Everett Bernard Ellin (1928–2011) was an American museum official, art dealer, engineer, lawyer, and talent agent. As the first Executive Director of the

Museum Computer Network The Museum Computer Network (MCN) is a US-based non-profit organization for professionals with an interest in the use of computer technology for museums. Overview MCN was established in 1967 in the New York City area. The history of MCN spans a pe ...

, he played a key role in museums' adoption of computer technology to catalog their holdings. Ellin was born on October 3, 1928 in

Chicago, Illinois (''City in a Garden''); I Will , image_map = , map_caption = Interactive Map of Chicago , coordinates = , coordinates_footnotes = , subdivision_type = Country , subdivision_name ...

. He studied at the

University of Michigan , mottoeng = "Arts, Knowledge, Truth" , former_names = Catholepistemiad, or University of Michigania (1817–1821) , budget = $10.3 billion (2021) , endowment = $17 billion (2021)As o ...

, from which he received a bachelor's degree in engineering, and at Harvard Law School, from which he received a law degree in 1952. He served in the

Air Force An air force – in the broadest sense – is the national military branch that primarily conducts aerial warfare. More specifically, it is the branch of a nation's armed services that is responsible for aerial warfare as distinct from an ...

during the

Korean War , date = {{Ubl, 25 June 1950 – 27 July 1953 (''de facto'')({{Age in years, months, weeks and days, month1=6, day1=25, year1=1950, month2=7, day2=27, year2=1953), 25 June 1950 – present (''de jure'')({{Age in years, months, weeks a ...

, with duties that included drafting regulations regarding technological obsolescence. After leaving the Air Force, he worked for a time as a lawyer, serving as a law clerk with the

California Supreme Court The Supreme Court of California is the highest and final court of appeals in the courts of the U.S. state of California. It is headquartered in San Francisco at the Earl Warren Building, but it regularly holds sessions in Los Angeles and Sac ...

and as in-house counsel at

Columbia Pictures Columbia Pictures Industries, Inc. is an American film production studio that is a member of the Sony Pictures Motion Picture Group, a division of Sony Pictures Entertainment, which is one of the Big Five studios and a subsidiary of the mu ...

. He also worked as an assistant to a

William Morris Agency The William Morris Agency (WMA) was a Hollywood-based talent agency. It represented some of the best known 20th-century entertainers in film, television, and music. During its 109-year tenure it came to be regarded as the "first great talent ag ...

executive. Urged by his then-girlfriend, painter Joan Jacobs, Ellin opened the Everett Ellin Gallery in 1957 on Santa Monica Boulevard in Los Angeles. He showed work by Jacobs and other California artists. In 1958, he closed the gallery and moved to New York, where he worked for blue-chip art and antiques gallery French and Company—it had recently started a contemporary art program, which was helmed by art critic

Clement Greenberg Clement Greenberg () (January 16, 1909 – May 7, 1994), occasionally writing under the pseudonym K. Hardesh, was an American essayist known mainly as an art critic closely associated with American modern art of the mid-20th century and a formali ...

. Ellin returned to Los Angeles and reopened his gallery on Sunset Boulevard in 1960, where it remained until 1963. The gallery hosted an exhibition of work by

Niki de Saint-Phalle Niki de Saint Phalle (; born Catherine Marie-Agnès Fal de Saint Phalle; 29 October 193021 May 2002) was a French-American sculptor, painter, filmmaker, and author of colorful hand-illustrated books. Widely noted as one of the few female monum ...

and

Jean Tinguely Jean Tinguely (22 May 1925 – 30 August 1991) was a Swiss sculptor best known for his kinetic art sculptural machines (known officially as Métamatics) that extended the Dada tradition into the later part of the 20th century. Tinguely's art ...

in March 1962, along with the first American ''Action de Tir'' by Saint-Phalle in an alley off the Sunset Strip. Ellin died of

pneumonia Pneumonia is an inflammatory condition of the lung primarily affecting the small air sacs known as alveoli. Symptoms typically include some combination of productive or dry cough, chest pain, fever, and difficulty breathing. The severi ...

on September 16, 2011.

References

External links

* Finding aid for Everett Ellin papers, 1928-2013,

Getty Research Institute The Getty Research Institute (GRI), located at the Getty Center in Los Angeles, California, is "dedicated to furthering knowledge and advancing understanding of the visual arts".

, Los Angeles. Accession No. 2015.M.22. The papers document Ellin's professional life, including his work with the Everett Ellin Gallery, French & Company, and the Museum Computer Network. A small quantity of personal papers is also present. {{DEFAULTSORT:Ellin, Everett 1928 births 2011 deaths Museum people American art dealers American engineers American talent agents Harvard Law School alumni University of Michigan College of Engineering alumni Deaths from pneumonia in the United States 20th-century American lawyers