Robert Isaacson (1 September 1927,

St. Louis, Missouri St. Louis () is the second-largest city in Missouri, United States. It sits near the confluence of the Mississippi and the Missouri Rivers. In 2020, the city proper had a population of 301,578, while the bi-state metropolitan area, which e ...

– 5 November 1998,

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the most densely populated major city in the Un ...

) was a collector, scholar, and art dealer eulogized upon his death as "the Berenson of nineteenth century academic studies."Draper, James David (biographical essay). ''The Age of Elegance & Barbizon, Realist and French Landscape Paintings Including Important Paintings from the Collection of Robert Isaacson - Christie's, New York - 6 May 1999 - Sale #9152/9202'', Christie's New York, Thursday 6 May 1999.

Early life

An only child, Isaacson's personal fortune derived from his maternal grandmother, whose family found success in the fur trade; Isaacson spent early summers surrounded by aunts, uncles, and family retainers in his grandmother's ornate mansion in Leavenworth, Kansas. Despite an apparent reading disability, Isaacson was musically gifted; he was permitted to move alone at age sixteen from Saint Louis to

to study the harpsichord, although his only subsequent education in any organized sense was a summer at

Black Mountain College Black Mountain College was a private liberal arts college in Black Mountain, North Carolina. It was founded in 1933 by John Andrew Rice, Theodore Dreier, and several others. The college was ideologically organized around John Dewey's educational ...

. Isaacson spent several years in post-war

Rome , established_title = Founded , established_date = 753 BC , founder = King Romulus (legendary) , image_map = Map of comune of Rome (metropolitan city of Capital Rome, region Lazio, Italy).svg , map_caption ...

Florence Florence ( ; it, Firenze ) is a city in Central Italy and the capital city of the Tuscany Regions of Italy, region. It is the most populated city in Tuscany, with 383,083 inhabitants in 2016, and over 1,520,000 in its metropolitan area.Bilan ...

and

Venice Venice ( ; it, Venezia ; vec, Venesia or ) is a city in northeastern Italy and the capital of the Veneto region. It is built on a group of 118 small islands that are separated by canals and linked by over 400 bridges. The isla ...

exploring churches and museums, developing a formidable and deeply intuitive understanding of painting, drawing, and the evolution of artistic temperament. In Rome in the early 1950s, Isaacson dated the poet

James Merrill James Ingram Merrill (March 3, 1926 – February 6, 1995) was an American poet. He was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for poetry in 1977 for ''Divine Comedies.'' His poetry falls into two distinct bodies of work: the polished and formalist lyri ...

, who wrote candidly about their relationship in his 1993 memoir, ''A Different Person''.Merrill, James. ''A Different Person: A Memoir''. New York: Alfred P. Knopf, 1993. The couple visited

Istanbul ) , postal_code_type = Postal code , postal_code = 34000 to 34990 , area_code = +90 212 (European side) +90 216 (Asian side) , registration_plate = 34 , blank_name_sec2 = GeoTLD , blank_i ...

together—the visit proved a formative experience in Merrill's career—and the two men remained close friends until the poet's death in 1995.Merrill, op. cit., Chapter XIX, pp. 233–45: "It had been a folly to dream of seeing Istanbul in two days, yet a brief impression was better than none ..

Career

Upon Isaacson's return to New York, he became an art dealer almost by accident, taking on

Edwin Hewitt Edwin Hewitt (January 20, 1920, Everett, Washington – June 21, 1999) was an American mathematician known for his work in abstract harmonic analysis and for his discovery, in collaboration with Leonard Jimmie Savage, of the Hewitt–Savage z ...

's gallery at the request of mutual friend Lincoln Kirstein. Although the Robert Isaacson Gallery, located at 22 East 66th Street, represented the estate of Elie Nadelman and championed Magic Realist painters (including his favorite, George Tooker), Isaacson's growing interest and fascination with nineteenth century academic painting, an extremely unfashionable pursuit in the 1950s, would in time make him the paradigm of the scholarly dealer: his opinions and near-encyclopedic knowledge of the once-obscure field were sought long after the Robert Isaacson Gallery shut its doors (around 1970) and Isaacson began devoting himself full-time to curating and collecting. Isaacson played an important role in helping rehabilitate the reputations of

Lawrence Alma-Tadema Sir Lawrence Alma-Tadema, (; born Lourens Alma Tadema ; 8 January 1836 – 25 June 1912) was a Dutch painter who later settled in the United Kingdom becoming the last officially recognised denizen in 1873. Born in Dronryp, the Netherlands, ...

,''An Exhibition to Commemorate the 50th Anniversary of the Death of Sir Lawrence Alma-Tadema, 1836-1912''. New York: Robert Isaacson Gallery, 1962. Charles Bargue,

William-Adolphe Bouguereau William-Adolphe Bouguereau (; 30 November 1825 – 19 August 1905) was a French academic painter. In his realistic genre paintings, he used mythological themes, making modern interpretations of classical subjects, with an emphasis on the female ...

,Isaacson, Robert. ''William-Adolphe Bouguereau (catalogue)''. New York Cultural Center and Farleigh Dickinson, 1974.

Thomas Dewing Thomas Wilmer Dewing (May 4, 1851November 5, 1938) was an American painter working at the turn of the 20th century. Schooled in Paris, Dewing was noted for his figure paintings of aristocratic women. He was a founding member of the Ten America ...

Jean-Léon Gérôme Jean-Léon Gérôme (11 May 1824 – 10 January 1904) was a French painter and sculptor in the style now known as academicism. His paintings were so widely reproduced that he was "arguably the world's most famous living artist by 1880." The ra ...

,Isaacson, Robert. ''Jean-Léon Gérôme and his pupils.'' Poughkeepsie, New York: Vassar College Art Library, 1967.

Albert Joseph Moore Albert Joseph Moore (4 September 184125 September 1893) was an English painter, known for his depictions of languorous female figures set against the luxury and decadence of the classical world. Life Moore was born at York on 4 September 1841 ...

Mihály Munkácsy Mihály Munkácsy (20 February 1844 – 1 May 1900) was a Hungarian painter. He earned international reputation with his genre pictures and large-scale biblical paintings. Early years Munkácsy was born as ''Mihály Leó Lieb'' ( hu, Li ...

and Gaston La Touche, among others. In keeping with Isaacson's will, thirteen important paintings from his collection (including five Gérômes) were auctioned by Christie's on 6 May 1999 to benefit a charitable foundation. Records for the Robert Isaacson Gallery (1952–67), Hewitt Gallery, Durlacher Bros. and related business and exhibition papers are on deposit with the

Smithsonian Institution The Smithsonian Institution ( ), or simply the Smithsonian, is a group of museums and education and research centers, the largest such complex in the world, created by the U.S. government "for the increase and diffusion of knowledge". Founded ...

.Smithsonian Institution Libraries
Robert Isaacson search
accessed 25 May 2013.Smithsonian Institution, Archives of American Art
Robert Isaacson Gallery Records, 1952–1967
accessed 25 May 2013.New York Times

8 November 1998, accessed 25 May 2013.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Isaacson, Robert 1927 births 1998 deaths American art collectors American art dealers Businesspeople from St. Louis 20th-century American businesspeople