The Arthur M. Sackler Foundation was established in 1965 by the late Arthur M. Sackler, M.D. (1913–1987) to make the extensive Arthur M. Sackler Collections accessible to scholars, students, and the general public. The Foundation lends art from its collection of more than 1,000 works of art to museums, organizes traveling exhibitions, and has published eleven scholarly catalogues of the Arthur M. Sackler Collections. The Foundation also maintains the photographic archive of the Arthur M. Sackler Collections.
Arthur M. Sackler (1913-1987, 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.
The collection of the Arthur M. Sackler Foundation contains Asian art selected by and gifted from Arthur M. Sackler, M.D. and his family. The collection includes more than 1,000 works of art ranging from Chinese ritual bronzes and ceramics to Buddhist stone sculptures and the renowned Chu Silk Manuscript, the oldest existing Chinese written document.
The Arthur M. Sackler Foundation currently has works of art on loan to the following institutions:
Arthur M. Sackler Gallery
Smithsonian Institution
Washington, D.C.
Berkeley Art Museum
University of California
Berkeley, California
Culinary Archives & Museum
Johnson & Wales University
Providence, Rhode Island
Fitchburg Art Museum
Fitchburg, Massachusetts
Flint Institute of Arts
Flint, Missouri
The Frances Lehman Loeb Art Center
Vassar College
Poughkeepsie, New York
Frank H. McClung Museum
The University of Tennessee
Knoxville, Tennessee
Hallie Ford Museum of Art
Willamette University
Salem, Oregon
Kresge Art Museum
Michigan State University
East Lansing, Michigan
Mount Holyoke College Art Museum
South Hadley, Massachusetts
Museum of Fine Arts
Boston, Massachusetts
The Newark Museum
Newark, New Jersey
Picker Art Gallery
Colgate University
Hamilton, New York
Plattsburgh State Art Museum
State University of New York
Plattsburgh, New York
Old Jail Art Center
Albany, Texas
The Regina A. Quick Center
St. Bonaventure University
St. Bonaventure, New York
Santa Barbara Museum of Art
Santa Barbara, California
University of Virginia Art Museum
Charlottesville, Virginia
Asian objects from The Arthur M. Sackler Collections do well at auction wherby Chrisites achieved $3,285,875 and was 97% sold by lot (99% sold by value.)
“Tripling its low estimate, this sale witnessed established collectors, members of the trade as well as new buyers from all over the world,” Theow H. Tow, Deputy Chairman, Christie’s Americas and Asia said, “bidding for objects that reflected impeccable provenance, rarity, and quality. Competition was high across the board.”
