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Martindale, Andrew

    Full Name: Martindale, Andrew

    Other Names:

    • Andrew Henry Robert Martindale

    Gender: male

    Date Born: 1932

    Date Died: 1995

    Place Born: Bombay, India

    Place Died: Norwich, Norfolk, England, UK

    Home Country/ies: United Kingdom

    Subject Area(s): Gothic (Medieval) and Renaissance


    Overview

    Scholar of the late gothic and early renaissance eras; professor of Visual Art at the University of East Anglia, 1965-95. Martindale was the son of the (Church of England) Archdeacon of Bombay, India. He was educated at the choir school of Christ Church, Oxford and at Westminster School. He read history at New College, Oxford, and went on to graduate work at the Courtauld Institute of Art. There he came under the influence of Johannes Wilde (who first suggested the subject of Martindale’s 1979 book, Mantegna), Anthony Blunt, as well as the eminent medievalists George Zarnecki and Peter Kidson. He formed a particular bond with Christopher Hohler, from whom he inherited an appreciation of the importance of original documents and texts. Martindale’s early publication on criticized the work of Kenneth John Conant, a particular adversary of Hohler. He was one of the scholars Nikolaus Bernard Leon Pevsner tapped for the Buildings of England series. In 1959 became a lecturer at the Courtauld Institute and the same year married Jane Brooke. In 1965 Peter Erik Lasko persuaded him to join the new School of Fine Art and Music he was establishing at the new University of East Anglia. The school became a rigorously academic center of art history, popularizing the discipline as an undergraduate in England. Among his colleagues was the (then) young lecturer Eric C. Fernie. Martindale was a talented and enthusiastic teacher. He became Dean of the department in 1971, immediately involving himself in the negotiations for the creation of the Centre for the Visual Arts to house the Sainsbury collection, a a building eventually designed by Norman Foster. His Rise of the Artist, appearing in 1972, was a brilliant study of the hierarchies within the medieval patronage system. When Lasko left to become director of the Courtauld Institute in 1974 Martindale succeeded him as Professor. He was a founder member of the Association of Art Historians, supporting its annual conferences its journal, the important periodical Art History, first published in 1978. In 1988 Martindale brought out a book on Simone Martini, placing that artist in the broader historical context and reconstructing many of that artist’s partial works. He was at work researching a book on European palace decoration when he died at age 62. His essay in the festschrift on Hohler in 1981 is a glimpse at this research. Martindale was also a talented piano and harpsichordist. His work encompasses a broad range of historic areas emphasizing context of patronage, influences and the exchange of ideas.


    Selected Bibliography

    Man and the Renaissance. London: Paul Hamlyn, 1967; Gothic Art. London: Thames and Hudson, 1967; The Complete Paintings of Giotto. London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1969; The Complete Paintings of Andrea Mantegna. London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1971; The Rise of the Artist. London: Thames and Hudson, 1972, American title as, The Rise of the Artist in the Middle Ages and Early Renaissance. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1972; Andrea Mantegna, Historicus et Antiquarium. Inaugural Lecture, Norwich: University of East Anglia, 1974; The Triumphs of Caesar by Andrea Mantegna. London: Harvey Miller, 1979; and Borg, Alan, eds. The Vanishing Past: Studies in Medieval Art, Liturgy and Metrology Presented to Christopher Hohler. Oxford: British Archaeological Reports, 1981; Simone Martini: [the] Complete Edition. London: Phaidon, 1988; Heroes, Ancestors, Relatives and the Birth of the Portrait. The Hague: SDU Publishers, 1988; Painting the Palace: Studies in the History of Medieval Secular Painting. London: Pindar Press, 1995.


    Sources

    Kleinbauer, W. Eugene. Research Guide to the History of Western Art. Chicago: American Library Association, 1982, p. 118; [essays on Martindale;] Mitchell, John. “Preface.” p. xx, Lasko, John. “Andrew Martindale Remembered.” p. xxii., Fernie, Eric. “Andrew Martindale: An Oration.” p. 381, in England and the Continent in the Middle Ages: Studies in Memory of Andrew Martindale. Proceedings of the 1996 Harlaxton Symposium. Stamford, 2000; [obituaries:] Onians, John. “Professor Andrew Martindale.” The Times (London), June 15, 1995, p. 12; Gardner, Julian. “Andrew Martindale (1932-1995).” Burlington Magazine 137, no. 1109 (August 1995), p. 517.




    Citation

    "Martindale, Andrew." Dictionary of Art Historians (website). https://arthistorians.info/martindalea/.


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