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Roe, Helen M.

Full Name: Roe, Helen Maybury

Other Names:

  • Helen Roe

Gender: female

Date Born: unknown

Date Died: unknown

Place Born: Mountrath, County Laois, Ireland

Place Died: Killiney, Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown, Dublin, Ireland

Home Country/ies: Ireland


Overview

Roe was born on December 18, 1895, the only child of Anne Lambert Shields and William Ernest Roe in the town of Mountrath, Ireland. Her mother’s side came from Birr, Co. Offaly and her father’s had lived in Mountrath since the seventeenth century, working at the family owned mill. Roe attended primary school in Mountrath and secondary school in the nearby Abbeyleix, the private school of Mrs. Robert Wild. During WWI, Roe joined the St. John’s Ambulance Brigade, serving as a volunteer at the Cambridge Military Hospital and as a cook at Aldershot Barracks in England. She had attempted to volunteer Aldershot Barracks in England, the center of the British power, as a nurse but was denied.

Soon after, returning to Ireland, she worked briefly at the Military Hospital in Bray, Co. Wicklow, where the majority of the soldiers were Irish. By the end of the war, Roe had cemented a strong feeling of nationalism towards her home country of Ireland. Despite her Protestant roots, after the 1916 Rising, British soldiers spat on her as she passed. This shift in perception of her own national identity shaped the rest of her career. After the war, Roe traveled throughout Europe as a private tutor and visited a number of Greek, Italian, and English museums. This shaped how she viewed Irish art in the context of the art she had seen around Europe. She also began to develop an interest in iconography, arising from her studies of botany and heraldry.

In 1921, Roe earned a BA in Modern Languages and in 1924, a Master’s degree from Trinity College, Dublin. After graduation, Roe taught briefly at the Royal School in Dungannon, Tyronne and then in Alexandra College, Dublin. In 1923, Roe joined the Carnegie Library Service at Coleraine, Co. Londonderry, Northern Ireland. At this time, Roe worked also as an assistant to essayist and scholar Hubert Butler. One year later, in 1924, she soon returned to the Midlands to take care of her parents after the failure of the family mill and due to her parents’ failing health. She transferred to the library at Thurles, Co. Tipperary to work as an assistant. In 1926, Roe became the first person to hold the post of County Librarian in Laois, sparking the beginning of her interest in history. She began to collect artifacts that would later become a part of the Laois County Museum’s collection. She also kept in close contact with the National Museum of Ireland and produced bi-yearly Reports of the Laoighis Country Library Service, later reproduced in the Leinster Express for fourteen years. Throughout her library service, she often published under the Irish spelling of her name, Eibhlín Ní Ruaidh, as an expression of her Irish nationalism. Her publications while working as a librarian were often constrained, as she wrote under pseudonyms and focused on the articles required by her employment. During this time period, Roe would travel around Ireland, giving speeches on antiquities of Laois to schools and local meetings. In 1937, Roe published an article for the first time in the Journal of the Royal Society of Antiquaries of Ireland (JRSAI) on a local monument. She also devised an extensive glass-slide collection on the antiquities and history of Co. Laois.

In 1939, Roe retired from library service to focus on the history of medieval Ireland, photography sites and traveling around the country. Her delayed admission into the academic field was due to her membership in the Protestant minority. She had been the only Protestant county librarian in the Free State, as many fled or sought refugee in the new nation. Around this time, Roe became a companion of amateur archaeologist Lord Walter FitzGerald. She volunteered on the excavation of the famous Neolithic sites of Fourknocks under P.J. Hartnett and Knowth with archaeologist John Bromwich and Celtic scholar Rachel Bromwich in Meath and contributed to the publication of the excavation reports, namely in Journal of the Royal Society of Antiquaries of Ireland. She joined the Royal Society of Antiquaries of Ireland, becoming a regular frequenter of its evening lectures and often used their library. Roe also studied with fellow student, Nóra Ní Shúilliobháin, across Ireland, who quickly became a close friend. Roe worked to save the tombs of Bishop Thomas (13th century) and Bishop Walter Wellesley (16th century).

