Art Connoisseur and Collector, Historian, Conservationist, and Philanthropist. Son of Robert Winthrop (1833-1892) banker, and Kate Wilson Taylor Winthrop (1839-1925). Direct descendant of John Winthrop (1588-1649) a founder, in 1623, and first Colonial governor of the Massachusetts Bay Colony, and his son John Winthrop (1606-1676), first governor of the Connecticut colony. Graduated Harvard University cum laude in 1886, then Harvard Law School in 1889; retiring from a career in law in 1896. President of the Lenox (Massachusetts) Library Association until the end of his life; responsible for restoring the old Colonial courthouse and converting it into the present library building. He made Lenox his principal residence ~ 'Groton Place', Winthrop's country estate, represented one of the finest achievements of private landscape in America; lawn, woodland effect, and fountains made to his designs, gaining for him awards from the Massachusetts Horticultural Society. A shy, reticent person who concealed his deepest feelings beneath a courtly manner, Grenville Lindall Winthrop found no inspiration in the family's bank or law offices. Rather, he amassed an unparalleled collection of some four thousand works of art. Given to Harvard the collection, in its entirety, represents the most important such bequest ever to an American university; ranked among the finest in the country along with those of J. Pierpont Morgan, Henry Clay Frick and Isabella Stewart Gardener. The enduring monument of this quiet, unostentatious gentleman exists in his collection.