Sacha Kolin

Who is Sacha Kolin?

Sacha Kolin was an artist of the mid-20th century. Kolin was born in Paris on May 9, 1911, to Ukrainian Jews Julius and Malwina Kolin. She spent parts of her early life in Argentina and Hungary before her parents settled more permanently in Vienna.

Kolin trained at Vienna's Kunstgewerbeschule and the Academy of Fine Arts before moving to Paris in 1933 to study under Naoum Lvovich Aronson. She exhibited at the Paris Salon from 1934 to 1936.

Concerned with the signs of Nazi persecution of Jews in nearby Germany, Kolin and her parents emigrated to the United States in 1936 and settled in New York City. The family was well-to-do, and chose prestigious Manhattan residences such as Essex House and the Esplanade. Kolin soon began exhibiting her art at venues including Rockefeller Center and the 1940 World's Fair.

In the 1970s, Kolin was an avid participant in third-party donations to museums encouraged by the Tax Reform Act of 1969. She would convince a museum curator to provide a letter indicating that the museum would like to add her artwork to its collection. She would then sell a painting at a discount to a wealthy collector. The collector would donate the painting to the museum, receiving a tax deduction for the market value of the painting. After Kolin's death, several artists and collectors were prosecuted for this scam.