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INVENTORY OF THE IRVING SANDLER PAPERS, 1914-2001, bulk 1950-2000
2000.M.43
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Title: Irving Sandler papers
Date (inclusive): circa 1914-2001, bulk 1950-2000
Number: 2000.M.43
Creator/Collector:
Sandler, Irving, 1925-
Physical Description:
45.0 linear feet
(90 boxes, 1 flat file folder)
Repository:
The Getty Research Institute
Special Collections
1200 Getty Center Drive, Suite 1100
Los Angeles, California, 90049-1688
(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 1956, he 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 Alex Katz and Mark Di Suvero.
After teaching at New York University throughout the 1960s, Sandler earned a Ph.D. in Art History 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 influential positions in academic and
curatorial organizations as well, such as the College Art Association and Independent Curators Incorporated, and in major
foundations supporting the arts, such as the National Endowment for the Arts and the Sharpe Art Foundation. Having a special
interest in public art, he served on the board of Public Art Fund, which generated public art projects such as "Sculpture
in Environment," "City Walls" and "Prospect Mountain," and was involved in many other public art commissions around the country.
Open for use by qualified researchers.
Contact
Library Reproductions and Permissions .
Irving Sandler papers, 1914-2001, bulk 1950-2000, The Getty Research Institute, Los Angeles, Accession no. 2000.M.43.
Collection acquired from Irving Sandler in 2000.
Annette Leddy and Kelly Nipper processed the collection. In 2012 Annette Leddy integrated additional material.
Digitized versions of reel-to-reel audio 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 as CD and DVD use copies:
Videocassettes: V1, V3-V5, V7-V15 Audiocassettes: C111, C167, C278
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, Phillip Pearlstein, and Al
Held. Sandler also took copious notes on panel discussions; such notes appear in several series, and form the basis of the
Art Professional series which, like the Artists series, spans five decades. Notes on panel discussions are also central to
the Organizations and Associations series, 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 V. were also recorded and appear in Series XIV. Audiotapes and
Videotapes.
The Organizations and Associations series reflects, along with Sandler's role as critic, his active support for emergent artists.
The Artists' Space files chronicle the difficulty of establishing a physical space, and also deal with management issues and
controversies plaguing early exhibitions. The same series details Sandler's involvement in academic and curatorial organizations,
for which he served on the directing board, as he did for numerous foundations and commissions, 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 longstanding column for
The New York Post appears in Series VI. Writings and in Series XIII. Printed Matter. Also in the archive is a thick file of handwritten notes
for his 1950s artists' interview series on The Casper Citron Radio Show. 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, 1914-2001
Series II. Art Professionals, 1925-2000
Series III. Organizations and Associations, 1937-1995
Series IV. Foundations and Commissions, 1964-2001
Series V. Exhibitions and Panels, 1965-2000
Series VI. Notes and Writings, ca. 1958-2000
Series VII. Research, 1949-2000
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, 1958-2000.
De Kooning, Willem, 1904-1997
Guston, Philip, 1913-1980
Held, Alex
Jenkins, Paul, 1923-
Katz, Alex, 1927-
Lewitin, Landes, 1892-1966
McNeil, George, 1908-1995
Mitchell, Joan, 1926-
Motherwell, Robert
Pearlstein, Philip, 1924-
Resnick, Milton, 1917-2004
Sander, Ludwig, 1906-
Sandler, Irving, 1925-
Artists Space (Gallery)
Artists' Club (New York, N.Y.)
Marie Walsh Sharpe Art Foundation
National Endowment for the Arts
Abstract expressionism
Art critics--United States
Art--American--20th century
Artists--United States--Biography
New York school of art
Audiotapes
Interviews
Photographic prints
Photographs, Original
Posters
Videotapes
Held, Alex
Katz, Alex, 1927-
Pearlstein, Philip, 1924-
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.