Samuel Courtauld (art collector)

Courtauld, head of the family textile firm, bought French Impressionist and Post-Impressionist paintings in the 1920s, including Manet's A Bar at the Folies-Bergère, when British museums largely ignored them. He also set up a fund to buy such works for the national collections and in 1932 founded the Courtauld Institute of Art, giving it much of his collection. The Courtauld Gallery at Somerset House charges for entry.