It became a yearly custom.
Each winter, Frederick Mayer, a longtime Denver Art Museum board member, met in Vail for skiing and conversation with director Lewis Sharp; the leader of the Yale University Art Gallery; and the past head of the J. Paul Getty Museum.
The tradition continues this weekend but with a decidedly different tone. It will inevitably be more of a tribute to Mayer, the member of the power quartet who cannot be there because of his death on Valentine’s Day at age 79.
The regular event says a lot about the avid art collector, tireless philanthropist and passionate museum lover, demonstrating the kind of associations he had in the art world. He loved talking about every aspect of art museums and just spending time having fun.
Board members come and go, but Mayer stood out. When he got involved, it was in depth and for the long haul, with major financial commitments always backing his words.
“He was one of the most remarkable patrons, philanthropic individuals I’ve ever known throughout my life,” Sharp said. “He and Lincoln Kirstein (co-founder of the New York City Ballet) probably have been the two most important individuals in that regard that I’ve ever had the opportunity to work with or be around.”
An oilman who founded Exeter Drilling Co. in 1953 and later served as chairman of Captiva Resources, Mayer joined the Denver Art Museum board in 1975. Except for a few years off, he served until his death, including three terms as chairman.
“He was always quiet at board meetings, and most of what Fred would do would be done behind the scenes,” Sharp said. “I probably had breakfast with him every three weeks – long breakfasts in which I would talk about everything.”
In a time when institutions are under enormous pressure to boost attendance and host one blockbuster after another, Mayer never lost sight of the broader role of an art museum, including the building and care of collections and scholarship.
“The financial imperatives are such that you can get your priorities confused, and I don’t think he ever did that,” said Margaret Young-Sánchez, chief curator and the Frederick and Jan Mayer Curator of Pre-Columbian Art. “He always understood the fundamental mission of what an art museum should be about.”
Through gifts of artworks or funds, he contributed in some way to all eight departments at the Denver Art Museum. But he and his wife, Jan, were most devoted to the New World department, encompassing pre-Columbian and Spanish colonial art.
In 2003, they pledged $11 million, the second-largest contribution in the institution’s history, for an endowment supporting its staffing, programs and research. The couple has also donated some 1,800 artworks.
Mayer sought out underappreciated areas where high-quality pieces were still available at comparatively affordable prices.That led the couple to focus on pre-Columbian art from Costa Rica (Mayer also had a major collection of that nation’s stamps) and Spanish colonial art from Mexico.
In large part because of the Mayers, the museum possesses some of the world’s most extensive holdings in the two fields and plays an important role in scholarship, sponsoring annual an international symposium.
When Young-Sánchez was hired in 1999, the new world department undertook a series of planning sessions in which Mayer urged everyone to think big.
“I was continually surprised and happy about how open he was to new ideas,” she said. “Some people – their instinctive reaction is ‘No, no, no,’ and his reaction was the opposite of that. It was, ‘Wow, that’s interesting. Let’s look at that.”‘
Mayer’s influence did not stop at the state’s borders. A Yale alumnus, he served on the board of that school’s gallery, and the couple endowed the Frederick R. Mayer Art Center at the Phillips Exeter Academy in Exeter, N.H., where he graduated in 1945. In addition, Mayer knew museum directors, curators and other art professionals across the United States and abroad.
Condolences have come from as far away as Ecuador. An art-history professor there met Mayer just once but was so moved by the encounter that she plans to write a tribute to him in a journal in that country.
“He touched people on a real personal level,” said Donna Pierce, Frederick and Jan Mayer curator of Spanish Colonial Art. “He had this way of listening to you and making things seem possible.”
Mayer was someone who people just enjoyed being around.
“When I think about Frederick, I always envision him with this grin on his face, and he’s laughing and telling a joke,” said Young-Sánchez.
At least for now, Mayer’s wife is expected to continue the couple’s collecting and philanthropy. Sharp said she has an open invitation to take her husband’s board seat.
“That will be Jan’s decision,” he said. “They were so committed as a couple. Frederick was kind of the point person, but Jan was always participating, so I think we’re going to see in Jan someone who is going to step forward and be much more involved.”
Fine arts critic Kyle MacMillan can be reached at 303-954-1675 or kmacmillan@denverpost.com.
