Margaretta Salinger Explained

Margaretta Salinger
Birth Date:	March 22, 1907
Birth Place:	New York City
Death Date:	March 8, 1985 (age 77)
Death Place:	New Britain, Connecticut, U.S.
Occupation:	Art historian, curator

Margaretta M. Salinger (March 22, 1907 – March 8, 1985) was an American art historian. She was curator of the Department of European Paintings at the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

Early life and education

Salinger was born in New York City, the daughter of Arthur A. Salinger and Adaline Sager Magill Salinger. Her father was a veterinarian. She graduated from Bryn Mawr College in 1928.^[1]

Career

Salinger became a cataloguer at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in 1928. She was a researcher, lecturer and writer for the museum for many years.^[2] She gave a popular series of free lectures on art appreciation at the museum in the 1950s,^[3] and traveled giving lectures in other cities.^{[4] [5]} She chaired the boards of the museum's Scientific Publication Committee, and Editorial Advisory Committee. She was named a curator in 1970, a few years before she retired in 1972.

Publications

A colleague wrote in 1986 that, "In all of her work, whether spoken or written, Margaretta Salinger strove to express her perceptive ideas with precision and grace."^[6] She frequently contributed essays to the Bulletin of the Metropolitan Museum of Art.^{[7] [8]}

• "Piazzetta's Drawing of a Shepherd Boy" (1937)
• "Christ and the Woman of Samaria by Caracciolo" (1937)^[9]
• "The Whitsun-Bride by Pieter Brueghel the Younger" (1939)
• A Catalogue of Early Flemish, Dutch and German Painting in the Metropolitan Museum of Art (1947, with Harry B. Wehle)^[10]
• "Representations of Saint Teresa" (1949)^[11]
• The Flower Piece in European Painting (1949)^[12]
• Vincent Van Gogh (1952)^[13]
• Masterpieces of French Paintings (Fifteenth to Mid-Nineteenth Centuries) (1955)
• Diego Velazquez, 1599-1660 (1956)^[14]
• Michelangelo's The Last Judgment (1963)
• French Painting of the 19th and 20th Centuries in the Metropolitan Museum of Art (1966 and 1967, with Charles Sterling)^[15]
• Impressionists in the Metropolitan (1968)
• Masterpieces of American Painting in The Metropolitan Museum of Art (1986, published posthumously)

Personal life

Salinger died in 1985, at the age of 77, in New Britain, Connecticut.^[16] There is a collection of her papers in the Metropolitan Museum of Art archives.^[17]

External links

• Sidney J. Waintrob and Abraham L. Waintrob, "Margaretta Salinger" (photograph), in the collection of the Buffalo AKG Art Museum
• WNYC American Art Week, Interview of Margaretta M. Salinger with Georgine Oeri and Louise Averill Svendsen (October 5, 1955), a sound recording available online at the Guggenheim Foundation

Notes and References

1. Book: Bryn Mawr College. Senior Class . Class of 1928 . 1928. Special Collections Bryn Mawr College Library . Internet Archive.
2. News: September 13, 1959 . Metropolitan to Give 6 Courses Covering Most of Art History . 2024-03-03 . The New York Times . 121 . en.
3. News: September 26, 1951 . Free Lectures on Paintings . 2024-03-03 . The New York Times . 27 . en.
4. News: 1964-05-07 . Art League to Hear Author . 2024-03-03 . The Times Leader . 3 . Newspapers.com.
5. News: 1952-12-03 . Dutch Painter Lecture Topic . 2024-03-03 . Ledger-Star . 13 . Newspapers.com.
6. Web site: Masterpieces of American Painting in The Metropolitan Museum of Art . 2024-03-03 . MetPublications. en.
7. Salinger . Margaretta M. . 1937 . Piazzetta's Drawing of a Shepherd Boy . The Metropolitan Museum of Art Bulletin . 32 . 2 . 38–40 . 10.2307/3255268 . 3255268 . 0026-1521.
8. Salinger . Margaretta M. . 1939 . The Whitsun-Bride by Pieter Brueghel the Younger . The Metropolitan Museum of Art Bulletin . 34 . 4 . 88–90 . 10.2307/3256345 . 3256345 . 0026-1521.
9. Salinger . Margaretta M. . 1937 . Christ and the Woman of Samaria by Caracciolo . The Metropolitan Museum of Art Bulletin . 32 . 1 . 4–6 . 10.2307/3255289 . 3255289 . 0026-1521.
10. Held . Julius S. . June 1949 . Harry B. Wehle and Margaretta M. Salinger, A Catalogue of Early Flemish, Dutch, and German Paintings in the Metropolitan Museum of Art: New York, Metropolitan Museum, 1947. 243 pages, 176 illus. $4.50 . The Art Bulletin . en . 31 . 2 . 139–143 . 10.1080/00043079.1949.11407861 . 0004-3079.
11. Salinger . Margaretta . 1949 . Representations of Saint Teresa . The Metropolitan Museum of Art Bulletin . 8 . 3 . 97–108 . 10.2307/3258079 . 3258079 . 0026-1521.
12. News: Shane . George . 1949-06-12 . Flower Painting/George Shane . 2024-03-03 . The Des Moines Register . 31 . Newspapers.com.
13. Book: Salinger, Margaretta M. . Vincent Van Gogh . 1952 . Metropolitan Museum of Art . en.
14. Book: Velásquez, Diego Rodríguez De Silva Y. . Diego Velazquez, 1599-1660. Text by Margaretta Salinger . 1956 . [London]

    printed in Holland

    . en.
15. Book: French Paintings: A Catalogue of the Collection of The Metropolitan Museum of Art. Vol. 2, Nineteenth Century . 1966 . Metropolitan Museum of Art . en.
16. News: Margaretta Salinger, A Curator Emeritus at the Met Museum . 1985-03-14 . 2024-03-03 . The New York Times . en.
17. https://www.libmma.org/digital_files/archives/Margaretta_Salinger_records_b19413130.pdf Margaretta M. Salinger Records, 1941-1974