Art Market Monitor

Global Coverage ~ Unique Analysis

  • AMMpro
  • AMM Fantasy Collecting Game
  • Podcast
  • Contact Us

Mortimer Sackler

March 31, 2010 by Marion Maneker

The New York Times records the death of philanthropist, Mortimer D.Sackler:

A native New Yorker, he began his medical education in Scotland because, he said, quotas kept him, as a Jew, from being admitted to medical school in New York. He lived in Europe since the 1970s, and his philanthropy — often along with that of his older brother, Arthur, and his younger brother, Raymond — encompassed both Britain and the Continent.

He was a major donor to Oxford University, Edinburgh University, Glasgow University, the Tate Gallery in London, the Royal College of Art, the Louvre, the Jewish Museum in Berlin and Salzburg University, among other institutions.

In New York, the Sackler brothers were probably best known for the Sackler wing of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, which houses the Temple of Dendur and whose construction they helped finance. Through his foundation, Mortimer Sackler financed the Sackler Center for Arts Education at the Guggenheim, and was a major contributor to the American Museum of Natural History.

The Sackler brothers were all doctors, and all businessmen as well. In 1952, while the three were working at the Creedmoor state psychiatric hospital, Arthur financed the purchase of a small drug manufacturer based in Greenwich Village, the Purdue Frederick Company, which Mortimer and Raymond Sackler ran as co-chairmen and which later became Purdue Pharma, now based in Stamford, Conn. (The brothers later established several drug companies in other countries.)

Mortimer D. Sackler, Arts Patron, Dies at 93 (New York Times)

More from Art Market Monitor

  • Global Collectors Use Offshore Tax Havens to Shield Art from Wealth TaxesGlobal Collectors Use Offshore Tax Havens to Shield Art from Wealth Taxes
  • Mary Rozell on UBS’s Art Collecting: We only really buy from living artists in the primary marketMary Rozell on UBS’s Art Collecting: We only really buy from living artists in the primary market
  • Sotheby’s Ancient Marbles = £3.4mSotheby’s Ancient Marbles = £3.4m
  • Christie’s Has Richard Feigen Collection in MayChristie’s Has Richard Feigen Collection in May
  • Leonard Lauder’s Billion-Dollar Cubist Trove Transforms Met CollectionLeonard Lauder’s Billion-Dollar Cubist Trove Transforms Met Collection
  • Only the Good Buy YoungOnly the Good Buy Young

Filed Under: Retrospectives

About Marion Maneker

Want to get Art Market Monitor‘s posts sent to you in our email? Sign up below by clicking on the Subscribe button.

Top Posts

  • After Pandemic’s Rapid Change, Sotheby’s Has 8 Predictions for 2021
  • A Season of Improvisation: Fall 2020 New York Modern and Contemporary Art Auction Analysis
  • Keith Haring’s 1989 Retrospect Comes to Sotheby’s London Prints Sale
  • Tony Podesta's Secret Art Buying
  • Four of Picasso's Women Valued at $28m Come to Christie's from Rose-Walters Collection
  • Norman Rockwell's Not Gay. But Is He a Great Artist?
  • Roy Lichtenstein’s Top Ten Auction Prices
  • Basquiat's Last Girlfriend
  • How to Chant Like an Auctioneer
  • Phillips Includes $2.5m Norman Rockwell Painting in November Evening Sale
  • About Us/ Contact
  • Podcast
  • AMMpro
  • Newsletter
  • FAQ

twitterfacebooksoundcloud
Privacy Policy
Terms & Conditions
California Privacy Rights
Do Not Sell My Personal Information
Advertise on Art Market Monitor