Grace M. Mayer (1901–1996)

Grace M. Mayer was born in New York City to an affluent family. She attended the Ethical Culture School and the Seabury School, and as a teenager, spent two years in Europe, where she was privately tutored. She attended Columbia University for one semester. During World War I, she joined the Red Cross as a nurse's aide, working at Roosevelt Hospital. Despite her family wealth, she sought a career for herself.

In 1930, she volunteered at the newly-formed Museum of the City of New York, then housed in Gracie Mansion. The following year, she was appointed Curator of Prints, a position she held until 1959.

Over the next three decades, she organized about 150 exhibitions at the Museum and helped with the formation of one of the world's most comprehensive collections of prints and photographs depicting views of New York City. In 1934, she organized the first important Berenice Abbott show in the USA.
In 1958, MacMillan published
Once Upon a City, a selection of photos from the Museum's Joseph and Percy Byron Collection, with text by Mayer and a foreword by Edward Steichen. Steichen then asked for her assistance with the Museum of Modern Art's upcoming exhibition called Seventy Photographers Look at New York, which opened in 1957.
Mayer took a leave of absence from the Museum of the City of New York and joined MOMA's staff as Steichen's personal assistant. She collaborated with Steichen on other important shows, including The Sense of Abstraction (1960). In 1961, Steichen retired as Director of Photography at MOMA, and Mayer became Associate Curator of Photography. She was appointed Curator in 1962. She organized the inaugural show of MoMA's photography collection galleries, which opened in 1964. She wrote the biographical outline for Steichen the Photographer (1961), a selection of his works, and the introduction to The Bitter Years: 1935-1941 (1962), both published by MOMA. She also contributed articles to the Bulletin of the Museum of the City of New York, Antiques, Contemporary Photographer, Aperture, and Audience. She was a member of the Advisory Council of the Village Art Center and a director of the Print Council of America.

After retiring in 1968, Mayer was appointed Curator of the Edward Steichen Archive at MOMA, a voluntary position.
In 1993, she was named Curator Emerita in the Department of Photography. During her tenure at MOMA, she built relationships with many photographers and a large personal collection of photographs.
In 1997, a year after she died, MOMA installed From the Grace M. Mayer Collection, a selection of works from her collection, which she had donated.