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| Q&A |
Matron of the Arts
03/01/2008
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Research psychiatrist and entrepreneur Arthur M. Sackler made
his fortune in medical publishing and pharmaceutical advertising. But upon his
death in 1987, perhaps his most lasting legacy was in the arts, where he
bestowed pieces—and major financial support—to museums from his vast personal
collection of Asian and Near Eastern artwork.
His daughter, Elizabeth, closely watched her father plan and
negotiate these museum gifts. Sackler takes a page from her father: He created
namesake museums and galleries at the Smithsonian Institution, the Metropolitan
Museum of Art, and Harvard and Princeton universities; last year, she oversaw
the opening of her own major project by funding the first center devoted to
feminist art. She gave The Dinner
Party,
Judy Chicago’s monumental feminist installation, a
permanent home at the Brooklyn Museum.
Sackler, 60, is the CEO of the Arthur M. Sackler Foundation and oversees her father’s collection. She also founded, in 1992, the American Indian
Ritual Object Repatriation Foundation, which served for 12 years as a conduit
for repatriating ceremonial objects. Sackler spoke with Worth
staff writer Elizabeth Harris about championing neglected causes and reclaiming
the word "matron."
What did you learn from your family that contributed to your own work?
I learned from my father how to
realize a vision. I watched him engage with museums, engage with the
Smithsonian, so that there are wings [in his name] and the Arthur M. Sackler
Gallery at the Smithsonian Institution. So for me it’s not some idea that’s harebrained and impossible. I grew up not only being taken to museums, but
watching and learning the interaction between idea and museum, collector and
museum, collections and museum.
What was the most important lesson?
Actively participate. You don’t
just have an idea, turn it over to somebody, and write a check. That’s not what
this is about. That’s not what my father did. By the time I went to [Brooklyn
Museum director] Arnold Lehman and asked, "Would you like to have
The Dinner Party at the Brooklyn Museum as a gift?" I already knew what the components of that center were going to be. We then negotiated a reality for the
Elizabeth A. Sackler Center for Feminist Art. It is a center; it is not a
gallery.
What was that dialogue like?
It was a great ride. Now I
understand why my father said, "I’m not a philanthropist—I’m having a ball."
It’s been an incredible time to see an idea in one’s head come into physical
form.
Was there an instance when you were not pleased with a decision, or your plans changed with this project?
My original idea in the late
1990s was a freestanding museum that would have been the Elizabeth A. Sackler
Museum for Feminist Art. I chewed on that for a long time. But it was going to
be very large. It was going to have outbuildings for residents; it was going to
be in New Mexico. I was thinking about having an amphitheater for
Lysistrata and other wonderful plays, and found the land. But I couldn’t say,
"Let’s go," and I realized I didn’t really want to spend the remainder of my
life concerned about the administration of the museum, endowment for a museum,
all of what it would take to start a whole new institution. I thought about my
father. He really became partners with existing major institutions, and I
thought, that’s really the way to go.
Had you been interested in finding a home for The Dinner Party for a long
time?
No, it wasn’t until I determined
it would be great to have The Dinner
Party housed in a place as resplendent and
important as the work itself. I had met Judy in 1988 and started collecting her work. For Judy and many people, having
The Dinner Party permanently housed was an end goal. To me, it’s a launching
pad for education about all of the 1,038 women in The Dinner Party.
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