Bliss, Robert Woods, 1875-1962

Robert Woods Bliss (1875-1962, Harvard AB 1900) and his wife, Mildred Barnes Bliss (1875-1969) were prominent art collectors and the founders of Dumbarton Oaks, an estate which they developed and conveyed in 1940 to Harvard University as the Center for Byzantine Studies, a research center and museum.

Robert Woods Bliss served in the U.S. Foreign Service from 1903-1933. He was Minister to Sweden from 1923-1927 and Ambassador to Argentina from 1927-1933.

Robert Woods Bliss was a graduate of Harvard College, Class of 1900. He began work as the Secretary to the Governor of Puerto Rico and entered the U.S. Foreign Service in 1903 with a post in Venice. For the next thirty years he served the diplomatic corps in St. Petersburg, Brussels, Buenos Aires, Paris, Washington, D.C., and Stockholm. He retired in 1933, but returned to the State Department for occasional special service.

Robert Woods Bliss married his stepsister, Mildred Barnes, in 1908. They had no children. She was a well-educated and well-travelled heir to the Castoria patent medicine fortune. Mildred Bliss was an active participant and leader in social and cultural circles at every diplomatic post to which Robert Bliss was assigned. She was an avid art collector as well as patron of musicians and visual artists in Europe, South America and the United States. She organized the American Distributing Service to transfer medical supplies to French hospitals and funded several vehicles for the Ambulance Corps. She was honored with numerous decorations for her war relief efforts in France during World War I.

In addition to extensive philanthropic work, the Blisses were recognized as important art collectors. In 1920 they purchased an estate in Georgetown called "The Oaks." They renamed it "Dumbarton Oaks" and spent the next several decades involved with the development of both the exterior landscape and the art and book collections within.

In 1940 Mildred and Robert Woods Bliss conveyed Dumbarton Oaks to Harvard University as the Center for Byzantine Studies. The Blisses resided nearby and maintained an active interest in the formation and funding of its garden, library, art collection and musical program. Plans to build a gallery at Dumbarton Oaks to house Robert Bliss's collection of pre-Columbian art were underway when he died of lung cancer on April 19, 1962. The Robert Woods Bliss Collection of Pre-Columbian Art was opened to the public in 1963.

Mildred Bliss continued to travel and take part in Washington's cultural life and philanthropy life until her death on January 17, 1969.