André Emmerich was not a typical new student when he matriculated at Oberlin in autumn 1941. Born in Germany and raised in Amsterdam, he had emigrated with his family to New York City in 1940, finishing high school there at age 15. The grandson of a noted Paris art dealer, André arrived on campus a sophisticated young man, fluent in Dutch, German, French and English.

Years later, after he had become one of the world’s top art dealers, James Yohe, a friend who heads Ameringer-Yohe Fine Art in Manhattan, asked how such an urbane teenager had taken to life in  small-town Ohio. “He smiled at me and said, ‘I loved it. For the first time in my life, I was exotic,’” says Yohe, whose son, Yujin, is currently a second-year Oberlin student.

That dry wit and affection for Oberlin stayed with André throughout his life. He graduated with a BA in history in 1944, at age 19, after studying with Frederick Artz, Robert Samuel Fletcher and Howard Robinson. He also worked under Clarence Ward at the Allen Memorial Art Museum, typing catalog cards, a job he got because of his linguistic prowess.

After graduation, André lived in Paris for 10 years, working as a writer and editor. But art was his true passion. In 1954, he returned to New York and opened the André Emmerich Gallery on Madison Avenue. The gallery eventually expanded to include branches in SoHo and Zurich. In it, André championed Color Field painting, showing works by major artists such as Anthony Caro, Sam Francis, Helen Frankenthaler, Al Held, David Hockney, Morris Louis, Kenneth Noland and Jules Olitski. He also organized important exhibitions of pre-Columbian art and wrote two acclaimed books on the subject.

“I think a good art dealer’s motto should be credo ergo exposito: “I believe, therefore I exhibit,” André wrote in his memoir My Life With Art, published in 2003. He also believed in Oberlin’s tradition of inclusion. In the 1950s and ‘60s, when leading galleries had quotas for female artists, he mounted shows by Ms. Frankenthaler, Beverly Pepper, Anne Truitt, Miriam Schapiro and Judy Pfaff.

André served two terms as president of the Art Dealers Association of America, was active on its board, and is regarded as one of the most eloquent spokesmen not just for the association, but for art. His gallery was sold to Sotheby’s in 1996, but he continued to direct it until 1998. He passed away in Manhattan on September 25th at age 82, and is survived by his wife, Susanne, and his sister Nicole Emmerich Teweles, ’47, of Milwaukee, Wisconsin.  

Throughout his career, André was involved with Oberlin, serving on the Allen’s Visiting Committee in the 1980s and ‘90s. “He was a very elegant man,” says Douglas Baxter, ’72, a fellow Visiting Committee member and president of PaceWildenstein, a top New York gallery. “A group of us had dinner with him last spring. He was not in good health but was still so gracious and elegant and curious about what was going on at Oberlin. André loved Oberlin.”

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