Helen Sanger

Helen Sanger (born 21 September 1923) served as the fifth Chief Librarian of the Frick Art Reference Library and the institution's first Andrew W. Mellon Chief Librarian, a position inaugurated in 1992.

Education

Born in Hong Kong, Sanger was educated in the United States, eventually earning a degree in Library Science from Columbia University.

Career

Sanger's first position at the Library was in the Photoarchive, but she later transferred to Public Services. She was appointed the Chief Librarian of the Library in 1978, taking over the position from Mildred Steinbach.

During her tenure, the institution initiated "The Spanish Project," the Library's response to the United States government's general request to American research institutions to initiate "major international projects" that would strengthen ties between the United States and Spain in preparation for the Columbian Quincentenary in 1992. The project initiated by the Library had three aims, all of which were supervised by Sanger: to complete an annotated checklist of more than 7,000 Spanish artists active between the fourth and twentieth centuries; to hone the skills of graduate students from Spain and the United States in art-historical research and introduce them to database creation; and to augment considerably the Photoarchive's holdings in Spanish art.

Sanger retired in 1994, although she continued to volunteer at the Library for the next several years.

Publications

• Spanish Artists from the Fourth to the Twentieth Centuries, 4 vols., 1993–96