Full Name: Sandler, Lucy Freeman
Other Names:
- Lucy Freeman Sandler
Gender: female
Date Born: 1930
Place Born: New York, NY, USA
Home Country/ies: United States
Subject Area(s): Medieval (European)
Career(s): educators
Overview
Medievalist and professor of art history, New York University, 1964-2003. Sandler was born Lucy Freeman to Otto Freeman and Frances Glass (Freeman). She attended Queens College, Flushing, NY, receiving a B.A. in studio art in 1951. A watercolorist working in a semi-abstract style, an interest in art history had been encouraged by an art professor Frances Bryant Godwin (1892-1975). She continued to Columbia University for a master’s degree in art history. At Columbia, Freeman studied under the medievalists Meyer Schapiro and John H. Plummer where the latter’s enthusiasm for manscripts drew her to the topic (Smith). Her M.A. was granted in 1957 with a topic on medieval manuscript marginalia. She married the art critic and historian Irving Sandler in 1958. Freeman, now Sandler, entered the Institute of Fine Arts, New York University, for her Ph.D. Studying under Harry Bober, she received her degree in 1964 with a dissertation topic on the Psalter of Robert de Lisle. She was appointed assistant professor at the University the same year by department chair Horst Woldemar Janson. Publication of her dissertation was initially thwarted by rerproduction permission for the images. Sandler received a National Endowment for the Humanities fellowship for the 1967-1968 year. Sandler was promoted to associate professor in 1970. Her book The Peterborough Psalter in Brussels and Other Fenland Manuscripts, appeared in 1974. She became full professor, 1975, acting as the chairman of department of Art between 1975-1989. Sandler received a second NEH fellowship in 1977. She was president of the College Art Association, 1981-1984. Sandler was finally able to revise and publish form of her dissertation in 1983 as The Paslter of Robert de Lisle in the British Library. She began lecturing at NYU’s graduate school, the Institute of Fine Arts, in the 1980s. In 1985 she was named Helen Gould Sheppard Professor of Art History. The following year she wrote the volume on Gothic fourteenth-century manuscripts in the important Survey of Manuscripts Illuminated in the British Isles, edited by Jonathan J. G. Alexander. She received a Guggenheim fellowship for the 1988-1989 year. This resulted in her book Omne Bonum, Sandler was name professor emerita in 2003. Sandler’s work built on the scholarship of earlier scholars of British medieval illumination, notably Eric G. Millar and Margaret Rickert (Smith). Her work on medieval marginalia and proverbs was expanded on by Michael Camille. She was editor of both the Art Bulletin and Gesta.
Selected Bibliography
[master’s thesis:] Formal Principles of Marginal Illustration in English Psalters of the Thirteenth Century. Columbia University, 1957; [dissertation:] The Psalter of Robert de Lisle. New York University, 1964, revised and published asThe Paslter of Robert de Lisle in the British Library. New York: Oxford University Press, 1983; [bibliography to 2003:] Smith, Kathryn A., and Krinsky, Carol Herselle, eds. Tributes to Lucy Freeman Sandler: Studies in Illuminated Manuscripts. London: Harvey Miller Publishers, 2007, pp. 15-19; The Peterborough Psalter in Brussels and Other Fenland Manuscripts. London: Harvey Miller/ New York Graphic Society, 1974; Gothic Manuscripts, 1285-1385. London: Harvey Miller Publishers/Oxford University Press, 1986; Omne Bonum: a Fourteenth-century Encyclopedia of Universal Knowledge: British Library MSS Royal 6 E VI-6 E VII. London: Harvey Miller Publishers, 1996; The Lichtenthal Psalter and the Manuscript Patronage of the Bohun Family. London: Harvey Miller, 2004.
Sources
Los Angeles Times, June 7, 1981; Times Literary Supplement, July 3, 1987; Nelson, Robert S., and Seidel, Linda. “Michael Camille: A Memorial.” Gesta 41 no. 1, no. 2 (2002): 138; Smith, Kathryn A. “Lucy Freeman Sandler: An Appreciation,” and Krinsky, Carol Herselle. “Lucy Freeman Sandler: From a Colleague and Friend.” in Smith, Kathryn A., and Krinsky, Carol Herselle, eds. Tributes to Lucy Freeman Sandler: Studies in Illuminated Manuscripts. London: Harvey Miller Publishers, 2007, pp. 9-12 and 13-14; “Notes on the Contributors.” in Hourihane, Colum, ed. Romanesque Art and Thought in the Twelfth Century: Essays in Honor of Walter Cahn. University Park, Pa: Penn State Press, 2008, p. xiv.
Contributors: Lee Sorensen