In the next 48 years after her retirement from library service, she published 37 articles in the Journal of the Royal Society of Antiquaries of Ireland and contributed to journals such as An Leabharlann, Bealoideas, Seanchas Ard Mhacha, and Carloviana. She would also regularly have articles in the Irish Press and Leinster Express. Her research often focused on topics like medieval art history and religious history, investigating pieces like baptismal fonts and illustrations of Trinity College. In 1947, Roe published her research into the medieval period in the article “Two Baptismal Fonts in County Laoighis,” a piece that gained her much praise. In 1949, Roe published her most famous work, “The ‘David Cycle’ in Early Irish Art,” attempting to prove that the figural scenes came from the life of David from the Old Testament on Irish High Crosses. She wrote this to disapprove of the interpretations of Eric Sexton and  A. Kingsley Porter. In the early 1950s, Roe visited the Armagh area, later publishing the first systematic survey of the High Crosses in 1954 and 1955 in Seanchas Ardmahacha. During these visits, she would often be driven around by Catholic curate Thomas O’Fíach, archbishop of Armagh who later became a historian. In 1958, Roe published “The high crosses of Western Ossory” and one year later, “High Crosses of Kells.” She hoped to keep these publications compact and affordable, particularly based on her years in library work. After these publications, she became more interested in medieval tomb sculpture, medieval fonts, and other primarily religious topics.

In 1965, Roe became the first woman to be elected president of the Royal Society of Antiquaries of Ireland, a position she held until 1968. In 1981, Roe was the principal speaker at the inaugural meeting of the Federation of Local History Societies. During this year, Roe published another booklet on High Crosses, titled “Monasterboice and its Monuments,” a piece that she collaborated on with Rory O’Farrell, the chairman of the trustees of the Cambrian Archaeological Association. In 1984, she was elected a member of the Royal Irish Academy. She continued to lecture across the country into her nineties. In her later years, Roe was unable to visit as many sites because of her health. On May 28, 1988, Helen Roe died at Grove Nursing Home in Killiney, Co. Dublin. She was buried beside her parents at St. Peter’s Church cemetery in Mountrath, Co. Laois. Her grave was specially designed to match a life of funerary monument scholarship.

A fellow historian, Siobhán de hOir claimed, “An evening with Miss Roe in her home might last long into the night as she dispensed good and practical advice or while she found yet another reference from her large library.” Patrick E. Wallace, director of the National Museum of Ireland, further described Roe as “one of Ireland’s greatest medievalists…A thorough and well published scholar, particularly in the iconography of our carved stone crosses and of the physical evidence for medieval Christian devotion, Roe was remarkably generous with her knowledge and celebrated for her encouragement of young archaeologists, art historians, and genealogists whom she inspired.” Art historian Peter Harbison additionally wrote, that Roe’s “charming prose which reflects the warmth of that personality which has made Roe one of our most captivating antiquarians, so widely loved beyond her native lands.” Her student, senior Irish professor of archaeology Etienne Rynne states, “She made the study of Early Christian and Medieval periods respectable.” John Bradley placed her work alongside fellow art historians, Margaret Stokes and Françoise Henry, claiming that her success arises from a “broaden[ing of] the study of early Irish art and a deepen[ing of] the body of information that had been gathered by Stokes and Henry by focusing her attention on iconography of Irish art before 1170.”

In an obituary, speaking of Roe’s extensive knowledge in various subject areas and how she brought that to her work in art history, her peer and friend, Nóra Ní Shúilliobháin wrote, “I have heard very few others bring from memory quotations from the Four Masters, the Bible, or the New Testament, to bear with exact relevance on this item under inspection.”


Selected Bibliography

  • “The “David Cycle” in Early Irish Art.” The Journal of the Royal Society of Antiquaries of Ireland 79, no. 1/2 (1949): 39-59. http://www.jstor.org/stable/25510685;
  • “The High Crosses of Kells.” Meath Archaeological and Historical Society (1988);
  • “The High Crosses of Western Ossory.” Kilkenny Archaeological Society (1976);
  • “Monasteries and Its Monuments.” Turner’s Printing Co, Longford (1981);
  • “Two Baptismal Fonts in County Laoighis.” The Journal of the Royal Society of Antiquaries of Ireland 77, no. 1 (1947): 81-83. http://www.jstor.org/stable/25510604.

