Beekley Collection

"In collecting art, my two criteria are: there must be a skier in the illustration and I must like it" -W Mason Beekley (1927-2001)

The Beekley Collection was born at a book sale in 1945. For a quarter, a Princeton University freshman purchased a volume entitled Skiing. The rest, as they say, is history- skiing's history to be more specific. From that book sale began W Mason Beekley III's international Collection of skiing art and literature, which today is respected as one of the world's leading resources for skiing's visual and literary culture.

Born in 1927 in Hartford, Connecticut, Mason Beekley grew up in nearby West Hartford. He graduated from Princeton Univeristy in 1949. Beekley's skiing bona fides include a U.S. Eastern Amateur Ski Association certification for amateur ski instruction and a ski patrol qualification from Big Bromley, Vermont. Other major milestones in Beekley's life involved his favorite sport. Professionally, Beekley's career befan as a teacher, resident ski instructor and coach at the Eaglebrook School in western Massachusetts. He then successfully joined hes father in business at the Beekley Corporation of Bristol, Connecticut. Personally, Mason proposed to his wife, Licia, slopeside at Mad River Glen, Vermont. Philanthropically, Beekley's legacy includes the establishment of a preparatory school and town library in New Hartford, Connecticut. He is also founder of the International Skiing History Association (ISHA). Mason Beekley's life and work, as complete as it reads, held room for one more passion-his skiing art and literature collection.

Beekley amassed his library collection first and then his art collection. Fifty years later, as his private museum, Ski Aerie, swelled with nearly ten thousand objects, Beekley undertook a search to find a more permanent and accessible home for it. His wish was that skiing's heritage- represented through fine art and literature- educate and inspire future generations to better appreciate skiing's culture today while preserving it for tommorrow.

Mason Beekley passed away in August 2001. The W Mason Beekley family, Mammoth Mountain Ski Area founder Dave McCoy, Mammoth Lakes Foundation board member Warren Miller and the Mammoth Lakes Foundation collaboratively worked together to honor Masons wish and bring his collection to Mammoth Lakes, CA. In March of 2004 the Mammoth Ski Museum was born- added a new chapter to this unique collection.

All told, the Beekley Collection is 10,000 pieces strong. The collection features more 625 vintage ski posters, 400 orinal paintings, 250 peices of photograhy, over 100 sculptures, hundreds of print works, 2,500 pins stamps and badges and more than 4,000 different works of literature. Artists and authors include Ansel Adams, Andrew Wyeth, Eric Sloane, Leroy Neiman, Lill Tschudi, Hannes Schneider, Sir Arnold Lunn and Warren Miller just to name a few.

Information taken from articles by John Fry and Morten Lund. The museum appreciates their work.