We’re sitting together at Joy Cafe in the Spring Garden neighborhood as birds chirp, a condenser unit hums, and fragments of conversation from other diners float by. We drink smoothies and cold-pressed juices and talk about ArtPhilly, her organization focused on amplifying artistic voices in the city, and her latest endeavor, a biennial called “What Now: 2026.” While the festival’s multidisciplinary, citywide theme examines the 250th anniversary of the United States’ founding document, the Declaration of Independence, Double Meaning shows that Saks is focused on building a festival that invests in Philadelphia’s arts ecosystem.
She sang at a very young age, inspiring a lifelong love of art and culture. When it came time to go to the University of Pennsylvania to obtain an undergraduate degree, she thought she would major in music or mathematics, but she changed her major after learning about art history. Something clicked — memorizing dates and charting important moments throughout history just made sense, she told the Observer. This newfound passion carried her through her studies. She met her late husband, Keith L. Sachs, before graduating in 1969. After graduating, she became a docent at the Philadelphia Museum of Art, where she continued to work for more than 40 years. When she returned to the museum after having children, she became a curator in the European Paintings Department, where she mounted an exhibition on Paul Cézanne, on whom she wrote her undergraduate thesis. In 1988, her husband became a trustee of the foundation.
The couple’s involvement in the museum changed her outlook on the art of public dialogue that can spark the motivation to share artistic experiences with others. “For the artist we had, we would always lend to any gallery if they asked for it, because we felt it was our responsibility,” she says. “Sharing it means a lot, but sharing it with people who care about it also means the most.” The couple began collecting art in 1980, initially focusing on the work of artists who grew up in the 1960s and 1970s. Today, Sachs is very modest about her art collection, and has casually given up donating a work by Anselm Kiefer to the museum. For her, collecting is not about building wealth or even prestige; What drives her as an art collector is the importance of acquiring works by artists of her generation and supporting people in another way. In 2013, she and Keith gifted their $70 million collection to the Philadelphia Museum of Art, which later renamed its contemporary art wing after them. As for the rest of the collection, she plans to bequeath it to the museum after her death.
When Keith died unexpectedly in 2018, she took on a role on the board. She describes the loss of a life partner as in Pixar’s Up, where the protagonist’s wife gives him a book before she dies. For most of the film, he is unable to open it because it makes him sad, but in the end, when he does open it, he finds empty pages waiting to be filled. Two years after her husband’s death, coronavirus struck, and Sachs decided she was ready to enter a new phase of her life. “This is where I am — I fill in the blank pages,” she explains, referring to her decision to found ArtPhilly.
“I’ve spent my whole career at the museum, and now I’ve come off the hill and met amazing people. It’s been amazing,” she adds when asked what building the festival has been like. First, she assembled a team that she met weekly: Bill Adair, John McInerney, and Tom Collins. They talked about how Sachs was disappointed at the bicentenary in 1976 and wanted to do better. When she approached the 250th anniversary team, they initially offered to put her on the arts committee, but, according to her, they also made it clear that art would be an afterthought in the celebration. That’s when she decided to create something herself. “Philadelphia is not any other city’s little brother. Philadelphia is a global city in its own right,” she asserts. The original team of four has expanded to include seven technical executives from organizations across Philadelphia. They met six times and together they built a roster of over 80 artists which they then sorted into 17 artists who would create 45 projects.
They looked at several biennial models while creating what would become ArtPhilly. One example that was similar in scope was Art and Design in Chicago, sponsored by the Terra Foundation. The initiative’s founders invested $5 million and generated $30 million, a six-to-one economic boost for the city, especially on the South Side. But more important to Sachs is the clear cultural investment in a neighborhood that has been neglected for so long. She views art as an essential vehicle for health and the common good as much as it is an economic driver.
The theme for 2026, “What Now”, grew out of conversations between the four members of the original team. At the moment when people reckon and commemorate the Declaration of Independence, a resounding question arises: Who are we? American identity has always existed in terms of myth-making, and the world has changed radically. At this point in our conversation, Sachs handed me a pen from the Haverford College exhibition.”Bicentennial City(2020), which is a charged celebration of the bicentenary of 1976. On it is a quote by Leonard Cohen that guided their early thinking about the show: “There’s a crack in everything, there’s a crack in everything, that’s how the light gets in.” Sachs sees this moment 50 years later as a tear in the artists’ brilliance through which to shine.
Legacy is at the forefront of Sachs’s life. Major art collectors quietly collect objects over the course of their lives or create large collections with names such as the Guggenheim Museum, Glenstone, and the Menil Collection. Sacks says she wasn’t particularly interested in that kind of legacy, but more interested in the legacy built by nurturing relationships in real time. With ArtPhilly, she took on the role of art curator, thus putting the community first. She responds with urgency to the contemporary artists around her, rather than merely passively acquiring new works. “Artists are our guiding light, and they are the best interpreters at any given moment in time,” she says. “How much do we need them now? But artists also have the power to not only make us realize where we are, they also give us hope, and they are the light.”
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