Douglas Guernsey MacAgy (June 8, 1913 – September 6, 1973) Canadian-born American curator, museum director, art historian, author, and academic administrator. He served as the director of the

California School of Fine Arts San Francisco Art Institute (SFAI) was a private college of contemporary art in San Francisco, California. Founded in 1871, SFAI was one of the oldest art schools in the United States and the oldest west of the Mississippi River. Approximately ...

(later known as San Francisco Art Institute) in San Francisco from 1945 to 1950.

Early life and education

Douglas G. MacAgy was born in 1913, in

Winnipeg Winnipeg () is the capital and largest city of the Provinces and territories of Canada, Canadian province of Manitoba. It is centred on the confluence of the Red River of the North, Red and Assiniboine River, Assiniboine rivers. , Winnipeg h ...

. He attended the

University of Toronto The University of Toronto (UToronto or U of T) is a public university, public research university whose main campus is located on the grounds that surround Queen's Park (Toronto), Queen's Park in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. It was founded by ...

, the

Barnes Foundation The Barnes Foundation is an art collection and educational institution promoting the appreciation of art and horticulture. Originally in Merion, the art collection moved in 2012 to a new building on Benjamin Franklin Parkway in Philadelphia, ...

, the

Courtauld Institute of Art The Courtauld Institute of Art (), commonly referred to as The Courtauld, is a self-governing college of the University of London specialising in the study of the history of art and conservation. The art collection is known particularly for ...

of the University of London, the

University of Pennsylvania The University of Pennsylvania (Penn or UPenn) is a Private university, private Ivy League research university in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States. One of nine colonial colleges, it was chartered in 1755 through the efforts of f ...

, the

Cleveland School of Art The Cleveland Institute of Art, previously Cleveland School of Art, is a private college focused on art and design and located in Cleveland, Ohio. History The college was founded in 1882 as the Western Reserve School of Design for Women, at f ...

(now Cleveland Institute of Art) and

Case Western Reserve University Case Western Reserve University (CWRU) is a Private university, private research university in Cleveland, Ohio, United States. It was established in 1967 by a merger between Western Reserve University and the Case Institute of Technology. Case ...

. His first marriage was in 1941 to art historian Jermayne Noble for a number of years, and ended in divorce. MacAgy was remarried in 1955 to Elizabeth Tillett (1930–1980).

Career

In 1941, he worked as an assistant curator to

Grace Morley Grace Louise McCann Morley (November 3, 1900 – January 8, 1985) was a museologist of global influence. She was the first director of the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (formerly the San Francisco Museum of Art) and held the position for 23 ...

, who was the director of the

San Francisco Museum of Art The San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (SFMOMA) is a modern and contemporary art museum and nonprofit organization located in San Francisco, California. SFMOMA was the first museum on the West Coast devoted solely to 20th-century art, and has b ...

(now San Francisco Museum of Modern Art). He was later promoted to curator. From 1945 until 1950, MacAgy served as the director of the

(later known as the San Francisco Art Institute) in

North Beach, San Francisco North Beach is a neighborhood in the northeast of San Francisco adjacent to Chinatown, the Financial District, and Russian Hill. The neighborhood is San Francisco's "Little Italy" and has historically been home to a large Italian American popul ...

, succeeding William A. Gaw. MacAgy transformed the school through his promotion of

Modernism Modernism was an early 20th-century movement in literature, visual arts, and music that emphasized experimentation, abstraction, and Subjectivity and objectivity (philosophy), subjective experience. Philosophy, politics, architecture, and soc ...

. When he resigned from the role at CSFA in 1950 he was succeeded by Ernest Karl Mundt, and MacAgy started a new role as the executive director of Orbit Films. MacAgy was a special consultant to the director of the Museum of Modern Art in New York City; and also worked as director of research for an art dealer in New York City, Wildenstein & Company. MacAgy served as the director of the Dallas Museum of Contemporary Arts (now merged to form the

Dallas Museum of Art The Dallas Museum of Art (DMA) is an art museum located in the Arts District of downtown Dallas, Texas, along Woodall Rodgers Freeway between St. Paul and Harwood. In the 1970s, the museum moved from its previous location in Fair Park to the A ...

) from 1959 to 1963. Under his leadership, the Dallas Museum of Contemporary Arts had merged in 1963 to form the

. MacAgy was the director of national exhibitions at the

National Endowment for the Arts The National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) is an independent agency of the United States federal government that offers support and funding for projects exhibiting artistic excellence. It was created in 1965 as an independent agency of the feder ...

, from 1968 to 1972. In 1972, he was selected as the curator of the

Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden The Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden is an art museum beside the National Mall in Washington, D.C., United States. The museum was initially endowed during the 1960s with the permanent art collection of Joseph H. Hirshhorn. It was designed ...

in Washington, D.C.

Death

MacAgy died at age 60 on September 6, 1973, at Georgetown University Hospital in Washington, D.C., after suffering from a heart attack a month earlier. He is buried at Hillside Cemetery in

Deer Isle, Maine Deer Isle is a town in Hancock County, Maine, United States. The population was 2,194 at the 2020 census. Notable landmarks in Deer Isle are the Haystack Mountain School of Crafts, Stonington Opera House, and the town's many art galleries. ...

. Posthumously the book, ''Douglas MacAgy and the Foundations of Modern Art Curatorship'' (2015) by

David Beasley David Muldrow Beasley (born February 26, 1957) is an American politician and the former executive director of the United Nations World Food Programme. A member of the Republican Party (United States), Republican Party, he served one term as the L ...

was published.

Publications

* * * * * * *

References

External links

Douglas MacAgy papers, 1916–1973
from

Archives of American Art The Archives of American Art is the largest collection of primary resources documenting the history of the visual arts in the United States. More than 20 million items of original material are housed in the Archives' research centers in Washing ...

, Smithsonian Institution
Interview with Douglas MacAgy, between 1965 and 1966
from Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution {{DEFAULTSORT:MacAgy, Douglas 1913 births 1973 deaths Alumni of the Courtauld Institute of Art American academic administrators American art curators American art historians Canadian emigrants to the United States Case Western Reserve University alumni Cleveland Institute of Art alumni People from New York City People from San Francisco People from Washington, D.C. San Francisco Art Institute faculty University of Pennsylvania alumni University of Toronto alumni