27 Facts About Walter Pach

Walter Pach was an artist, critic, lecturer, art adviser, and art historian who wrote extensively about modern art and championed its cause.

Walter Pach organized exhibitions of contemporary art for New York City galleries of the period.

Walter Pach was extremely helpful to Arthur B Davies, president of the landmark exhibition of 1913, the "International Exhibition of Modern Art," known as the Armory Show, as well as to one of its founders Walt Kuhn, by bringing together leading contemporary European and American artists.

Pach helped John Quinn and Walter Arensberg gather their collections.

Walter Pach secured individual works for museums, such as a portrait by Thomas Eakins for the Louvre, and Jacques-Louis David's The Death of Socrates for the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

Walter Pach was able to communicate personally with many noted artists in Europe and Mexico and mediate between gallery dealers and museum curators on their behalf.

Walter Pach's father, Gotthelf Pach, was a prominent commercial photographer who, with his family, ran the New York studio of Pach Bros.

The young Walter Pach often accompanied his father on museum assignments.

In 1903, Walter Pach graduated from the City College of New York with a degree in art.

Walter Pach studied with Robert Henri at the New York School of Art and went abroad to paint with William Merritt Chase in the summers of 1903 and 1904.

In 1907, Walter Pach moved to France and became part of the Gertrude and Leo Stein circle, and moved among the Parisian avant-garde, exhibiting with them and writing about their work and new artistic vision.

Walter Pach interviewed Claude Monet that year and published an article about him in the same periodical.

Walter Pach helped manage and teach in several of William Merritt Chase's summer art schools in various European locales.

Walter Pach was the only American artist to be closely affiliated with the Section d'Or group of artists, including Albert Gleizes, Jean Metzinger, Duchamp brothers Marcel Duchamp, Raymond Duchamp-Villon, Jacques Villon and others.

Walter Pach was responsible for securing loans from these painters for the 1913 Armory Show.

Walter Pach married artist Magdalene Frohberg in 1914, and their son Raymond was born at the end of that year.

Walter Pach began advising Walter and Louise Arensberg on their art collecting and introduced them to Marcel Duchamp in 1915.

Walter Pach helped organize exhibitions and raised money for a museum to be dedicated to the indigenous arts of the Americas.

Walter Pach was a friend of Jose Clemente Orozco and Diego Rivera and helped organize the Mexican chapter of the Society of Independent Artists.

Walter Pach thought of himself both an artist and a writer, despite advice from friends like art historian Bernard Berenson who urged him to devote his time to writing.

Walter Pach's writings include monographs on a wide range of subjects, social commentary on the art world, and a book on museum structures.

In 1923, Walter Pach wrote Georges Seurat, a book art historian John Rewald later cited by as an important text on the artist.

Walter Pach created a stir in 1928 in the art world with Ananias, or The False Artist, a well-known indictment of opportunistic artists and corruption in the art world.

Walter Pach considered Vincent van Gogh a seminal figure in the development of modern art and was the first historian to lecture on him in America.

Walter Pach published his well-received monograph, Vincent Van Gogh, in 1936, and translated the journals of Eugene Delacroix in 1937.

Walter Pach long championed the artists of Mexico and published an essay on Diego Rivera in 1951 for the National Museum of Fine Arts, Mexico, for its 50-year retrospective exhibition on the artist.

Walter Pach died on November 27,1958, in Manhattan, New York City.