15 Facts About Sidney Janis

Sidney Janis was a wealthy clothing manufacturer and art collector who opened an art gallery in New York in 1948.

Sidney Janis helped as much as anyone to see that it was decided affirmatively.

Sidney Janis was born in 1896 in Buffalo, New York, one of five children of a traveling salesman.

Sidney Janis joined the Naval Reserve in 1917 and took courses to complete his high school diploma.

Sidney and Harriet Janis visited as many art shows as they could.

Sidney Janis later maintained that visual experience was more important than schooling in developing an understanding and appreciation of art and the artist.

In 1934, Sidney Janis was invited to join the Advisory Board of the Museum of Modern Art.

In 1939, as Chairman of MoMA's Art Committee, Sidney Janis helped arrange the loan of Picasso's Guernica to New York for the benefit of Spanish Refugee Relief.

Sidney Janis closed the shirt business to devote his time to writing on art in 1939.

Sidney Janis collaborated with his wife Harriet on books such as Abstract and Surrealist Art in America in which he explores the burgeoning styles of art rarely before discussed in America.

In 1952, Sidney Janis gave Jackson Pollock the first of three solo shows.

Sidney Janis continued throughout to show Giacometti, Mondrian, Arp, Magritte, Dubuffet, Duchamp, Leger, and Picasso, interspersing these exhibitions with solo shows and group shows of trend-setting contemporary artists.

Sidney Janis received the New York Mayor's Award of Honor for Arts and Culture in 1987.

Sidney Janis remained active at the gallery through his later years, organizing the unique Mondrian + Brancusi exhibition in 1982, when he was 86 years old.

Sidney Janis died at the age of 93 in New York in late 1989.