Full Name: Anfam, David Anthony Neil
Other Names:
- David Anthony Neil Anfam
- David Anfam
Gender: male
Date Born: 12 May 1955
Date Died: 21 August 2024
Place Born: London, Greater London, England, UK
Home Country/ies: United Kingdom
Subject Area(s): Abstract Expressionist
Career(s): art historians and curators
Institution(s): Royal College of Arts
Overview
Abstract Expressionism scholar, particularly of the work of Clifford Still. Although born and raised in the United Kingdom, Anfam’s father was an enthusiast of American culture, which the younger Anfam credited to subsequent interest in Abstract Expressionism. As a child he contracted serious bronchitis which forced him to spend much time alone. His parents brought books on abstract expressionism from the library for him to read. Anfam credited his interest in the painting movement to that.
Anfam entered the University of London (the Courtauld Institute of Art) concentrating on art history. His PhD, granted in 1984, was simply called Clyfford Still, written under the direction of John Golding. Large even for art history dissertations, his three-volume work, with appendices, was nearly 500 pages. During those years of government austerity, Anfam was unable to immediately secure an art position. He worked for a time delivering Volvo cars to customers.
He lectured on art at the London University. In the late 1990s, the Thames and Hudson press was issuing smaller comprehensive guides to art areas under the series The World of Art. Anfam was selected as the author of the volume Abstract Expressionism, an art movement that had had almost no books written for non-art specialists. The book filled a niche for the interested lay reader and on college course reserves. It rocketed his profile in the art world. Anfam next engaged in writing a catalogue raisonné on paintings by Mark Rothko.
The book, Rothko: The Works on Canvas, became the standard for scholarship on the artist, identifying 830 works, many lesser known. In 2000 it won the Mitchell Prize for the History of Art, Amfam’s introduction singled out for commendation. In 2004 he was hired as Commissioning Editor for Phaidon Press (to 2012). Anfam curated the 52nd Venice Biennale of 2007 and Bill Viola’s Ocean Without a Shore. After the opening of the Clifford Still Museum in Denver, CO, the museum used Anfam’s knowledge of the artist and his work to name him senior consulting curator and the director of its research center.
In 2016 he co-curated with Edith Devaney the survey exhibition Abstract Expressionism at the Royal Academy of Arts in London where both worked. The same year his life partner, the conservator Frederick Bearman, died. Between 2019 and 2020, he curated the exhibition in Athens “Lynda Benglis: In the Realm of the Senses”.
A modernist, he authored catalogue essays for modern art including those of Wayne Thiebaud, Willem de Kooning, Arshile Gorky, Philip Guston, Edward Hopper, Franz Kline, Lee Krasner, Joan Mitchell, Jackson Pollock, Larry Poons, Richard Pousette-Dart, Robert Rauschenberg and Ad Reinhardt. Anfam held a teaching position at the Royal Academy of Arts. His scholarly contributions to those artists added understanding and appreciation of the New York School.
Selected Bibliography
- Mark Rothko: the Works on Canvas: catalogue raisonné. New Haven: Yale University Press/Washington, DC: National Gallery of Art, 1998.
- and Demetrion, James T., ed., Benezra, Neal, and Adams, Brooks. Clyfford Still: Paintings, 1944-1960. Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Smithsonian Institution/New Haven: Yale University Press, 2001.
- and Collins, Bradford R.ed. Mark Rothko: the Decisive Decade, 1940-1950. New York: Skira Rizzoli., 2012.
- Jackson Pollock’s Mural: Energy made Visible. London: Thames & Hudson, 2015.
- Abstract Expressionism. London : Royal Academy of Arts, 2016.
- and Soble, Dean. Clyfford Still: the Late Works. New York : Rizzoli Electra/Still Museum, 2020
Sources
[obituaries]
- David Anfam (website) https://www.davidanfam.com/
- Risen, Clay. “David Anfam, Leading Scholar of Abstract Expressionism” New York Times October 9, 2024 https://www.nytimes.com/2024/10/09/arts/david-anfam-dead.html
- “David Anfam (1955–2024)”. Artforum. August 27, 2024.
- Jebb, Louis. “In Memoriam.” Art Newspaper. no. 371 (October 2024): 58.
- Greenberger, Alex. “David Anfam, Art Historian Who Rewrote the History of Abstract Expressionism, Dies at 69”. Artnews. August 23, 2024.
- “David Anfam with John Yau” Brooklyn Rail (December 2009/January 2010) https://brooklynrail.org/2009/12/art/david-anfam-with-john-yau/