=Stevenson|author-first3=Janet H.|date=1983|publisher=University of London|editor-last=Crowley|editor-first=D. A.|series=Victoria County History|pages=86–105|chapter=Parishes: Avebury|access-date=1 August 2021|via=British History Online}} after which it was named the Alexander Keiller Museum.{{Cite web|title=Alexander Keiller Museum, Avebury|url=https://www.english-heritage.org.uk/visit/places/alexander-keiller-museum-avebury/|access-date=2021-08-01|website=English Heritage}}

From 1956 to approximately 1970, she assisted Rupert Bruce-Mitford in a study of the burial ship Sutton Hoo, taking photographs of the site.{{Cite web|title=Gabrielle Keiller|url=http://www.heraldscotland.com/news/12054028.Gabrielle_Keiller/|access-date=2018-06-16|website=HeraldScotland|language=en}}

Keiller's second husband was Charles R. Style, a brewery manager. They divorced in 1950.{{cite news |title=Woman Must Pay Alimony |url=https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1953/07/30/83818039.pdf |access-date=30 July 2018 |work=The New York Times |date=July 30, 1953 |language=en}}

In 1951, she married her third husband, Alexander Keiller (1889–1955), archaeologist and family heir of Keiller marmalade makers in Dundee.{{Cite book|title=A zest for life: the story of Alexander Keiller|last=Murray|first=Lynda J|date=1999|publisher=Morven Books|isbn=0953603903|location=Swindon|oclc = 59421359|language=en}} The couple bought a house in Kingston upon Thames, where she lived for most of the rest of her life.

Keiller died at Bath on 23 December 1995.{{cite news|title=Gabrielle Keiller: Seizing life by the throat|author=Paolozzi, Eduardo|work=The Guardian|date=12 Jan 1996|page= 13}}

{{Reflist|30em}}

{{authority control}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Keiller, Gabrielle}}

Category:1908 births

Category:1995 deaths

Category:Scottish female golfers

Category:People from North Berwick

Category:Archaeological photographers

Category:Scottish socialites

Category:Scottish women photographers

Category:Scottish philanthropists

Category:Wadsworth family

Category:Scottish art collectors

Category:Golfers from North Berwick

Category:20th-century Scottish sportswomen