The lasting memory of Charles Ryskamp

His final gift: a Sotheby’s auction of works from his personal art collection that will benefit the newly established Charles Ryskamp Scholarship Fund, established to provide financial aid for students in the departments of English and art and archaeology. The collection goes on display next week and will be sold on Jan. 25.

“He often spoke of Princeton as having had this special place in his life,” said James Steward, director of the University Art Museum. “He credited his years here as having kind of formed his taste as a scholar and as a collector.”

Ryskamp began teaching English at the University in 1955 and was named a professor in 1969. He specialized in 18th-century British literature and also served as curator of English and American literature at Firestone Library.

Verlyn Klinkenborg GS ’82, who met Ryskamp at the University and continued to work with him at the Morgan, described him as a mentor for many.

“He was instrumental, really, in a whole generation of 18th- century scholarship, especially at Princeton,” he said.

Ryskamp’s former dissertation advisees at the University include Richard Wendorf, Director of the American Museum in Britain.

“Charles was an extraordinary mentor,” Wendorf said in an e-mail. “He had the great gift of persuading his listeners that they should be just as interested in and passionate about whatever intrigued him. This worked well with his students and colleagues — and famously well with his donors.”

Ryskamp’s time as director of the Morgan from 1969 to 1987 and the Frick from 1987 to 1997 were both marked by significant expansions.

The Morgan received a gift of 1,500 Old Master drawings in 1973 from cellist Janos Scholz that included pieces by Raphael, Titian and Leonardo da Vinci.

At the Frick, Ryskamp led the collection’s first capital campaign after the death of Helen Clay Frick in 1984. She had supported the Frick’s art-reference library but did not include an endowment for the museum in her will.

Current Frick director Anne Poulet said that she had monthly conversations with Ryskamp, in which he offered advice and knowledge about the collection that proved to be invaluable.

“He was a wonderful raconteur … but someone who was never malicious and never indiscreet,” she said. “And we had many laughs together … The other thing that always came out was his love of works of art.”

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Ryskamp’s personal collection includes nearly 700 drawings and has been featured in exhibitions at distinguished museums. In 2001, the Morgan displayed a number of his drawings in “The World Observed: Five Centuries of Drawings from the Collection of Charles Ryskamp,” and the Yale Center for British Art exhibited “Varieties of Romantic Experience: Drawings from the Collection of Charles Ryskamp” last February.

As stipulated in Ryskamp’s will, a significant number of his drawings were bequeathed to the Morgan, and the Frick selected 10 drawings or works of art from the remaining collection before much of it went to Sotheby’s, Poulet said. The auction will also feature furniture and decorations from Ryskamp’s homes in Princeton and New York. The University Art Museum received 37 prints as well.

Apart from art and literature, Ryskamp also enjoyed music and history.

“At the age of 80, he was as anxious to see, and to learn, and to do things as anyone I know,” Poulet said.

As much as Ryskamp touched those around him, he was also often touched by the things he worked with.

“He was moved by art every day. He was always excited about it. He was always interested in it,” Klinkenborg said. “That enthusiasm — I never saw it suffer or flag in any way.”