(What make Modern Prints and Drawings valuable is not so m...)
What make Modern Prints and Drawings valuable is not so much the admirable youthful mindedness of the author, as is his capacity to bring bear upon the drawings and prints of our own time his immense, cumulative, first-hand experience as a passionate knower and lover of the art of the past.
Modern Prints & Drawings. A guide to a better understanding of modern draughtsmanship. Selected and with an explanatory text by Paul J. Sachs. Preface by Alfred H. Barr, Jr.
(B/W illustrations. Technical Processes. Biographies of ar...)
B/W illustrations. Technical Processes. Biographies of artists. Bibliography. 270p. Preface by Alfred H. Barr, Jr.
Paul Joseph Sachs was an American art educator and philanthropist.
Background
He was born on November 24, 1878 in New York City, the son of Samuel Sachs and Louisa Goldman, and the scion of bankers and teachers of German origin. He grew up in New York.
As a boy, Sachs was captivated by paintings, and he pasted prints from picture catalogs that he had ordered to the walls of his room.
Education
He attended the Collegiate Institute for Boys, presided over by his uncle, Julius Sachs. In 1900, Sachs graduated from Harvard.
Career
After studies he joined the New York family firm of Goldman, Sachs and Company, investment bankers, directed by his father and grandfather Goldman. In 1904 he was elected a partner of Goldman, Sachs.
A banker's career was an easy prediction; but even those who knew Sachs best had not reckoned with his persistent absorption with visual art. Upon reaching his majority he received a tidy sum from his grandfather Goldman; within a week he spent the entire amount on prints. At Harvard he started a print club, where like-minded students could meet to discuss their mutual interest.
In 1912 Sachs joined the visiting committee of the Fogg Art Museum. The director, Edward W. Forbes, had delivered the invitation in person. This was a turning point in Sachs's career; the lure of art and academe won over Wall Street. In 1915 Sachs was named assistant director of the Fogg Art Museum and joyously moved his family to Cambridge, Massachussets.
Sachs, the teacher-director, began as a lecturer at Wellesley College in 1916-1917. He rose rapidly in his new milieu. Harvard appointed him assistant professor of Fine Arts (1917), associate professor (1922), and full professor (1927). In 1923 he also became associate director of the Fogg Museum and displayed his mettle as a fund raiser. Sachs and Forbes not only devised the plan but raised the money to build the new Fogg Museum, the largest university art museum in the country. It opened in 1928 and was the charge of this unique directorial team for the ensuing twenty years. Sachs's academic courses were in the field of old-master prints and drawings and the history of French painting. In 1932-1933 Sachs was an exchange professor in France, at Bonn, and at Berlin.
Upon Sachs's retirement as professor in 1948 he assumed a major administrative role in incorporating into the university two international research foundations: Dumbarton Oaks in Washington, D. C. , and I Tatti at Settignano, near Florence, Italy. To his earlier publications he added a popular paperback volume, Great Drawings (1951), and Modern Prints and Drawings (1954).
He believed museum directing to be a profession, and he devised the first course of training for it.
Personality
Sachs was a surprising figure: he was five feet, two inches tall and rather round. A powerful gaze and black eyebrows dominated his countenance. His poise was scholarly, his manner gentlemanly. Although at home in the university environment, he never set aside the banker's dark suit and starched collar, which gave him an air of gravity at odds with his warm and fun-loving nature. Generosity, curiosity, and gregariousness governed his life. He was generous with his house and library, his counsel, his personal interest in his students, and his influential contacts. Enthusiastic and passionate, Sachs perceived art as a sensual delight. The experience with every work was a personal encounter for him.
Connections
On Jan. 14, 1904, he married Meta Pollak of New York; they had three daughters: Elizabeth Pollock Weiss, Celia Robinson (married to Charles A. Robinson Jr. ), and Marjorie Pickhardt Wilson.