Eleanor Sayre

Eleanor Axson Sayre was born on March 26, 1916, at Jefferson Hospital in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. She was the daughter of Jessie Woodrow (née Wilson) and Francis Bowes Sayre, Sr. Her grandfather was President Woodrow Wilson, who served as her godfather at her christening on November 11, 1916, at St. John's Protestant Episcopal Church in Williamstown, Massachusetts. Her mother was involved with the YWCA and women's rights organizations, while her father was a law professor at Harvard Law School and served as Assistant Secretary of State under President Franklin D. Roosevelt, as well as a diplomat.

At age three, Sayre's family moved from Williamstown to Cambridge, Massachusetts. In 1923, they relocated to Siam (present-day Thailand), where her father worked as an advisor to the Siamese government until 1929. The family then returned to Cambridge. Sayre pursued higher education at Bryn Mawr College, earning a bachelor's degree in 1938.

After graduation, she sought a summer job and interviewed with Paul J. Sachs at Harvard University's Fogg Art Museum. She was hired to work in the print department, which sparked her interest in prints. She enrolled in graduate courses at Harvard under Sachs for two years and developed an interest in Goya, following a suggestion by Philip Hofer, the founder of Harvard's department of printing and graphic arts.

Sayre's early career included positions at the Yale University Art Gallery and the Lyman Allyn Museum in New London, Connecticut, in 1942. That same year, she worked as an assistant curator in the education department at the Rhode Island School of Design Museum in Providence. In 1945, she joined the Boston Museum of Fine Arts (MFA), working under Henry Rossiter.

In 1951, when Rossiter acquired the proofs of Goya's series "The Disasters of War," Sayre began studying Goya's prints. She secured a grant from the American Philosophical Society in 1954 to research Goya's prints in Spain. In 1959, she identified the earliest known drawing by Goya in a folio previously labeled as sporting prints from England, which contributed to her recognition in Goya scholarship.

In 1960, Sayre was promoted to assistant curator of prints and drawings at the MFA. In 1963, she received a Ford Foundation grant for further research in Spain, during which she authenticated a Goya miniature, leading to its acquisition by the museum. In 1967, she became the curator of prints and drawings, notably the first woman to head a department at the MFA since its founding.

Throughout the 1970s, she engaged in teaching print seminars at Harvard and published "Late Caprichos by Goya: Fragments from a Series" in 1971. In 1975, she participated in an exchange with Hugh MacAndrew of the Ashmolean Museum, living in each other's homes and collaborating professionally. That same year, she curated an exhibition titled "The Changing Image: Prints by Francisco Goya," showcasing 255 of Goya's works. The exhibition combined holdings from the MFA with loans from institutions including the Museo del Prado, the Art Institute of Chicago, the Biblioteca Nacional de España, and the British Museum. It traveled internationally to venues such as the National Gallery of Canada and the Lang Gallery at Claremont Colleges.

In recognition of her contributions to Goya scholarship, Sayre received a knighthood with the Lazo de Dama in the Order of Isabella the Catholic from Spain in 1975. She also curated a 1977 exhibit on Beatrix Potter, integrating her illustrations with a mini-zoo provided by the Boston park system.

Sayre retired from the MFA in 1984 but remained involved as curator emeritus. In 1989, she organized "Goya and the Spirit of Enlightenment," a comprehensive exhibition and catalog featuring approximately 200 of Goya's works, collaborating with international museums including the Museo del Prado and the Metropolitan Museum of Art. The catalog examined how Goya’s images reflect the philosophical and political context of his era.

In 1991, she was awarded the Gold Medal of Merit in the Fine Arts by King Juan Carlos I of Spain. Eleanor Axson Sayre passed away at her home in Cambridge, Massachusetts, on May 12, 2001. Her work established her as a leading authority on Goya's graphic oeuvre.