Sources

  • Shúilliobháin, Nóra Ní. “Helen M. Roe.” The Journal of the Royal Society of Antiquaries of Ireland 118 (1988): 166-69. http://www.jstor.org/stable/25508956;
  • Chance, Jane. Women Medievalists and the Academy. Univ of Wisconsin Press (2005);
  • Seale, Yvonne. “Helen Maybury Roe – A Pioneering Historian of Medieval Ireland.” (2016) https://yvonneseale.org/blog/2016/01/28/helenmayburyroe/;
  • O’Brien, Andrew. “Helen Maybury Roe.” Dictionary of Irish Biography.

Archives


Contributors: Kerry Rork


Citation

Kerry Rork. "Roe, Helen M.." Dictionary of Art Historians (website). https://arthistorians.info/roeh/.


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Search for materials by & about this art historian:

Roe was born on December 18, 1895, the only child of Anne Lambert Shields and William Ernest Roe in the town of Mountrath, Ireland. Her mother’s side came from Birr, Co. Offaly and her father’s had lived in Mountrath since the seventeenth century,

Raven, Arlene

Full Name: Raven, Arlene

Other Names:

  • Arlene Rubin

Gender: female

Date Born: 02 July 1944

Date Died: 01 August 2006

Place Born: Baltimore, Baltimore Independent City, MD, USA

Place Died: Brooklyn, Cattaraugus, NY, USA

Home Country/ies: United States

Subject Area(s): feminism and Modern (style or period)

Career(s): activists

Institution(s): California Institute of the Arts


Overview

Feminist, pioneer art activist for lesbian artists. Arlene Raven was born into a middle-class Jewish family in 1944 in Baltimore, Maryland, as Arlene Rubin. Her father, Joseph Rubin, was a bar owner, and her mother, Annette Rubin, worked in the home. In 1949, Raven began attending Arlington Grammar School and Peabody Institute for Music, where she studied piano, then Garrison Junior High School and Forrest Park High School in 1958. While a student at Hood College, proficient in Spanish, Raven was an exchange student in Spain. She received a B.A. in studio painting in 1965. A year later, Raven broke off an engagement to H. Thomas Yocum to marry Tim Corkery. Interested in furthering her studies in art history, Raven received her master’s in fine art from George Washington University in 1967.

In 1969, Raven became the youngest faculty member at the Corcoran School of Art, Columbia division. After attending the Conference of Women in Visual Arts at the Corcoran School of Art in Washington, D.C., in 1972, she became more passionate about promoting the works of women in the art world. It was this conference that pushed her to leave the East Coast for California. She helped found the Women’s Caucus for Art founded at the College Art Association annual convention. One week before leaving, however, Raven was raped and kidnapped by two men in Baltimore, Maryland. When interviewed by Judy Chicago, Raven described the incident. Soon after, she divorced Corkery and changed her surname to Raven.

Arriving in California in 1973, Raven taught art classes at Cal-Arts, replacing Paula Harper in the Feminist Art Program. She worked as the teaching assistant for Judy Chicago and Miriam Schapiro. She also wrote an exhibition catalog (Hillwood Art Museum, Long Island University) on her future partner and artist friend, Nancy Grossman, in this same year. Raven received her Ph.D. in art history from John Hopkins University two years later.

On November 28, 1973, along with Chicago and graphic designer Sheila Levrant de Bretteville, Raven founded the Woman’s Building (1973-1991) and the two-year graduate Feminist Studio workshop dedicated to women’s art in Los Angeles. The building was designed to mirror a design by Sophia Hayden from the 1893 Chicago World’s Fair. The goal was to produce a feminist art education, as Chicago had started at Cal-Arts and Fresno State. It also housed the Sisterhood Bookstore, Los Angeles Feminist Theater, Women’s Graphic Center, a women’s travel agency, Gallery 707, Grandview Gallery I and II, Womanspace Gallery, and Women’s Improvisational Theatre. Raven led workshops on making art and feminist thought. The Feminist Studio workshop dissolved in 1981, as the Women’s Building moved to support minorities, single mothers, and working women in the arts.

