Jermayne MacAgy (February 14, 1914 – 1964) was an American art museum specialist and professor. McAgy was born on February 14, 1914, in Cleveland, Ohio. Her father was Worthington H. and mother Rose Kathryne Noble. She received a B.A. in art history from

Radcliffe College Radcliffe College was a women's liberal arts college in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and functioned as the female coordinate institution for the all-male Harvard College. Considered founded in 1879, it was one of the Seven Sisters colleges and he ...

in 1935. MacAgy spent 1936 and 1937 in graduate school at Harvard University, the second of these two years devoted entirely to Professor Paul Sachs’ now famous class “Museum Work and Museum Problems” taught at Harvard's Fogg Art Museum. She continued her graduate work at Western Reserve University (now

Case Western Reserve University Case Western Reserve University (CWRU) is a private research university in Cleveland, Ohio. Case Western Reserve was established in 1967, when Western Reserve University, founded in 1826 and named for its location in the Connecticut Western Reser ...

) where she studied the philosophy and psychology of art with

Thomas Munro Major-General Sir Thomas Munro, 1st Baronet KCB (27 May 17616 July 1827) was a Scottish soldier and British colonial administrator. He served as an East India Company Army officer and statesman, in addition to also being the governor of Mad ...

as a mentor. She gained her doctorate in philosophy at Western Reserve University with a dissertation on the folk art of the Western Reserve territory of Ohio. She then started her career in the education department of the

Cleveland Museum of Art The Cleveland Museum of Art (CMA) is an art museum in Cleveland, Ohio, located in the Wade Park District, in the University Circle neighborhood on the city's east side. Internationally renowned for its substantial holdings of Asian and Egyptian ...

and worked there from 1939 - 1941. She met Douglas MacAgy at the Cleveland Museum of art and in 1941 they married. Although they later divorced, she used his name until her death. Shortly before their marriage, the San Francisco Museum of Art had hired Douglas MacAgy as an Assistant Curator, and in March of that year Jermayne and Douglas moved to San Francisco.

Career

MacAgy worked at the

California Palace of the Legion of Honor The Legion of Honor, formally known as the California Palace of the Legion of Honor, is an art museum in San Francisco, California. Located in Lincoln Park, the Legion of Honor is a component of the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, which also ...

in San Francisco for 14 years. Over the span of that time she held "positions ranging from curator to acting director" (Herbert 1998, pp. 31–32). Throughout her career at the Legion of Honor she established a reputation for her exhibitions that were presented in a new and dramatic style, as well as her focus on the museum's educational outreach. As a museum educator at the Legion of Honor she started a city funded program where other museum educators in the community could give slide lectures and installed mini displays in nearby schools. In 1955, she became the director of the

Contemporary Arts Museum Houston Contemporary Arts Museum Houston is a not-for-profit institution in the Museum District, Houston, Texas, founded in 1948, dedicated to presenting contemporary art to the public. As a non-collecting museum, it strives to provide a forum for visual ...

. There she "reinvented the space," especially by her use of new and diverse platforms of display that "included potted plants, beds of gravel and bark, temporary partitions, scrims, theatrical lighting, and pedestals of all shapes and sizes combined in unusual ways" (Herbert 1998, p. 32). Her exhibitions at the Contemporary Arts Association include

Mark Rothko Mark Rothko (), born Markus Yakovlevich Rothkowitz (russian: Ма́ркус Я́ковлевич Ротко́вич, link=no, lv, Markuss Rotkovičs, link=no; name not Anglicized until 1940; September 25, 1903 – February 25, 1970), was a Latv ...

in 1957, "The Trojan Horse: The Art of the Machine" in 1958, "The Common Denominator: Modern Design, 3500 BC- 1958 AD" in 1958, and "Romantic Agony: From

Goya Francisco José de Goya y Lucientes (; ; 30 March 174616 April 1828) was a Spanish romantic painter and printmaker. He is considered the most important Spanish artist of the late 18th and early 19th centuries. His paintings, drawings, and ...

de Kooning Kooning is a surname. Notable people with the surname include: * Willem de Kooning (1904–1997), Dutch American artist * Elaine de Kooning Elaine Marie Catherine de Kooning (, née Fried; March 12, 1918 – February 1, 1989) was an Abstract Exp ...

" in 1959. In 1959, she mounted her first exhibition at Mies van der Rohe's Cullinan Hall, a new wing of Houston's Museum of Fine Arts designed by Mies van der Rohe: "Totems Not Taboo: An Exhibition of Primitive Art," which earned accolades from

Buckminster Fuller Richard Buckminster Fuller (; July 12, 1895 – July 1, 1983) was an American architect, systems theorist, writer, designer, inventor, philosopher, and futurist. He styled his name as R. Buckminster Fuller in his writings, publishing more t ...

and

Rene d'Harnoncourt René d'Harnoncourt (May 17, 1901 – August 13, 1968) was an Austrian-born American art curator. He was Director of the Museum of Modern Art, New York, from 1949 to 1967. Background Of Austrian, Czech, and French descent, Count Rene d'Harnoncou ...

, director of the Museum of Modern Art. In 1959, she left the Contemporary Arts Museum to "teach art history and curate exhibitions for the

University of St. Thomas St. Thomas University or University of St. Thomas may refer to: *Saint Thomas Aquinas University, Colombia *Saint Thomas Aquinas University of the North, Tucumán province, Argentina *St. Thomas University (Canada), Fredericton, New Brunswick *St. ...

" (Herbert 1998, p. 32).

References

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Macagy, Jermayne 1914 births 1964 deaths American educators Radcliffe College alumni Museum educators