century association biographical archive

Earliest Members of the Century Association

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Abraham M. Cozzens

Merchant (Kerosene)/Art Patron

Centurion, 1847–1868

Full Name Abraham Martling Cozzens

Born 3 June 1811 in New York (Manhattan), New York

Died 6 February 1868 in New York (Manhattan), New York

Buried Green-Wood Cemetery, Brooklyn, New York

Proposed by N/A: Founder

Elected 13 January 1847 at age thirty-five

Archivist’s Note: Brother of Frederick S. Cozzens

Century Memorials

That current brings, but it also bears away. Down its mournful ebb have gone during the past year Bonney, the accomplished and upright jurist—Fuller, with his steady grasp of affairs, his clear honesty, and warm heart—the cultivated force and rich and vigorous personality of Leutze—and Cozzens, for whom as a patron of Art, sure discernment inspired princely liberality, and for whom, as a man, friendship laments that the days he knew so well how to enrich with all its delights, should have closed so early and so sadly.

Augustus R. Macdonough
Annual Meeting Minutes, 9 January 1869

A column, Sketchings, which appeared in the April 1856 issue of The Crayon (published by Asher Durand’s son John Durand), states: “The collection of A. M. Cozzens, Esq., is also conspicuous for the large proportion of American pictures it contains.” It describes the collection as including works by such Centurions as Frederic Church (member 1850–1900), Jasper F. Cropsey (member 1851–1900), Asher B. Durand (member 1847–1886), Sanford R. Gifford (member 1859–1880), Henry Peters Gray (member 1847–1877), Daniel Huntington (member 1847–1906), Emanuel Leutze (member 1859–1868), and John F. Weir (member 1864–1926). Artists in the collection who were not members of the Century included Thomas Cole, Thomas Doughty, Edward D. Greene, Thomas Hewes Hinckley, Henry Inman, T. B. Johnson, Charles Robert Leslie, William Sidney Mount, Gilbert Stuart, Thomas Sully, Luther Terry and Richard Caton Woodville.

Cozzens was also a member of the Sketch Club.

William A. Frosch
“Our Original Amateurs, 2009”