Eleanor Axson Sayre; Museum Curator Was Authority on Goya

Eleanor Axson Sayre, 85, an authority on Spanish artist Francisco Goya and a curator at Boston’s Museum of Fine Arts, died Sunday at her home in Cambridge, Mass.

Sayre, the granddaughter of President Woodrow Wilson, wrote numerous articles on Goya and built the Boston museum’s Goya collection into the best outside of Spain. Her many contributions to Spanish art were recognized by Spain in 1975 when she received the Lazo de Dama del Orden de Isabella la Catolica, and in 1991 when she received La Medalia al Oro en las Bellas Artes.

She joined the museum staff in 1945 as an assistant and was made curator of prints and drawings in 1967, a job she held until her retirement in 1984.