Jean Esther Outland Chrysler (15 September 1921–26 January 1982), art collector, was born in Norfolk and was the daughter of Lida Ann Maddox Outland and Grover Cleveland Outland, an insurance salesman who later served in the House of Delegates. Educated in Norfolk's public schools, she received a B.S. from the College of William and Mary in 1942 and then taught physical education at the Norfolk branch of William and Mary (later Old Dominion University). In Norfolk on 13 January 1945 she married Walter Percy Chrysler, the divorced namesake son of the founder of the Chrysler Corporation who as a lieutenant junior grade in the United States Naval Reserve had been stationed in Norfolk. They had no children. The Chryslers divided the first years of their marriage between a residence in New York City and a large estate near Warrenton known as North Wales. There they raised thoroughbred horses for the remainder of the decade, and Jean Chrysler began breeding prize Chihuahuas.

Chrysler shared her husband's enthusiasm for the visual arts, especially sculpture, fine glass, and paintings. She purchased contemporary works by such artists as Frank Auerback, Milton Avery, Michael Goldberg, and Wolf Kahn and eventually gave her collection to the College of William and Mary, where it became part of the holdings of the Muscarelle Museum of Art. In 1963 Chrysler donated forty-two modern paintings and sculptures to the Norfolk Museum of Arts and Sciences as a tribute to her parents and in 1965, 1967, and 1973 made additional gifts to that institution. After Walter Chrysler established a museum in Provincetown, Massachusetts, in 1958 to house his growing art collection, she helped to organize and catalog the extensive holdings of books, exhibition catalogs, and clippings that became the foundation of the museum's reference library. Her childhood love of books blossomed in this role, and later, when the collection moved to Norfolk, she sharpened her bibliographic skills with further study at William and Mary. Working part-time over about twenty years with the reference collection in both Provincetown and Norfolk, she arranged and cataloged approximately 44,000 titles.

Chrysler and her husband had placed a large number of artworks with the Norfolk Museum on long-term loan by November 1967, and Walter Chrysler's decision in 1970 to transfer his extensive collection of paintings, sculpture, decorative arts, and art glass from the Provincetown museum to the Norfolk Museum, which was renamed the Chrysler Museum at Norfolk (and later the Chrysler Museum of Art), represented a seminal event in the city's cultural history. Jean Chrysler's influence and fondness for her native city reportedly proved decisive in the relocation of the collection. Although the Chryslers continued to maintain a residence in New York City, they spent an increasing amount of time at their house in Norfolk.

Chrysler worked to enhance the cultural and intellectual life of her hometown. She served on the board of trustees of the Chrysler Museum from 1977 until her death, and she became a devoted supporter of the Virginia Opera. Tireless in her efforts at fund-raising and securing innovative new productions, she served on the board of trustees of the Virginia Opera Association, Inc., and was secretary of its executive committee. She once noted that she thought she could help Norfolk improve its quality of life by putting her "energies into the opera and museum because I believe that these two organizations are doing most to bring local respect and national recognition to the city." Although her efforts to establish a collection of books, magazines, and recordings focusing on opera were cut short by her death, her most visible and lasting personal legacy was the art research library that bears her name at the Chrysler Museum. Growing to include more than 80,000 volumes by the end of the twentieth century, the library comprises art books, exhibition and auction catalogs, and historic and current periodicals, as well as the renowned art library of the London art dealer M. Knoedler and Company. The library also contains important archival material documenting the early commercial history of Norfolk and the region. An integral part of the museum, the Jean Outland Chrysler Library has been recognized repeatedly as one of the top such facilities in the South.

After suffering a stroke, Jean Esther Outland Chrysler died in a Norfolk hospital on 26 January 1982. She was buried in the Chrysler family mausoleum in Sleepy Hollow Cemetery, in Tarrytown, New York, where her husband's remains were also buried after his death on 17 September 1988.

Sources Consulted:
Biography in Norfolk Virginian-Pilot, 29 Jan. 1982 (portrait); biographical information in vertical file and video documentary at Chrysler Museum of Art, Norfolk; personal information provided by brother Grover Cleveland Outland, sister Nancy Outland Chandler, and Edythe C. Harrison (all 2003); Norfolk Virginian-Pilot, 11, 14 Jan. 1945; An Exhibition of the Jean Outland Chrysler Collection, February 26–March 26, 1963, Norfolk Museum of Arts and Sciences (1963), including cover portrait by Christopher Clark; Vincent Curcio, Chrysler: The Life and Times of an Automotive Genius (2000), esp. 117, 454–455, 623–624, 635, 644, 658–661; obituaries in Norfolk Ledger-Star, Norfolk Virginian-Pilot, Richmond News Leader, and Richmond Times-Dispatch, all 27 Jan. 1982, and Washington Post, 31 Jan. 1982; editorial tribute in Norfolk Ledger-Star, 30 Jan. 1982 (quotation); memorial in Chrysler Museum 12 (Mar. 1982): 1.

Written for the Dictionary of Virginia Biography by William S. Rodner.

How to cite this page:
William S. Rodner,"Jean Esther Outland Chrysler (1921–1982)," Dictionary of Virginia Biography, Library of Virginia (1998– ), published 2006 (http://www.lva.virginia.gov/public/dvb/bio.asp?b=Chrysler_Jean_Outland, accessed [today's date]).

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