Paule Isabelle Anglim (January 30, 1923 – April 2, 2015) was a Canadian-born gallerist, dealer, and curator. She founded and directed Gallery Paule Anglim in

San Francisco San Francisco, officially the City and County of San Francisco, is a commercial, Financial District, San Francisco, financial, and Culture of San Francisco, cultural center of Northern California. With a population of 827,526 residents as of ...

for approximately four decades before her death on April 2, 2015. According to a tribute written about her in SF Gate April 2, 2015, Anglim "endeared herself to the artists she handled with her unflinching commitment to work that she believed in. Her exhibitions encompassed the work of defining figures of the Bay Area Beat era and conceptual art sensibility, such as David Ireland,

Paul Kos Paul Joseph Kos (born December 23, 1942) is an American conceptual artist and educator, he is one of the founders of the Bay Area Conceptual Art movement in California. Kos incorporates video, sound and interactivity into his sculptural installa ...

, Tom Marioni and Jim Melchert."

Life and career

Born in a small town near

Quebec City Quebec City is the capital city of the Provinces and territories of Canada, Canadian province of Quebec. As of July 2021, the city had a population of 549,459, and the Census Metropolitan Area (including surrounding communities) had a populati ...

, Paule Anglim grew up speaking French. She was educated at the

Université Laval (; English: ''Laval University)'' is a public research university in Quebec City, Quebec, Canada. The university traces its roots to the Séminaire de Québec, founded by François de Montmorency-Laval in 1663, making it the oldest institutio ...

in Quebec and at 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 ...

. After graduating with a degree in sociology, she was hired by Catholic Social Services to be a social worker in San Francisco. She gravitated toward the art world via an interest in architecture. Her first business was called Architecture Art Service, and her first exhibition was a look at fine art in new architecture, mounted at the school of architecture at

UC Berkeley The University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley, Berkeley, Cal, or California), is a public land-grant research university in Berkeley, California, United States. Founded in 1868 and named after the Anglo-Irish philosopher George Berkele ...

. Early in Anglim's career she specialized in public art and the siting of sculpture in relation to architecture and public landscapes, working with

Alexander Calder Alexander "Sandy" Calder (; July 22, 1898 – November 11, 1976) was an American sculptor known both for his innovative mobile (sculpture), mobiles (kinetic sculptures powered by motors or air currents) that embrace chance in their aesthetic, hi ...

Henry Moore Henry Spencer Moore (30 July 1898 – 31 August 1986) was an English artist. He is best known for his semi-abstract art, abstract monumental Bronze sculpture, bronze sculptures which are located around the world as public works of art. Moore ...

, and

Isamu Noguchi was an American artist, furniture designer and Landscape architecture, landscape architect whose career spanned six decades from the 1920s. Known for his sculpture and public artworks, Noguchi also designed stage sets for various Martha Grah ...

, among others. She opened Gallery Paule Anglim in the early 1970s in North Beach and became popular for showing the fine art associated with the Beat scene.

Joan Brown Joan Brown (born Joan Vivien Beatty; February 13, 1938 – October 26, 1990) was an American figurative painter who lived and worked in Northern California. She was a member of the "second generation" of the Bay Area Figurative Movement.Gl ...

Bruce Conner Bruce Conner (November 18, 1933 – July 7, 2008) was an American artist who worked with assemblage, film, drawing, sculpture, painting, collage, and photography. Biography Bruce Conner was born November 18, 1933, in McPherson, Kansas. His w ...

, and

Jess Collins Jess Collins (August 6, 1923 – January 2, 2004), simply known today as Jess, was an American visual artist. Biography Jess was born Burgess Franklin Collins in Long Beach, California. He was drafted into the military and worked on the produc ...

segued into the Conceptual Art movement of the 1960s and ’70s, and brought Bay Area conceptual artists to international attention. In the 1980s, the gallery moved to Geary Street and continued to show sculpture, installation, video, performance, and conceptual art. Anglim met her near-contemporary

Louise Bourgeois Louise Joséphine Bourgeois (; 25 December 191131 May 2010) was a French-American artist. Although she is best known for her large-scale sculpture and installation art, Bourgeois was also a prolific painter and printmaker. She explored a varie ...

in Paris, offering her a solo show in 1987, and represented the artist until her death in 2010. In 2007, Bourgeois' Crouching Spider, on loan from the artist, was installed on San Francisco's Embarcadero, epitomizing Anglim's longstanding commitment to the public realm. Another

Spider Spiders (order (biology), order Araneae) are air-breathing arthropods that have eight limbs, chelicerae with fangs generally able to inject venom, and spinnerets that extrude spider silk, silk. They are the largest order of arachnids and ran ...

, acquired from Gallery Paule Anglim in 1996, set records at auction when sold by a private collector for 10.7 m in 2011 and remains among the world's most highly valued artworks by a woman.

Artists supported by Paule Anglim

See Gallery Paule Anglim.

Personal life

Paule Anglim was married twice, to Charles Anglim and later to William Turnbull, both deceased. Her son

Philip Anglim Philip Anglim is an American actor. He is best known for his performance as John Merrick in the stage and television versions of '' The Elephant Man'', a role for which he received a Best Actor nomination in the 1979 Tony Awards. Other notable ...

became an award-winning stage and television actor. Anglim preferred not to share her birth date. She held an annual "Epiphany Party" in January at her home, across the street from the

San Francisco Art Institute San Francisco Art Institute (SFAI) was a Private college, private art school, 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 Mis ...

. Her sparsely furnished Russian Hill home, where she hosted salons and dinners, housed her personal art collection, including works of Francis Picabia, Rebecca Horn, and Marcel Duchamp, among others.

References

External links

*http://www.gallerypauleanglim.com {{DEFAULTSORT:Anglim, Paule Canadian art dealers Canadian art curators 1923 births 2015 deaths Canadian women curators University of Toronto alumni Université Laval alumni