Pierre Apraxine (December 10, 1934 – February 26, 2023) was an American

art historian Art history is the study of artistic works made throughout human history. Among other topics, it studies art’s formal qualities, its impact on societies and cultures, and how artistic styles have changed throughout history. Traditionally, the ...

Biography

Born in 1934 in

Tallinn Tallinn is the capital city, capital and List of cities in Estonia, most populous city of Estonia. Situated on a Tallinn Bay, bay in north Estonia, on the shore of the Gulf of Finland of the Baltic Sea, it has a population of (as of 2025) and ...

Estonia Estonia, officially the Republic of Estonia, is a country in Northern Europe. It is bordered to the north by the Gulf of Finland across from Finland, to the west by the Baltic Sea across from Sweden, to the south by Latvia, and to the east by Ru ...

, into a noble family tracing its roots back to 15th-century

Russia Russia, or the Russian Federation, is a country spanning Eastern Europe and North Asia. It is the list of countries and dependencies by area, largest country in the world, and extends across Time in Russia, eleven time zones, sharing Borders ...

, his family relocated to

Brussels Brussels, officially the Brussels-Capital Region, (All text and all but one graphic show the English name as Brussels-Capital Region.) is a Communities, regions and language areas of Belgium#Regions, region of Belgium comprising #Municipalit ...

before

World War II World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...

. During a return to Estonia in 1941 to safeguard family property, his father was arrested by the

Red Army The Workers' and Peasants' Red Army, often shortened to the Red Army, was the army and air force of the Russian Soviet Republic and, from 1922, the Soviet Union. The army was established in January 1918 by a decree of the Council of People ...

and executed in

Leningrad Saint Petersburg, formerly known as Petrograd and later Leningrad, is the List of cities and towns in Russia by population, second-largest city in Russia after Moscow. It is situated on the Neva, River Neva, at the head of the Gulf of Finland ...

. Apraxine studied at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts and the Royal Higher Institute for the History of Art and Archaeology. In 1969, he received a

Fulbright scholarship The Fulbright Program, including the Fulbright–Hays Program, is one of several United States cultural exchange programs with the goal of improving intercultural relations, cultural diplomacy, and intercultural competence between the people ...

and moved to

New York New York most commonly refers to: * New York (state), a state in the northeastern United States * New York City, the most populous city in the United States, located in the state of New York New York may also refer to: Places United Kingdom * ...

, where he worked at the

Museum of Modern Art The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) is an art museum located in Midtown Manhattan, New York City, on 53rd Street (Manhattan), 53rd Street between Fifth Avenue, Fifth and Sixth Avenues. MoMA's collection spans the late 19th century to the present, a ...

until a union

walkout In labor disputes, a walkout is a labor strike, the act of employees collectively leaving the workplace and withholding labor as an act of protest. A walkout can also mean the act of leaving a place of work, school, a meeting, a company, or an ...

in 1973. Apraxine developed an interest in 20th-century

photography Photography is the visual arts, art, application, and practice of creating images by recording light, either electronically by means of an image sensor, or chemically by means of a light-sensitive material such as photographic film. It is empl ...

while employed at the Marlborough Gallery, learning under painter and photographer Paul Katz. Apraxine was part of a group of photography enthusiasts known as the "Eye Club," which included curator Françoise Heilbrun, art dealers André Jammes and Gérard Lévy, and collector

Sam Wagstaff Samuel Jones Wagstaff Jr. (November 4, 1921 – January 14, 1987) was an American art curator, collector, and the artistic mentor and benefactor of photographer Robert Mapplethorpe (who was also his lifetime companion) and poet-punk rocker Patti ...

. Apraxine co-curated several exhibitions, including ''The Waking Dream'' (1993), ''La Divine Comtesse: Photographs of the Countess de Castiglione'' (2000), and ''The Perfect Medium: Photography and the Occult'' (2005) at the

Metropolitan Museum of Art The Metropolitan Museum of Art, colloquially referred to as the Met, is an Encyclopedic museum, encyclopedic art museum in New York City. By floor area, it is the List of largest museums, third-largest museum in the world and the List of larg ...

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Apraxine, Pierre 1934 births 2023 deaths American art historians Estonian emigrants to the United States People from Tallinn