biography of Walter PACH (1883-1958)

Birth place: NYC

Death place: NYC

Addresses: NYC

Profession: Etcher, mural painter, painter, writer, lecturer, critic

Studied: CCNY; W.M. Chase & R. Henri at NY Sch. Art; L. Hunt; Paris.

Exhibited: Corcoran Gal. annual/biennials, 1908, 1945; Armory Show, 1913; S. Indp. A., 1917-42, 1944; WMAA, 1932-44; PAFA Ann., 1945-46

Member: S. Indp. A.

Work: MMA, WMAA; BM; CMA; PMG; CI; Newark Mus.; The Louvre, Paris; mural, CCNY; NYPL

Comments: Pach lived in Paris for a number of years and was one of the important early American writers on modernism. He also played a significant role in the choosing of modern French art for the Armory Show, accompanying Walt Kuhn and Arthur Davies in Paris (1912) to see the Steins' collection, and arranging introductions and visits to the studios of Brancusi, the Duchamp-Villons, Odilon Redon, and others. Davies and Kuhn hired Pach to act as European Representative and later as sales manager for the show. Teaching: Columbia; NYU. Positions: dir., "Masterpieces of Art," WFNY, 1939. Translator: History of Art, by Elie Faure (5 vols., 1921-30), The Journal of Eugene Delacroix (1937). Auth.: articles,Scribner's; Century; Harper's; Gazette des Beaux Arts; and books, including The Masters of Modern Art; Georges Seurat; Modern Art in America; Ananias or the False Artist; R. Duchamp-Villon; An Hour of Art; Vincent van Gogh (1936); Queer Thing, Painting (1938); Ingres (1939).

Sources: WW47; Falk, Exh. Record Series; Brown, The Story of the Armory Show, 69-72, 77, 81.