The Life of Dr. Oxnam, North Fork artist and Asian scholar

The home where Robert Oxnam lived with his wife, Vishakha Desai, is filled with warm sunlight on a Thursday afternoon. Artwork of all kinds abounds, including pottery and a striking sculpture made of driftwood Mr. Oxnam found on a nearby beach.

The basement of the Greenport home, on the campus of Peconic Landing, a stone’s throw from Long Island Sound, is part workshop, part sculpture gallery and part office. In so many ways, both floors of the house are a summary of the lives and careers made during the three decades Mr. Oxnam and Ms. Desai spent together.

One of several books Mr. Oxnam wrote, “A Fractured Mind: My Life with Multiple Personality Disorder,” sits on a coffee table in the living room. Published in 2005, it tells the deeply personal story of his struggles with what came to be diagnosed as 11 distinct personalities he had lived with since childhood.

Ms. Desai sat at the dining room table in the couple’s home and talked about her husband’s life — and recent death. Mr. Oxnam died April 18 after several years struggling with Alzheimer’s disease. 

His obituary, which ran in this newspaper last week, was written by the couple’s friend, journalist and filmmaker Amei Wallach. In it, she provided an example of the extraordinary lives many North Fork residents have lived — lives that perhaps few others know anything about until they are revealed in a final community newspaper notice. 

Now known as dissociative identity disorder, Mr. Oxnam’s mental illness, Ms. Wallach wrote, is “caused by the mind’s protective response to early childhood abuse — physical, sexual and psychological — by compartmentalizing unacceptable memories of trauma. Mr. Oxnam’s abuse took place in the first five years of his life. But it was not until 1990 that it was diagnosed.”

“My husband had a fascinating life and career,” Ms. Desai said as classical music played in the background. “He will be remembered for all that he accomplished.”

To sum up Mr. Oxnam’s career is to reduce it to superlatives: He was born in Los Angeles, the son of a distinguished family. His father, Robert F. Oxnam, an academic, was president of several universities; his grandfather, a Methodist bishop, was president of the World Council of Churches. 

Mr. Oxnam earned his Ph.D. in Chinese history from Yale University and went on to teach at several institutions, including Trinity College and Beijing University in China. 

In 1975, he joined the Asia Society in New York City, and became its president at the age of 38. Mr. Oxnam appeared on numerous television news programs talking about China, including interviews with Tom Brokaw and Walter Cronkite. He advised Warren Buffett, Bill Gates and former President George H.W. Bush prior to their trips to the People’s Republic.

“Robert became the voice of understanding China,” Ms. Desai said. An Indian-born scholar herself, Ms. Desai also went on to serve as president of the Asia Society. “The idea behind the society was that Americans needed to know about Asia. The society was doing things no one else was doing,” she said. “Offices of the society were opened up worldwide, with 14 centers now around the world.”

Mr. Oxnam spoke Chinese and decent French, Ms. Desai said. “Since he died, I’ve heard from so many people from all over. Most people have said to me that they thought he had the rare combination of an amazing intellect and an open heart. He treated everyone, no matter who they were, with respect.”

In 2005, the couple built a house in Southold in hopes of living a quieter life. They kept an apartment on Central Park West. They had been introduced to the North Fork by a friend, Forrest Church, a Unitarian-Universalist minister who lived on Shelter Island.

In his retirement years, Mr. Oxnam’s life as an artist began. That life is seen throughout their home — particularly in the basement, which became his studio. What is striking about his paintings and sculptures, Ms. Desai pointed out, is that he didn’t even begin his work as an artist until after 1992. 

“He was able to completely reinvent himself in those years, and in typical Robert fashion, he threw himself into it,” she said. Showing a visitor the driftwood sculpture, which dominates a corner of the living room, she said, “He found this on a Sound beach and brought it back.”

In 2020, when Mr. Oxnam’s Alzheimer’s disease was beginning to reveal itself, the couple moved to a home at Peconic Landing in Greenport. “Up until last November we were walking three miles a day,” Ms. Desai said. “Then, by December, it began to change.”

In March, Mr. Oxnam was admitted to St. Charles Hospital in Port Jefferson. In April, he was placed in the memory care unit at Peconic Landing, where he died April 18.

Asked how she would like her husband to be remembered, Ms. Desai sat quietly, holding her emotions in check.

“As a good man,” she said.