Jermayne MacAgy (

née The birth name is the name of the person given upon their birth. The term may be applied to the surname, the given name or to the entire name. Where births are required to be officially registered, the entire name entered onto a births registe ...

Jermayne Noble; February 14, 1914–1964) was an American art museum specialist and professor.

Early life and education

McAgy was born on February 14, 1914, in Cleveland, Ohio. Her father was Worthington H., and mother Rose Kathryne Noble. She received a B.A. degree in art history from

Radcliffe College Radcliffe College was a Women's colleges in the United States, women's Liberal arts colleges in the United States, liberal arts college in Cambridge, Massachusetts, that was founded in 1879. In 1999, it was fully incorporated into Harvard Colle ...

in 1935. MacAgy spent 1936 and 1937 in graduate school at Harvard University, the second of these two years devoted entirely to Professor Paul Sachs’ now famous class “Museum Work and Museum Problems” taught at Harvard's Fogg Art Museum. She continued her graduate work at Western Reserve University (now

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 ...

) where she studied the philosophy and psychology of art with

Thomas Munro Major-General Sir Thomas Munro, 1st Baronet KCB (27 May 17616 July 1827) was a Scottish soldier and British colonial administrator. He served as an East India Company Army officer and statesman, in addition to also being the governor of Mad ...

as a mentor. She gained her doctorate in philosophy at Western Reserve University with a dissertation on the folk art of the Western Reserve territory of Ohio. She then started her career in the education department of the

Cleveland Museum of Art The Cleveland Museum of Art (CMA) is an art museum in Cleveland, Ohio, United States. Located in the Wade Park District of University Circle, the museum is internationally renowned for its substantial holdings of Asian art, Asian and Art of anc ...

and worked there from 1939–1941. She met Douglas MacAgy at the Cleveland Museum of art and in 1941 they married. Although they later divorced, she used his name until her death. Shortly before their marriage, 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 ...

had hired Douglas MacAgy as an Assistant Curator, and in March of that year Jermayne and Douglas moved to San Francisco.

Career

MacAgy worked at the

California Palace of the Legion of Honor The Legion of Honor, formally known as the California Palace of the Legion of Honor, is an art museum located in San Francisco, on the West Side of the city. Located in Lincoln Park, the Legion of Honor is a component of the Fine Arts Museum ...

in San Francisco for 14 years. Over the span of that time she held "positions ranging from curator to acting director" (Herbert 1998, pp. 31–32). Throughout her career at the Legion of Honor she established a reputation for her exhibitions that were presented in a new and dramatic style, as well as her focus on the museum's educational outreach. As a museum educator at the Legion of Honor she started a city funded program where other museum educators in the community could give slide lectures and installed mini displays in nearby schools. In 1955, she became the director of the

Contemporary Arts Museum Houston Contemporary Arts Museum Houston is a not-for-profit institution in the Museum District, Houston, Texas, founded in 1948, dedicated to presenting contemporary art to the public. As a non-collecting museum, it strives to provide a forum for visua ...

. There she "reinvented the space," especially by her use of new and diverse platforms of display that "included potted plants, beds of gravel and bark, temporary partitions, scrims, theatrical lighting, and pedestals of all shapes and sizes combined in unusual ways" (Herbert 1998, p. 32). Her exhibitions at the Contemporary Arts Association include

Mark Rothko Mark Rothko ( ; Markus Yakovlevich Rothkowitz until 1940; September 25, 1903February 25, 1970) was an American abstract art, abstract painter. He is best known for his color field paintings that depicted irregular and painterly rectangular reg ...

in 1957, "The Trojan Horse: The Art of the Machine" in 1958, "The Common Denominator: Modern Design, 3500 BC- 1958 AD" in 1958, and "Romantic Agony: From

Goya Francisco José de Goya y Lucientes (; ; 30 March 1746 – 16 April 1828) was a Spanish romantic painter and printmaker. He is considered the most important Spanish artist of the late 18th and early 19th centuries. His paintings, drawings, an ...

to de Kooning" in 1959. In 1959, she mounted her first exhibition at Mies van der Rohe's Cullinan Hall, a new wing of Houston's Museum of Fine Arts designed by Mies van der Rohe: "Totems Not Taboo: An Exhibition of Primitive Art," which earned accolades from

Buckminster Fuller Richard Buckminster Fuller (; July 12, 1895 – July 1, 1983) was an American architect, systems theorist, writer, designer, inventor, philosopher, and futurist. He styled his name as R. Buckminster Fuller in his writings, publishing more t ...

and

Rene d'Harnoncourt René d'Harnoncourt (May 17, 1901 – August 13, 1968) was an Austrian-born American art curator. He was Director of the Museum of Modern Art, New York, from 1949 to 1967. Background Of Austrian, Czech, and French descent, Count Rene d'Harnoncou ...

, director of the Museum of Modern Art. In 1959, she left the Contemporary Arts Museum to "teach art history and curate exhibitions for the University of St. Thomas" (Herbert 1998, p. 32).

References

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Macagy, Jermayne 1914 births 1964 deaths American educators Radcliffe College alumni Museum educators