By 1991, the year the Woman’s Building dissolved, the building had moved from a central downtown Los Angeles location to old Getty office buildings on the edge of Chinatown.

In 1977, Raven was founded the Lesbian Art Project, promoting the art of lesbian artists. During this time, she produced the notable work, The Oral History of Lesbianism. From the late 1980s to the early 1990s, she worked as the main art critic of The Village Voice, an alternative news and culture magazine in New York City founded in 1955. During that time, she served as a passionate advocate for women’s art, particularly the works of June Wayne, Lesley Dill, Petah Coyne, and Michele Oka Doner. Passionately disagreeing with a review by another critic in the Village Voice of an exhibition by Judy Chicago, Raven was fired.

Raven co-founded and edited Chrysalis: A Magazine for Women’s Culture in 1977 (ceased 1980). This magazine was funded by reader donations and the poet and feminist Adrienne Rich from the proceeds from her book, Of Woman Born. The five-member editorial board included Raven, Professor Ruth Iskin, poet Audre Lorde, Professor Kristin Grimstad, and Levrant de Bretteville. The magazine attracted major feminist scholarship by, in addition to Chicago, Mary Daly (1928-2010), Susan Griffin (b. 1943), and the art historians  Carol Duncan, Lucy R. Lippard and, among others, Linda Nochlin. Throughout their short publication, Chrysalis attempted to highlight a variety of female-identifying voices and give a space for feminist conversations. At its peak, Chrysalis had over thirteen thousand readers. One of Raven’s most notable works in this magazine was an essay with Iskin on lesbianism and art. The magazine had 10 issues before closing down due to lack of funding.

In 1982, Raven wrote June Wayne: A Retrospective on the artist June Wayne. Raven moved to New York City in 1983 forming a life-partner relationship with the artist Nancy Grossman. In 1990, Raven produced her work Crossing Over: Feminism and the Art of Social Concern. A year later, she wrote Feminist Art Criticism: An Anthology. In 1999, Raven received The Women’s Caucus of Art Lifetime Achievement Award. Beginning in 2000 Raven acted as the critic-in-residence at the Rinehart School of Sculpture. She was awarded the Frank Jewett Mother award for distinction in art criticism from the College Art Association in 2001.

Physically frail, she died of cancer in her home in Brooklyn, New York, in 2006. An exhibition in honor of the Woman’s Building at the Otis College of Art in 2012, Doin’ It in Public: Feminism and the Arts at the Woman’s Building was mounted by the American curator Meg Linton.

Raven was an “advocate-critic,” “[providing] key coverage to known artists who challenged the status quo… and even more importantly, to many unfamiliar artists who otherwise would have had no voice whatsoever” (Lovelace).


Selected Bibliography

  • Nancy Grossman. Washington, D.C.: Hillwood Art Gallery, 1973;
  • June Wayne: A Retrospective. New York City: Neuberger Museum of Art, 1982;
  • Crossing Over: Feminism and the Art of Social Concern. Ann Arbor: UMI Research Press, 1990;
  • Feminist Art Criticism: An Anthology. Boulder: Westview Press, 1991.

Sources



Contributors: Kerry Rork


Citation

Kerry Rork. "Raven, Arlene." Dictionary of Art Historians (website). https://arthistorians.info/ravena/.


