TULLAH: Many local history buffs or residents over the age of 60 may remember stories connected to the late Bradford resident, Tullah Hanley, renowned for her unique personality as an exotic dancer, philanthropic deeds and connection to the international art world.
It was her role as an art patron that placed her on the world’s radar 50 years ago this month when $1.6 million in paintings collected by her late millionaire husband, Dr. T. Edward Hanley, were stolen from their East Main Street home in Bradford. While the artwork was recovered a short nine days later without any appreciable damage, the tale behind it is still intriguing a half a century later.
The Hanleys’ art collection, which was described as one of the most varied and personal of private American collections, had been exhibited in the Gallery of Modern Art in 1967 in New York City. The core of the collection consisted of impressionist and post impressionist works and included art by Manet, Latour, Matisse, Degas, Renoir and Toulouse-Lautrec. Artwork by notable American artists, such as Rembrandt Peale, John Wesley Jarvis, Andrew Wyeth, Gilbert Stuart and Buchanan Reid.
According to T. Edward Hanley’s obituary in the New York Times, dated April 10, 1969, the theft occurred while T. Edward Hanley and his sister-in-law were asleep in upstairs bedrooms in the home. The thieves broke into the house and carted off 127 pieces of art which included the “Moulin Rouge” painting by Picasso valued at $500,000 at the time. A watercolor, “Portrait of Vallier” by Paul Cezanne was valued at $450,000.
Three men and a woman, charged with the crime, were later charged and convicted in Federal Court in Buffalo on counts of transporting the stolen art across state lines.
In the years following her husband’s death in April of 1969, the Hungarian-born Tullah Hanley led a colorful and often philanthropic life in her adopted community of Bradford.
In 1972, she became embroiled in controversy after she decided to help young people in the area by opening a youth center on Main Street, which included an art gallery on the second floor. The facility was later closed down by the city when she performed dances to inspire the teenagers to take pride in their bodies. City authorities, however, described the center as “a den of iniquity” when they took her to court to close it down. Undaunted, she later opened the Tullah Hanley Youth Foundation at the former Elks Club and loaned money to businesses so she could hire young people.
Toward the end of her life in June of 1992, she set up scholarships at colleges and offered to pay for liability insurance so the city could lift its ban on skateboarding. The tide continued to turn for her when the University of Pittsburgh at Bradford honored her by dedicating and naming its new $3.5 million library the T. Edward and Tullah Hanley Library in 1989. She contributed $1.3 million to it, including $75,000 in valuable artwork in memory of her husband.
In one of her interviews regarding the opening of the Pitt-Bradford library, Tullah Hanley said she was pleased the university was naming the facility after her, and noted that she finally felt “vindicated” in the community.
