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Sandler (Irving) Papers
2000.M.43
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Title: Irving Sandler papers
Date (inclusive): 1909-2007, bulk
1950-2000
Number: 2000.M.43
Creator/Collector:
Sandler, Irving,
1925-2018
Physical Description:
45 Linear Feet
(92 boxes, 1 flat file folder)
Repository:
The Getty Research Institute
Special Collections
1200 Getty Center Drive, Suite 1100
Los Angeles 90049-1688
Business Number: (310) 440-7390
Fax Number: (310) 440-7780
reference@getty.edu
URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10020/askref
(310) 440-7390
Abstract: Papers of the American art critic
Irving Sandler, including five decades of notes, transcripts and audiotapes of interviews
with artists and art professionals, materials documenting art organizations and
associations, and correspondence regarding publications, lectures, and academic
appointments.
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Language: Collection material is in
English .
Irving Sandler was born in New York City in 1925. He holds a B.A. from Temple University
(1948) and an M.A. from University of Pennsylvania (1950), where he studied American
history. His interests turned then to contemporary art, specifically the abstract
expressionist painting current in the 1950s New York art world. He tried his hand at
painting for a year or so, and became manager of a gallery on 10th Street, thereby meeting
artists he admired. Soon feeling his vocation to be that of chronicler and critic rather
than artist, in 1954 Sandler began taking copious notes of conversations with artists, or
among artists, during informal gatherings at the Club, the Cedar Street Tavern, or in
artists' studios. In 1958, he married the art historian and medievalist Lucy Freeman, who
later became a professor of art history at New York University.
In 1956, Irving Sandler became the director of the Tanager Gallery, Program Chairman for
the Artists' Club, and a reviewer for
Art News and
Art
International
, establishing two roles that he would fill for the rest of his
career: supporter of emergent artist groups, and advocate critic. A third role, that of
professor, emerged in the 1960s.
Sandler's approach to art criticism was, like Greenberg's and Rosenberg's, grounded in
personal friendships with artists whose work he reviewed, but Sandler avoided the extreme
partisanship and rancor for which those critics are known. Maintaining a personal ethic of
openness to new styles or schools of art, and a methodology that considered art world
consensus on the one hand and the artist's intention on the other, he flourished as a
relevant commentator of contemporary art for five decades. In the 1970s, Sandler began
writing books that synthesized his collection of interviews and reviews into broad surveys
of contemporary art, including
The Triumph of American Painting: A History of
Abstract Expressionism
(1970),
The New York School: The Painters and
Sculptors of the Fifties
(1978),
American Art of the 1960s (1988),
and
Art of the Postmodern Era: From the Late 1960s to the Early 1990s (1996).
In addition, he wrote monographs on individual artists, such as Mark Di Suvero, Alex Katz,
Beverly McIver, and Judy Pfaff.
Sandler taught throughout the 1960s at New York University, where Lucy Freeman Sandler was
assistant professor. Freeman became a full professor at NYU in 1975 and Sandler earned a
Ph.D. in art history there in 1976. For the rest of his academic career he taught at SUNY
Purchase, with occasional visiting professorships at other northeastern U.S. institutions.
In 1972, he organized "Artist's Space," an alternative exhibition space for young artists.
Laurie Anderson, Judy Pfaff, Barbara Kruger, Cindy Sherman, Nan Goldin, and Chuck Close are
among those that got their start there. He served on the board of, or otherwise lent support
to, many other artists' organizations. Eventually, he held positions in academic and
curatorial organizations as well, such as the College Art Association and Independent
Curators Incorporated, and in foundations supporting the arts, such as the National
Endowment for the Arts and the Sharpe Art Foundation. His interest in public art led to his
serving on the board of Public Art Fund, which generated public art projects such as
"Sculpture in Environment," "City Walls" and "Prospect Mountain," and he was involved in
many other public art commissions around the country. Sandler died in New York City on June
2, 2018.
Open for use by qualified researchers.
Contact
Library Reproductions
and Permissions
.
Irving Sandler papers, 1909-2007, bulk 1950-2000, The Getty Research Institute, Los
Angeles, Accession no. 2000.M.43.
http://hdl.handle.net/10020/cifa2000m43
Collection acquired from Irving Sandler in 2000.
Annette Leddy and Kelly Nipper processed the collection. In 2012 Annette Leddy integrated
additional material. The finding aid was reviewed and edited by members of the Anti-Racist
Description Working Group in 2022; names of women artists were added. Edits were made
throughout the finding aid.
Digitized versions of reel-to-reel tapes R1-R34 are available online.
Connect to digitized audio
recordings.