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Search for materials by & about this art historian:

Feminist, pioneer art activist for lesbian artists. Arlene Raven was born into a middle-class Jewish family in 1944 in Baltimore, Maryland, as Arlene Rubin. Her father, Joseph Rubin, was a bar owner, and her mother, Annette Rubin, worked in the ho

Ragusa, Isa

Full Name: Ragusa, Isa

Gender: female

Date Born: unknown

Date Died: unknown

Place Born: Rome, Lazio, Italy

Place Died: New York, NY, USA

Home Country/ies: Italy

Subject Area(s): iconography, manuscripts (documents), and Medieval (European)

Institution(s): Princeton University


Overview

Art historian and translator; manuscript scholar and specialist in medieval iconography. Ragusa was the second daughter of Andrea and Anna Ragusa from Sicily. As a child, Ragusa immigrated with her family and settled in New York City in 1931. Her older sister, Olga Ragusa (b. 1922), also pursued an academic career and was an accomplished scholar of Italian Studies and a professor at Columbia University. Ragusa received her BA from New York University and her MA and PhD from the Institute of Fine Arts (IFA), New York University. She completed her master’s thesis, “The Re-Use and Public Exhibition of Roman Sarcophagi During the Middle Ages and the Early Renaissance” in 1951. At the IFA, Ragusa studied with art historians Walter W. S. Cook and Richard Offner and was awarded a Fulbright Fellowship to study at the American School of Classical Studies in Athens. In 1966, she completed her doctoral dissertation “A Gothic Psalter in Princeton: Garrett MS. 35” supervised by Harry Bober.

For over three decades, Ragusa was a member of the research staff of the Index of Christian Art at Princeton University, under director Rosalie B. Green. Ragusa lectured and published widely on iconographic topics throughout her career. Her best-known publication was a collaborative work with Green, Meditations on the Life of Christ: An Illustrated Manuscript of the Fourteenth Century, published by the Princeton University Press in 1961. With this work, Ragusa and Green produced the first English translation in print from the medieval Italian text of the Meditations on the Life of Christ manuscript (Paris, Bibliothèque nationale de France, MS. ital 115). Their introduction acknowledged the encouragement of art historian Erwin Panofsky in undertaking the project. Ragusa and Green’s publication, dedicated to Charles Rufus Morey, became important in making the manuscript available to a wider scholarly audience and remains a standard reference work on the Paris Meditations manuscript.

In 1974, at their father’s death, Isa and Olga Ragusa assumed ownership of their father’s Italian bookstore and publishing house S. F. Vanni in New York City. When the bookstore closed in 2004, the Ragusa papers and remainder of the Vanni collection were donated to the Scuola d’Italia Guglielmo Marconi also in New York. In 2005, at her bequest, New York University offered the Isa Ragusa Travel Fund to support student travel grants. The IFA Alumni Newsletter quoted Isa Ragusa on the motivation of her gift, “It’s so important to see the object [in person]. The work of art is the most important thing.” (Flora, 2005).


Selected Bibliography

  • and Green, Rosalie. Meditations on the Life of Christ: An Illustrated Manuscript of the Fourteenth Century. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1961;
  • “An Illustrated Psalter from Lyre Abbey.” Speculum 46 (1971): 267-81; “The Egg Reopened.” Art Bulletin 53 (1971): 435-443;
  • “Terror Demonum and Terror Inimicorum: The Two Lions of the Throne of Solomon and the Open Door of Paradise.” Zeitschrift Für Kunstgeschichte 40 (1977): 93-114;
  • “Porta Patet Vitae Sponsus Vocat Intro Venite and the Inscriptions of the Lost Portal of the Cathedral of Esztergom.” Zeitschrift Für Kunstgeschichte 43 (1980): 345-351;
  • “The Princeton Index of Christian Art.” Medieval English Theatre 4 (1982): 56-60;
  • “Il Manoscritto Ambrosiano L. 58. Sup.: L’Infanzia Di Cristo E Le Fonti Apocrife.” Arte Lombarda, Nuova Serie 83 (1987): 5-19;
  • “Observations on the History of the Index: In Two Parts,” Visual Resources 13:3-4 (1998): 215-251.

Sources


Archives

  • Scuola d’Italia Guglielmo Marconi, New York.

Contributors: Jessica Savage


Citation

Jessica Savage. "Ragusa, Isa." Dictionary of Art Historians (website). https://arthistorians.info/ragusai/.


