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Quinn, Robert M.

    Full Name: Quinn, Robert M.

    Other Names:

    • Robert MacLean Quinn

    Gender: male

    Date Born: 1920

    Date Died: 2003

    Place Born: Chicago, Cook, IL, USA

    Place Died: Tucson, Pima, AZ, USA

    Home Country/ies: United States

    Subject Area(s): Spanish (culture or style)

    Career(s): educators


    Overview

    University of Arizona Professor of Spanish Art; founder of the art history programs there. Quinn’s family moved from Illinois to New Rochelle, NY as a child where he was raised. After graduation from George School in Newtown, PA in 1939, Quinn entered Yale University where he remained until 1943. A chance visit to Arizona made him fall in love with the climate. He switched to the University of Arizona, married Jacqueline Strawn in 1944, and earned his B.A. the following year. He joined the faculty there that same year (1945), initially teaching studio art. Quinn continued to work on his graduate degree at Johns Hopkins University and in 1958 was awarded his Ph.D. By now he was teaching art history for the University. His book on a retablo from the Kress Collection added to the University of Arizona art museum was published in 1960. Quinn was promoted to full Professor in 1963. During those years, he built the department of Art History into first a B.A.-granting one and then into an M.A. program. Familiar with east-coast research facilities in art history, Quinn also developed the slide collection. He retired to professor emeritus in 1985, running a business in art appraising. He taught for nearly 20 summers in Guadalajara, Mexico for the University of Arizona. Quinn was instrumental in the founding both of the Tucson Museum of Art (initially named the Tucson Arts Center) and the University of Arizona Art Museum. An auto accident in 2003 greatly debilitated him and he died in a nursing home later that year.


    Selected Bibliography

    [dissertation:] German Art in Reference to the Protestant Reformation. Johns Hopkins, 1958; Fernando Gallego. The retablo of Ciudad Rodrigo. Tucson, AZ: The University of Arizona Press, 1960; The Colonial Arts of Latin America. Tucson, AZ: Tucson Arts Center, 1966; Krazy-Kat: the University of Arizona Museum of Art, Tucson, Arizona. Tucson: The Museum, 1972.


    Sources

    [obituary:] Arizona Daily Star November 6, 2003, p. B4.




    Citation

    "Quinn, Robert M.." Dictionary of Art Historians (website). https://arthistorians.info/quinnr/.


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