Access is available only to on-site readers and Getty staff.
The following audio and video cassettes have also been reformatted and are available for
use:
Videocassettes: V1, V3-V5, V7-V15; Audiocassettes: C26, C96, C111, C127-C141, C143-C148,
C167-C168, C225, C272, C278, C325-C326; Reel-to-reel tapes: R1-R7, R9-R11, R14-R18,
R20-R34.
Scope and Content of Collection
The Irving Sandler Papers comprehensively document the career of an American critic who
chronicled and commented upon the contemporary art scene for five decades. The foundation of
Sandler's biographical approach to art criticism is the informal interview or "conversation"
with the artist; the archive comprises all Sandler's notes, transcripts, and audiotapes of
these encounters. Although the core of the archive is the material about abstract
expressionist artists of the 1950s, artists and art movements of subsequent decades are
amply documented, with special attention to Alex Katz, Philip Pearlstein, and Al Held.
Sandler also took copious notes on panel discussions; such notes appear in several series,
and form the basis of Series II. Art Professionals which, like Series I. Artists, spans five
decades. Notes on panel discussions are also central to Series III. Organizations and
Associations and in particular to the documentation of the Artists' Club, of which Sandler
was Program Director for seven years. Here the concerns of 1950s New York artists emerge in
the Club's chosen topics for lecture and debate. Many interviews and panels from Series I.
through Series V. were also recorded and appear in Series XIV. Audiotapes and Video Tapes.
Series III. Organizations and Associations reflects, along with Sandler's role as critic,
his active support for emergent artists. The Artists' Space files in Series III chronicle
the difficulty of establishing a physical space, and also deal with management issues and
controversies plaguing early exhibitions. Series III further details Sandler's involvement
in academic and curatorial organizations for which he served on the directing board. The
work that he performed for foundations and commissions is documented in Series IV.
Sandler's career as a professor, independent curator, and reviewer is documented in Series
V. through IX. Correspondence is professional, with editors regarding reviewing assignments,
with curators regarding exhibitions, and with university administrators regarding promotion.
Sandler's long standing column for
The New York Post appears in Series VI.
Notes and Writings and in Series XIII. Printed Matter. Extensive handwritten notes for his
1950s artists' interview series on The Casper Citron Radio Show appear in Series VI. Notes
and Writings. Series XIII. Printed Matter contains an interesting assortment of
announcements and brochures for exhibitions Sandler presumably attended over five
decades.
The papers are organized in fourteen series: Series I. Artists, 1914-2007, undated Series
II. Art Professionals, 1925-2000 Series III. Organizations and Associations, 1937-2000
Series IV. Foundations and Commissions, 1964-2001 Series V. Exhibitions and Panels,
1965-2000 Series VI. Notes and Writings, ca. 1950-2000 Series VII. Research, 1940s-2000
Series VIII. Correspondence, 1956-2000 Series IX. Personal, 1959-2000 Series X. Writings by
Others, 1948-1994, n.d. Series XI. Photographs, 1909-2001 Series XII. Serials, 1950-1995
Series XIII. Printed Matter, 1940-2000 Series XIV. Audio and Video Tapes, 1958-2007,
undated.
Held, Alex
Jenkins, Paul, 1923-2012
Guston, Philip, 1913-1980
De Kooning, Willem, 1904-1997
Sandler, Irving, 1925-2018
Lewitin, Landes
Katz, Alex, 1927-
McNeil, George,
1908-1995
Motherwell, Robert
Mitchell, Joan,
1925-1992
Pearlstein, Philip,
1924-
Sander, Ludwig,
1906-
Resnick, Milton,
1917-2004
Anderson, Laurie, 1947-
Pfaff, Judy, 1946-
Kruger,
Barbara, 1945-
Sherman,
Cindy
Goldin, Nan,
1953-
Artists' Club (New York, N.Y.)
Artists Space (Gallery)
Marie Walsh Sharpe Art
Foundation
National Endowment for the Arts
New York school of art
Abstract expressionism
Art critics -- United States
Art -- American -- 20th century
Artists -- United States -- Biography
Audiotapes
Posters
Photographs, Original
Photographic prints
Interviews
Videotapes
Katz, Alex, 1927-
Held, Alex
Pearlstein,
Philip, 1924-
Sandler, Irving,
1925-2018
The following books were consulted in the writing of this finding
aid: McDarrah, Fred.
The Artist's World in Pictures. New York: E.P.
Dutton and Company, 1961.
Sandler, Irving.
American Art of the
1960s.
New York: Harper & Row, 1988.
Sandler, Irving.
Art of the Postmodern Era. Boulder, Colorado: Westview Press, 1998.