BATH – Margaret B. Zorach, always known to her friends as Peggy, died on June 8, 2019, at the age of 102. She was born in East Orange, N.J., in 1917, the daughter of Margaret Britton and Henry S. Harris. Raised in Wyncote, Pa., she attended schools in Cheltenham Township and graduated cum laude in political theory from Radcliffe College in 1938.
One week later she married Tessim Zorach. They lived in Greenbelt, Md., a Farm Security Housing project, until 1942, when they moved to Brooklyn, N.Y., their home for forty years. They spent their summers in Robinhood, with Tessim’s parents, the well known early American modernist artists, William and Marguerite Zorach. After staying at home to rear her three sons, Peggy returned to graduate school at Pratt Institute, from which she received a Master in Library Science in 1964.
Peggy became the art reference librarian at the Brooklyn Museum, eventually becoming its chief librarian for nearly twenty years. During her tenure at the museum she was active in professional organizations including the Special Library Association, where she chaired the museum division, and ARLIS (Art Reference Librarians of North American), which she helped found.
Tessim (who died in 1995) and she enjoyed travelling. Their interest was piqued by travels in South America (Ecuador, Bolivia, Peru, and Brazil), and they assembled a noted collection of pre-Columbian art from Ecuador. The bulk of their collection is now at the Herbert F. Johnson Museum of Art, Cornell University, but some also is at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Brooklyn Museum, and the Bowdoin College Museum of Art. Together they also travelled to Alaska, India, Sicily, Egypt, and Norway. Peggy, by herself, took other trips to Turkey, to Afghanistan with the Brooklyn Museum before the Russian occupation, and on the Silk Route in China, recalling crowds of happy, smiling people in Beijing in Tiananmen Square the day before the massacre. She realized a lifelong dream of visiting Angkor Wat with her eldest son and granddaughter, at the age of 88 still climbing to most of the temples.
Peggy and Tessim retired to Maine in 1982 to the summer home of William and Marguerite, which she worked assiduously to preserve as it had been during their lifetimes. In Maine, Peggy volunteered at the Bowdoin Art Museum, helping the registrar for nearly twenty years, and she was a member of the Georgetown Historical Society and a generous supporter of the Colby, Farnsworth, Bowdoin, and Portland Museums of Art. She was a fellow of the Portland Museum of Art. She helped organize the retrospective exhibition of Marguerite and William Zorach at the Portland Museum of Art in 2001-2002. She managed The Zorach Collection, LLC, an organization founded to promote awareness and understanding of the art of Marguerite and William Zorach.
She loved spending time with her grandchildren, living in Maine, gardening, art, and reading. She also did knitting and needlework, executing a number of collaborative needlework projects designed by Tessim’s sister, Dahlov Ipcar, the artist and author of children’s books. She thrived on intellectual stimulation. She was very progressive and was deeply distressed by current political events. She had many close friendships that lasted throughout her life, in addition to others she made after retiring to Maine.
She is survived by Tim Zorach of Georgetown, and his daughter, Rebecca Zorach and her husband, Michael Phillips and their son, Oliver, of Chicago, Ill.; Peter and Julie Zorach of Wilmington, Del., and their son, Ben of Cleveland, Ohio; and Jonathan and Cecile Zorach of Lancaster, Pa., and their sons, Alexander, of Newark, Del., and Nathaniel, of Detroit, Mich.
Memorial contributions may be made to the Georgetown Historical Society, Georgetown, ME, Bowdoin College Museum of Art, Brunswick, ME; or the Portland Museum of Art, Portland, ME.
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