Leonard C. Hanna Jr.
Leonard C. Hanna Jr. was the central philanthropic figure of mid-century Cleveland, and the single largest donor in the history of the Cleveland Museum of Art. Heir to the M.A. Hanna Company fortune — the ore-shipping and mining empire built by his great-uncle Mark Hanna (the Gilded Age political boss) and his father Howard Melville Hanna — Leonard inherited wealth, then multiplied it, and then gave nearly all of it to Cleveland cultural institutions in the 1950s.
His 1958 bequest to the Cleveland Museum of Art was the largest single gift any American art museum had ever received to that point, and it transformed the museum from a regional civic institution into a collection of global significance.
Into the Hanna Firm
Leonard C. Hanna Jr. was born in Cleveland on August 1, 1889, the son of Howard Melville Hanna (a founder of the M.A. Hanna Company) and nephew of Marcus Alonzo Hanna — the industrialist, US Senator, and Republican Party kingmaker who managed William McKinley's 1896 presidential campaign. The family fortune had been built on iron-ore shipping, coal, and the Lake Superior ore trade; by the early twentieth century M.A. Hanna Company was among the largest integrated mining and shipping concerns on the Great Lakes.
Leonard graduated from Yale in 1913 and joined the family firm, ultimately serving as vice-president and director. He never actively ran operations — his younger brother George M. Humphrey, who had married into the family, held the operating reins through the firm's mid-century years (Humphrey went on to serve as Treasury Secretary under Eisenhower). Leonard's role was at once ceremonial and consequential: he represented the family on civic and cultural boards, held the firm's major philanthropic relationships, and increasingly directed the Hanna money toward Cleveland's arts institutions.
The Cleveland Museum Bequest
Hanna served as a trustee of the Cleveland Museum of Art from 1919 until his death in 1957, and as the museum's president from 1945 to 1956. Over that thirty-eight-year trusteeship he gave or bequeathed an extraordinary collection of works, many of them personal purchases that he made with the specific intention of eventually donating them to the museum.
His 1958 bequest, disposed of after his October 1957 death, included roughly 175 works and a cash endowment of approximately $34 million (equivalent to more than $350 million in current dollars). The works included masterpieces by Titian, Poussin, Monet, Degas, Van Gogh, Picasso, and Matisse — in several cases, the finest example of a given artist's work in any American museum outside the Metropolitan and the National Gallery. The cash endowment effectively underwrote the museum's collecting program for a generation.
The bequest's scale was unprecedented. Prior to Hanna, no single gift of art and endowment to an American museum had approached its value. It remains among the ten largest bequests any American cultural institution has ever received.
Hilo Farm and Legacy
Hanna never married. He lived for most of his adult life at Hilo Farm, a 500-acre estate in Kirtland Hills east of Cleveland, with a large art collection and a working horse-breeding operation. He died at Hilo on October 4, 1957, age 68. Beyond the CMA bequest, his estate included significant gifts to University Hospitals, Case Western Reserve, the Cleveland Clinic, and Yale University.
The Hanna Pavilion at University Hospitals, Hanna Fund at the CMA, and Leonard Hanna Chair in Art History at Yale all bear his name. His combined lifetime giving to Cleveland institutions exceeded $100 million in mid-century dollars — one of the largest single-donor philanthropic programs in the history of any American city.
Life Timeline
- Born in Cleveland1889
August 1. - Yale Graduation1913
Joins M.A. Hanna Company. - CMA Trustee1919
Begins 38-year service. - CMA President1945
Serves until 1956. - Dies at Hilo Farm1957
October 4, age 68. - CMA Bequest1958
$34M plus 175 works — largest American art bequest to that point.