Sarah Campbell Blaffer


Sarah Campbell Blaffer was an American philanthropist and contributor to the art collection of the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston. She inherited two fortunes based on oil money, one from her father's investments in Texaco, and the other from her husband's investments in Humble Oil.

Early life

Sarah Campbell Blaffer was born on August 27, 1885 to William Thomas and Sarah Campbell in Waxahachie, Texas. William Thomas Campbell co-founded the Texas Company. She attended school at a convent in Lampasas, Texas before matriculating at the Boston Conservatory.

Philanthropy

In 1964, Blaffer created the Sarah Campbell Blaffer Foundation. Its mission of sending works of art on tour to make them more accessible to people who live in smaller communities. The foundation assembled collections of Goya etchings and Hogarth engravings, and also amassed a collection of Italian Renaissance paintings and a collection of early modern paintings from the Netherlands.
Blaffer is the namesake of the Sarah Campbell Blaffer Gallery at the University of Houston. The gallery is housed by the Fine Arts Building at the university and was founded in 1973. Some of its early activities consisted of loaning works of arts for travelling expositions within Texas. More recently the gallery assembled a small permanent collection with a focus on Latin-American works.
In 2000, the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston established permanent display space for part of the Blaffer Foundation Collection. These are housed in five different galleries of MFAH’s Beck Building.

Personal life

In 1909, Sarah wedded Robert Lee Blaffer, one of the co-founders of Humble Oil. The couple had four children.

Death

Blaffer died in Houston on May 13, 1975.