David B. Findlay Jr.

Mr. David B. Findlay Jr. of New Canaan, Connecticut died peacefully under Hospice Care on Tuesday, September 15 at Norwalk Hospital, with his family at his bedside. He had suffered a cerebral hemorrhage upon awaking the previous Friday morning. Dave was born in Kansas City, Missouri to David Findlay, a third generation art dealer, and Harriet Jones Findlay. His family moved to New York City, then to Darien in 1936 when his father established the David Findlay Galleries in New York City. They joined the Tokeneke Club and Dave attended nursery school, then the Royle Elementary School in Darien. In 1943 the Findlays purchased Extown Farm in New Canaan, where they kept cows, caged chickens and turkeys, and pigs; the farm provided milk, eggs, poultry, smoked meat, and vegetables to the local markets during war-time. A barn was converted to a basketball court for him and his friends in town. Dave attended Center School, then St. Luke’s School in New Canaan. In 1948 he entered Deerfield Academy as a sophomore, class of ’51. He was on the Varsity Lacrosse team for two years and captain of the team his Senior year; Varsity Soccer for two years, and Varsity Hockey his senior year, when they beat St. Mark’s School 5-0 in the old Madison Square Garden. He attended all reunions, created an annual Deerfield Dinner in NYC, and enjoyed talking frequently to his classmates as Class Secretary. He double majored at Cornell, receiving a BS in Mechanical Engineering and an MBA in 1955 and was a member of Chi Psi. After graduation he married Birgit Nielson from New Canaan, moved to Wilton and had four children Harald Beals, Kimberly Wrede, Lee Wrede, and Michael Nielsen, then moved to his current house on Father Peter’s Lane in 1968. He worked for IBM in computer sales, then for McKinsey and Co. in NYC, with consulting projects all over the world. Following a brief stint at the Beechnut Corporation, he joined Lehmann Brothers until 1976, when he joined his brother and sister as a partner in his father’s business, the David Findlay Gallery on Madison Avenue, after 20 years in finance. The gallery specialized in American and European paintings and sculpture. In 1982 Dave started his own gallery, David Findlay Jr. Fine Art, with a focus on American art. The Gallery has been a source of great satisfaction to this day and he thoroughly enjoyed working with the Gallery director and daughter, Lee Findlay Potter, in managing this business. In 1973 Dave married the former Mimi Adams from Darien, adding two step-daughters to his family - Sinclair (Sindi) and Holbrook (Holly/Brook) Adams. Dave loved to ski and went cat-skiing at the Selkirk Wilderness Skiing in British Columbia forty times, frequently taking a child or grandchild with him. His other passion was golf: he became a golf member of the Country Club of New Canaan in 1968 and served as President 1974-76. Subsequently he joined the Sankety Head Golf Club in Nantucket and the John’s Island Club in Vero Beach Florida and was a member of the Musketeers, with whom he played 18 holes followed by lunch the day before his stroke. He was a great communicator, eschewing emails for telephone calls to children and grandchildren on a regular basis. His engineering studies shaped much of the way he approached later life. Dave enjoyed analyzing issues and wrestling in his mind to get understanding of how and why things work. He loved to talk with people and learned much from these conversations with people from a wide range of backgrounds and interests. The pile of books on various topics that he dragged to Nantucket for the month of August was as varied as it was voluminous: history, philosophy, medical (he suffered his entire life from headaches recently controlled with medications), and art books. Together with his wife Mimi, to whom he was married 42 years, they enjoyed a life-long interest in arts and antiques frequently traveling on international tours with an academic or arts focus. He loved the out of doors and traveled with his daughter Lee and her family to Nairobi and with daughter Kim down the Colorado River. He never missed a graduation of a child or grandchild – Mimi calculates it totaled about 23! David is survived by his wife Mimi, brother Peter Findlay of New York City and Salisbury, Connecticut, daughters Kimberly Findlay of Charlotte, Vermont and Lee Findlay Potter of New York City; step-daughters Sinclair Adams Sheers of McLean, Virginia and Holbrook Adams Visser of Framingham, Massachusetts, and sons Harald Findlay of Delray Beach, Florida and Michael Findlay of Middlebury, Vermont. He has 19 grandchildren and one great granddaughter residing throughout the United States. A Memorial Service of Celebration of David B. Findlay Jr’s. wonderful life will be held at the First Presbyterian Church of New Canaan on Saturday, October 24, 2015 at 11:00 am. The family asks that contributions be made in his name to the David B. Findlay Jr. Scholarship Fund at Deerfield Academy, or to the Johnson Museum at Cornell University.