Businessman, founder of Occidental Petroleum. Armand Hammer's family originated in what was then the Russian Empire. After his father was imprisoned, he and his brothers took over the family business. Journeying to Soviet Russia in 1921 to give medical aid to that country's famine victims, he decided to pursue manufacturing and trade there instead. His businesses were bought out by the Soviets in the late 1920s, and he returned to the United States in 1930, then invested his profits from Russia in businesses such as whiskey making, manufacture of whiskey barrels, and cattle. In 1956 he financed two wildcat oil wells owned by the near-bankrupt Occidental Petroleum Corporation. The wells struck oil, and he quickly increased his holdings in Occidental, becoming the firm's chief executive officer and chairman of the board in 1957. By the mid-1960s Occidental's gross annual income was more than $650,000,000, and other expansions had boosted Occidental's gross income to more than two billion dollars by 1970. Because of his longtime trade and personal contacts with the Soviets, he and his firm were among the principal participants in the broadening of U.S.-Soviet trade ties that accompanied the era of detente in the 1970s. He was also a prominent art collector, and he purchased Knoedler, the oldest art gallery in America, in 1971. He founded the Armand Hammer Museum of Art and Cultural Center in Los Angeles in 1990 to house the bulk of his collection. During his life, he received awards and honors from the Soviet Union, the U.S., France, Italy, Sweden, Austria, Pakistan, Israel, Venezuela, Mexico, Bulgaria, and Belgium.
Businessman, founder of Occidental Petroleum. Armand Hammer's family originated in what was then the Russian Empire. After his father was imprisoned, he and his brothers took over the family business. Journeying to Soviet Russia in 1921 to give medical aid to that country's famine victims, he decided to pursue manufacturing and trade there instead. His businesses were bought out by the Soviets in the late 1920s, and he returned to the United States in 1930, then invested his profits from Russia in businesses such as whiskey making, manufacture of whiskey barrels, and cattle. In 1956 he financed two wildcat oil wells owned by the near-bankrupt Occidental Petroleum Corporation. The wells struck oil, and he quickly increased his holdings in Occidental, becoming the firm's chief executive officer and chairman of the board in 1957. By the mid-1960s Occidental's gross annual income was more than $650,000,000, and other expansions had boosted Occidental's gross income to more than two billion dollars by 1970. Because of his longtime trade and personal contacts with the Soviets, he and his firm were among the principal participants in the broadening of U.S.-Soviet trade ties that accompanied the era of detente in the 1970s. He was also a prominent art collector, and he purchased Knoedler, the oldest art gallery in America, in 1971. He founded the Armand Hammer Museum of Art and Cultural Center in Los Angeles in 1990 to house the bulk of his collection. During his life, he received awards and honors from the Soviet Union, the U.S., France, Italy, Sweden, Austria, Pakistan, Israel, Venezuela, Mexico, Bulgaria, and Belgium.
Bio by: Pete Mohney
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