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Art historian and translator; manuscript scholar and specialist in medieval iconography. Ragusa was the second daughter of Andrea and Anna Ragusa from Sicily. As a child, Ragusa immigrated with her family and settled in New York City in 1931. Her

Nye, Phila Calder

Full Name: Nye, Phila Lazarus Calder

Other Names:

  • Phila Lazarus Calder

Gender: female

Date Born: unknown

Date Died: unknown

Place Born: Wilmington, New Hanover, NC, USA

Place Died: Wilmington, New Hanover, NC, USA

Home Country/ies: United States

Subject Area(s): Christianity and Medieval (European)

Career(s): educators

Institution(s): Princeton University


Overview

First woman to receive full university professor rank at Princeton University; second director of the Index of Christian Art at Princeton. Phila Lazarus Calder attended the Mount Vernon Seminary and College in Washington, D.C. from 1889 to 1891. In 1893, she married Joseph Keith Nye (b. 1858) from New Bedford, Massachusetts. Little is known about Nye’s earlier time at Mount Vernon Seminary, although she returned to teach there in 1899. Her first publication appeared in 1901, Art History in Outline, a 283-page textbook “for the art classes of Mount Vernon Seminary.” Nye’s publications on medieval Italian sculpture appeared in Art in America and Art & Archaeology marking her academic career at Princeton University, first as a graduate student in the Department of Art & Archaeology in 1905. During some of the most formative years of the Index, Nye worked alongside the Index’ founder Charles Rufus Morey. Morey and a staff of volunteers, recording their iconographic research on objects when the terminus date of the collection was still set at 700.

She became director of the Index in 1920. During her tenure at the Index, the dates of art history coverage were extended twice, once to 1200 and then again to 1400. Archival records at the Index record that Nye traveled widely to study medieval works of art in European countries, doubtless for inclusion into the growing Index collection. It was during Nye’s directorship that the Index acquired funding that secured its institutional efforts for years to come. Her article, “The Romanesque Signs of the Zodiac,” was published in Art Bulletin in 1923. That same year, Nye was the subject of a pastel portrait by American artist Gertrude Magie (1862-1942), now in the collection of the Princeton University Art Museum (x1946-411). According to the 2001 alumni publication of the Mount Vernon Seminary and College, Nye was the first woman to receive full university rank at Princeton and have her name printed in the Princeton catalogue. She retired in 1933, succeeded by Helen M. Woodruff. Sometime after 1940, Nye retired to her hometown in North Carolina and dedicated the next several years of her life to the charitable and cultural efforts of the local women’s organization N.C. Sorosis. Records of that organization praise Nye for bringing numerous art exhibitions and lectures to the community.


Selected Bibliography

  • Art History in Outline. Washington, D.C.: Press of W.F. Roberts, 1901;
  • “Cherub Frieze of the Pazzi Chapel in Florence.” Art and Archaeology, I (1914): 73-80;
  • “Two Italian Madonnas.” Art in America 5 (1917): 246-51;
  • “The Davis Madonna at the Metropolitan Museum of Art.” Art in America 6 (1918): 82-87;
  • “The Oblong Caskets of the Byzantine Period,” American Journal of Archaeology 23 (1919): 401-12;
  • “The Romanesque Signs of the Zodiac,” Art Bulletin 5 (1923): 55-57.

Sources

  • Morey, Charles Rufus. “An Important Instrument of Research: Princeton’s Index of Christian Art, Covering 50,000 Subjects and Twelve Centuries of Time, Is Used by Scholars All Over the World.” Princeton Alumni Weekly 23 (1931): 236-37;
  • Woodruff, Helen. The Index of Christian Art at Princeton University. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1942;
  • Mikhalevsky, Nina. Dear Daughters: A History of Mount Vernon Seminary and College. Washington, D.C.: Mount Vernon Seminary and College Alumnae Association, 2001, 22-23;
  • Block, Susan Taylor, “N.C. Sorosis” in A History of St. John’s Museum, https://www.stblock.net/#_ftn40.


Contributors: Jessica Savage


Citation

Jessica Savage. "Nye, Phila Calder." Dictionary of Art Historians (website). https://arthistorians.info/nyep/.


