Arthur M. Sackler (August 22, 1913, Brooklyn, New York – May 26, 1987, New York City) was an American psychiatrist, entrepreneur and philanthropist.
He attended New York University School of Medicine and graduated with an M.D. In 1960 Sackler started publication of Medical Tribune, a weekly medical newspaper. He established the Laboratories for Therapeutic Research in 1938. He earned his fortune by gaining the rights to import and sell Valium in the United States.
He established a wide range of medical institutions bearing his name: the Sackler School of Medicine established in 1972 at Tel Aviv University (with his brothers Mortimer Sackler and Raymond Sackler), the Sackler Institute of Graduate Biomedical Science at New York University in 1980, the Arthur M. Sackler Science Center in 1985 at Clark University, the Sackler School of Graduate Biomedical Sciences and the Arthur M. Sackler Center for Health Communications at Tufts University.
Sackler was also a scholar of the arts. He endowed galleries at the Metropolitan Museum of Art and Princeton University, the Arthur M. Sackler Museum at Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts, the Arthur M. Sackler Museum of Art and Archaeology at Peking University in Beijing, the Arthur M. Sackler Gallery of the Smithsonian Institution, in Washington, D.C., and the Jillian & Arthur M. Sackler Wing at the Royal Academy, London. His brother, multimillionaire Mortimer Sackler, endowed the Sackler Library at the University of Oxford, England.
Arthur M. Sackler's daughter , Elizabeth A. Sackler, is a benefactor of the arts and sponsored the Elizabeth A. Sackler Center for Feminist Art at the Brooklyn Museum which opened in 2007. His grandson, Michael Sackler-Berner, is a musician based in New York City.
The Arthur M. Sackler Gallery, along with the Freer Gallery of Art, is an Asian art museum that helps form the national museums of Asian art of the Smithsonian Institution. Its collection includes 9,917 Asian art objects.
The gallery is located on the National Mall (in Washington, D.C.), directly behind the Smithsonian Castle. Its main gallery spaces are underground, and the building connects to both the Freer Gallery of Art and the National Museum of African Art. The Sackler's main entrance is situated off of the gardens of the Smithsonian Castle along Independence Avenue.
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The Sackler Gallery opened in 1987 after Arthur M. Sackler, a research physician and medical doctor, donated some 1,000 Asian art objects to the Smithsonian, as well as $4 million toward the gallery's construction. The highlights from his gift include early Chinese bronzes and jades, Chinese paintings and lacquerware, ancient Near Eastern ceramics and metalware, and sculpture from South and Southeast Asia.
Since 1987, the gallery's collections have expanded to include the Vever Collection, an important assemblage of the Islamic arts of the book from the 11th to the 19th century; 19th- and 20th-century Japanese prints and contemporary porcelain; Indian, Chinese, Japanese, and Korean paintings; arts of village India; contemporary Chinese ceramics; and photography.
The Sackler Gallery frequently hosts international exhibitions highlighting aspects of Asian art. Most recently, the Sackler hosted Garden and Cosmos: The Royal Paintings of Johdpur and The Tsars and the East: Gifts from Turkey and Iran in the Moscow Kremlin. International loan exhibitions have also included Timur and the Princely Vision: Persian Art and Culture in the 15th Century; Yani: the Brush of Innocence, featuring paintings by a 14-year-old Chinese prodigy; When Kingship Descended from Heaven: Masterpieces of Mesopotamian Art from the Louvre; Court Arts of Indonesia; Korean Art of the 18th Century: Splendor & Simplicity; and A Basketmaker in Rural Japan.
The Eugene and Agnes E. Meyer Auditorium, located in the Freer, provides a venue for a broad variety of free public programs relating to the collections of the Freer and Sackler Galleries, including concerts of Asian music and dance, films, lectures, chamber music, and dramatic presentations.
The museum was designed by Jean Paul Carlhan of Shepley, Bulfinch, Richardson and Abbott and was completed in 1987. Carlhan used pink granite exterior surfaces to relate to the Smithsonian Castle and gray granite to relate to the Freer.[1]
The Sackler Gallery is connected by an underground exhibition space to the neighboring Freer Gallery of Art. Although their collections are stored and exhibited separately, the two museums share a director, administration, and staff.
The Sackler and Freer Galleries house the largest Asian art research library in the United States. Open to the public five days a week (except federal holidays) without appointment, the library collection consists of more than 80,000 volumes, including nearly 2,000 rare books. Half the volumes are written and catalogued in Asian languages.
The archives is a manuscript and photograph repository dedicated to furthering the study of Asian and Middle Eastern art and culture, as well as turn-of-the-century American art. The archives collect, preserve, and make available documentary materials that support the holdings and research activities of the Sackler and Freer Galleries. The archives house more than 140 collections—amounting to more than 1,000 linear feet of materials—dating from the early 19th century to the present. The archives is open by appointment Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays, from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. and appointments may be scheduled by calling (202) 633-0533.
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