Winthrop Kellogg Edey


Winthrop Kellogg "Kelly" Edey was a noted collector and horologist who lived in Manhattan, New York City. His collection of timepieces is now in the Frick Collection. He also makes appearances in Andy Warhol's Screen Tests.

Life and career

Through his mother's family, Kelly was an heir of Morris W. Kellogg, founder of a major engineering company. He grew up in Upper Brookville, Long Island and graduated from Amherst College. His father, Maitland Edey, was an author and editor of Time-Life Books; his mother, Nancy Winthrop Edey was a psychiatrist and activist in the field of women's reproductive rights.
Over five decades, beginning when he was a boy, Edey assembled a significant collection of clocks, watches and associated research materials that he donated to the Frick after his death. He was a noted scholar of timepieces, and executed repairs on his collection himself. Edy wrote the catalogue to the 1982 Frick exhibition French Clocks in North American Collections. His bequest to the Frick includes 39 timepieces, including André Charles Boulle's famed Barometer Clock, together with his library of horological and other materials. Edey also collected and conducted research in other areas, notably Egyptology and Classical literature. He gave several works to the Metropolitan Museum of Art when he died, including sculptures by Augustus Saint-Gaudens.
Edey was gay and part of New York City's cultural and artistic life; he was friendly with Robert Mapplethorpe and Andy Warhol, among others. Warhol's first Screen Tests were likely filmed at Edey's townhouse on West 83rd Street, Manhattan. Edey himself appears in several Screen Tests, as well as some versions of the Screen Test compilation, Thirteen Most Beautiful Boys. He kept a diary that extensively documents his life in New York City and elsewhere over several decades, which has been described as "Proustian in its sweep and attention to detail." The diary is in the collection of the Frick but is not available to the public.

Selected publications