Flamboyant Patron

Officials at San Francisco's de Young Museum were happily sorting through their newest treasure trove--some 200 paintings, drawings and sculptures ranging from Boucher and Delacroix to Eakins and Andrew Wyeth. A museum director could hardly ask for a finer gift; moreover, the works, mainly from the 19th and 20th centuries, filled in a period where the de Young's own collection was weak. But museum officials were perhaps the least bit embarrassed too--about the personality of the donor. She happens to be the widow and custodian of the estate of T. Edward Hanley, the distinguished art collector and industrialist, who died last year at the age of 75. But she is also the most uninhibited woman to come out of Hungary since Zsa Zsa Gabor.

"Tullah," as she prefers to be addressed by even the most casual of acquaintances, cheerily invites any new friend to "feel how firm--I have the body of a girl." She now admits to 46 ("You can't be 20 for 40 years, but you can be 40 for 20 years") and boasts that "I haven't had bread in ten years. It was kiss or eat, and I'd rather kiss."

Her father was a Hungarian contractor, her mother an Egyptian girl "born in a harem," according to Tullah. She came to the U.S. about 30 years ago, having dropped out of school at 14. "Already I had decided to marry a millionaire," she explains, "but I rejected two Chicago millionaires before I met my Edward. They were bum millionaires. I didn't want to throw such a pearl before swine."

Tullah made her way in the New World as an "interpretive classical dancer." In 1945 she was performing in a Buffalo nightclub. Edward Hanley, a modest man from Bradford, Pa., who had made a modest fortune out of the family brick business and natural gas, caught her act. He was smitten. Three years later they were married. He was then in his 50s and Tullah only 24 or so, but she did not mind. "I was his Madonna. I wanted a spiritual man because, since 13, I was pursued by physically minded men." Tullah learned to love art, but did not abandon her passion for dancing--with the least encouragement, she will perform her interpretive act for friends whenever and wherever space is available. "My passions are art first, dancing second. Sex is just a hobby," she explains.

Gentle Taste. The collection that Edward Hanley amassed may not be studded with masterpieces but it is informed by a gentle sensitivity and taste. He preferred to buy several small works by several good artists rather than one large oil that might have a greater impact on a museum wall. He liked self-portraits, and among the gems of the de Young's acquisitions are self-portraits by Courbet and Manet, who portrayed himself with a crown of thorns in a study that he never used for his painting of soldiers jeering Christ.

For years Hanley kept the paintings in his hometown of Bradford, Pa. They decorated the walls of his unpretentious house, only a few yards from Bradford's East Main Street (also U.S. Route 219), until museum directors finally became aware of the excellence of the collection and asked to exhibit it. (Hanley also had a vast collection of books, gave some 40,000 volumes to the University of Arizona, another 45,000 to the University of Texas).

In time, Tullah occupied herself lecturing on and traveling with the art collection--something her husband had no wish to do. "I am the only ostentatious thing he ever owned," admits Tullah, who combined her interests in a book entitled The Love of Art and the Art of Love. She picked the San Francisco museum as the recipient of her beneficence because "people were so nice to me" when the collection was exhibited there two years ago.

Even after her donation, the house in Bradford is still full to overflowing, with pictures hanging even on the staircase balustrade. She feels in no way diminished by her gift to San Francisco. Says Tullah: "I'm part of the exhibit. I am a unique and original piece of the Edward Hanley collection."

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