Sara Tyson Hallowell: Pioneer Curator and Art Advisor in the Gilded Age

Description

The first full-length study of the life of Sara Tyson Hallowell, an American agent, advisor to collectors and artists, curator, and advocate for modern art. In the nineteenth century, women became leaders in a myriad fields but only Sara Tyson Hallowell was able to create a lasting career as a curator of exhibitions. Throughout her life Sara Tyson Hallowell continually challenged nineteenth-century expectations about the proper place of well-born women as she worked to make a name for herself in the Chicago art world of the 1880s and 1890s. Although her name may not be well known a century later Hallowell continues to command the attention of contemporary curators because the model she established and the skills she employed in her own work are those that are fundamental to success in the field today. Presenting the first comprehensive story of Sara Tyson Hallowell's life, Sara Tyson Hallowell- Pioneer Curator and Art Advisor in the Gilded Age, highlights the lasting influence and compelling story of Sara Tyson Hallowell.

DR. CAROLYN KINDER CARR is formerly Deputy Director and Chief Curator of the Smithsonian's National Portrait Gallery.While at the Portrait Gallery, Dr. Carr organized numerous exhibitions, each accompanied by a publication. These include Gaston Lachaise- Portrait Sculpture, Then and Now- American Portraits of the Past Century from the Collection of the National Portrait Gallery, and her last exhibition at the Portrait Gallery was Capital Portraits- Treasures from Washington Private Collections, co-curated with Ellen Miles. Her book Alice Neel's Women, served as the basis for the exhibition she organized for the National Museum of Women in the Arts. Dr. Carr also served as the chief curator at the Akron Art Museum in Ohio from 1978 through 1983 and has lectured extensively in the United States as well as in Japan, Korea, Great Britain and Singapore.

"One of the brightest facets of this book, as a work of documentation on the nineteenth century, is how thoroughly Carr has delved into archives and libraries to bring to light the life and world of this dynamic woman of the Gilded Age. [...] With an admirable investment in facts and details that can only be woven seamlessly together by the most indefatigable of researchers, Carr stitches into a structure of annual exhibitions the many diverse activities, interests, and friendships which Sara Hallowell pursued throughout her long and dynamic life, creating a vivid picture of a true pioneer in the curatorial field." - Taylor L. Poulin, Woman's Art Journal