Irving Sandler, Paul Mellon Distinguished Fellow Lecture 2003

In this autobiographical lecture, Irving Sandler talks about his years as an artist, curator, and teacher, while coming of age in the artist circles of Provincetown and New York. Sandler talks about working at the importance space of the Tanager Gallery, where he organized many programs and activities. It was this role that allowed Sandler to identify with the bohemian artists at the time, who were working with materialism, mass culture, and were full of high aspirations. These experiences for Sandler made him take into account three interacting factors for artists; the three dimensionality of nature, the two dimensionality of the canvas, and the artists own intuitive and imaginative feeling into both nature and painting. Sandler ends his lecture talking about two important points; the need to seek out the spiritual in art and the importance of understanding the artists vision, how this vision is expressed, and how the work can be significantly successful.