Gerald Clery Murphy and Sara Sherman Wiborg were wealthy, expatriate Americans who moved to the French Riviera in the early 20th century and who, with their generous hospitality and flair for parties, created a vibrant social circle, particularly in the s, that included a great number of artists and writers of the Lost Generation.
Gerald had a brief but significant career as a painter. Gerald Clery Murphy March 26, β October 17, was born in Boston to the family that owned the Mark Cross Company , sellers of fine leather goods.
He was of an Irish-American background. Gerald was an aesthete from his childhood. He was never comfortable in the boardrooms and clubs for which his father was grooming him. He failed the entrance exams at Yale University three times before matriculating, but he performed respectably there. Murphy also introduced Porter to his friends, propelling him into writing music for Yale musicals.
Her father, Frank Bestow Wiborg , was a manufacturing chemist and owner of his own printing ink and varnish company; he was a self-made millionaire by the age of Raised in Cincinnati, she moved with her family to Germany for several years when she was a teenager so her father could concentrate on the European expansion of his company.
The Wiborg family was easily accepted into the high society community of 20th-century Europe. While in Europe, Sara and her sisters Hoytie and Olga sang at high-class assemblies. It was the largest estate in East Hampton up to that time. Wiborg Beach in East Hampton is named for the family. Gerald was five years younger than Sara, and for many years, they were more companions than romantically attached; they became engaged in when Sara was 32 years old. Sara's parents did not approve of their daughter marrying someone "in trade," and Gerald's parents were not much happier with the prospect, seemingly because his father found it difficult to approve of anything that Gerald did.
