Dennis Avery, who used part of a family fortune to fund philanthropic efforts worldwide and the Artistic Committee of replicas of prehistoric animals of an original sculpture garden in the desert of Borrego Springs, died. He was 71 years.
Avery died Monday at Sharp Memorial Hospital in San Diego. No cause of death was given.
Avery was an heir to the fortune of Avery Dennison Corp., which launched what is considered the first commercially viable marketing of self-adhesive, removable labels, the type of supplies are now essential for offices, schools and domestic use .
His father, R. Stanton Avery, a classic rags to riches success story American, founded the company in 1935 after a $ 100 loan to build a machine for making labels for spare parts.
When he died in 1997 at 90 years, his company based in Pasadena, which had merged in 1990 with Dennison Manufacturing in Framingham, Massachusetts, has 16,000 employees and annual sales of U.S. $ 3.2 billion.
Dennis Avery was born in Los Angeles October 23, 1940. After graduating from Cambridge University in England, graduating in law from California Western School of Law in San Diego, where he served as associate dean in 1980.
In 1970 he worked for the prosecutor's office of the City of San Diego and was one of the earliest advocates of consumer fraud.
His colleagues remember him as passionate about protecting consumers and not only interested in living their inherited wealth.
"He loved the law and his Harley Davidson motorcycle," said John Kaheny, who also worked in the office.
Avery and his wife lived for years in Borrego Springs, drawn from the open space and small town atmosphere of 90 miles of San Diego community.
With the eyes of his father for a good deal, Avery buy land where prices have plummeted because of the savings and loan debacle of 1980 and '90.
Although he chose not to follow his father into the business world, has followed his example of the use of wealth on behalf of public education, artistic and otherwise.
His father was a protector of what we might call the artistic creation of Southern California: Los Angeles County Museum of Art, the Huntington Library, Art Collections and the Arts Council of Los Angeles County Music Center, among others.
Artistic interest of the child leaned toward the more populist and unusual. The artwork he bought and set up was not in museums, but open to what he calls the Cookie Meadows estate in Borrego Springs.
Since he was owner of the property through Borrego Springs, sculptures dot the landscape of almost every corner. It soon became a tourist attraction, with great joy Avery.
Although it was a serious student of prehistory, has ignored the criticism that some of the creatures do not seem to comply with what scientists think they seemed.
For Avery, art should be both educational and entertaining. Sometimes delighted visitors to the garden of sculptures, giving his interpretation of the sounds produced by prehistoric animals.
09:31 | 0
comments