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Search for materials by & about this art historian:

First woman to receive full university professor rank at Princeton University; second director of the Index of Christian Art at Princeton. Phila Lazarus Calder attended the Mount Vernon Seminary and College in Washington, D.C. from 1889 to 1891. I

Hintze, Erwin

Full Name: Hintze, Erwin

Gender: male

Date Born: 31 December 1876

Date Died: 01 August 1931

Place Born: Strasbourg, Grand Est, France

Place Died: Breslau, Lower Silesian Voivodeship, Poland

Home Country/ies: Germany

Subject Area(s): painting (visual works)

Institution(s): Stadtschloss (Wrocław)


Overview

Hintze was the son of the mineralogist Carl Hintze (1851-1916). From 1897 to 1901 he studied art history and classical archeology at the University of Wrocław. Beginning in October, 1901, he worked as a research assistant under Karl Masner (1858-1936) at the Silesian Museum of Decorative Arts and Antiquities in Wrocław. In 1913 he was appointed professor. From 1926 he directed the Palace Museum in the Wrocław City Palace, from 1929 until his death he was the director of the Municipal Museums in Wrocław. While director, he hired Ernst Scheyer as an assistant.

His area of interest was the history of the arts and crafts, especially goldsmithing and tin foundry.


Selected Bibliography

  • Der Einfluss der Mystiker auf die ältere Kölner Malerschule, den ‘Meister der Madonna mit der Bohnenblüte’ und Stephan Lochner. Dissertation Breslau 1901;
  • Die Breslauer Goldschmiede. Eine archivalische Studie. Breslau 1906;
  • Schlesische Goldschmiede. Breslau 1912–1916;
  • Die deutsche Zinngießer und ihre Marken. 7 Bände. Hiersemann, Leipzig 1921–1931;
  • Nürnberger Zinn. Leipzig 1921;
  • Gleiwitzer Eisenkunstguß. Breslau 1928.

Sources

  • Wendland, Ulrike. Biographisches Handbuch deutschsprachiger Kunsthistoriker im Exil: Leben und Werk der unter dem Nationalsozialismus verfolgten und vertriebenen Wissenschaftler. Munich: Saur, 1999, vol. 2, p. 605, mentioned;
  • Piotr Łukaszewicz: Hintze, Erwin. In: Encyklopedia Wrocławia. Breslau 2000, S. 270.


Contributors: Cassandra Klos


Citation

Cassandra Klos. "Hintze, Erwin." Dictionary of Art Historians (website). https://arthistorians.info/hintzee/.


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Search for materials by & about this art historian:

Hintze was the son of the mineralogist Carl Hintze (1851-1916). From 1897 to 1901 he studied art history and classical archeology at the University of Wrocław. Beginning in October, 1901, he worked as a research assistant under Karl Masner (1858-1

Herrera, Hayden

Image Credit: Arts to Hearts Project

Full Name: Herrera, Hayden

Other Names:

  • Hayden Philips

Gender: female

Date Born: 1940

Place Born: Boston, Suffolk, MA, USA

Home Country/ies: United States

Subject Area(s): Latin American and Modern (style or period)


Overview

Art historian; author of biographies on artists Frida Kahlo and Arshile Gorky. Hayden Phillips was born in Boston, the daughter of Elizabeth and John Phillips and the grand niece of William Phillips (1878-1968) Ambassador of Italy from 1917-1941. She attended North Country School and Putney School in Vermont. During her senior year, she traveled abroad with her mother to France, attending American Community School of Paris. She entered Radcliffe college, but left to pursue painting. In 1958, Herrera was a member of the Junior Assembly, a group in charge of debutante balls in New York. In 1961, Philips married a Guatemalan French, Phillip Herrera, who graduated magna cum laude at Harvard in 1956, from a prominent family in Guatemalan history. Hayden Herrera graduated with a BA from Barnard College in 1964 continuing for her MA at Hunter College. As a graduate student, she visited Mexico City to witness an exhibition of Frida Kahlo’s work.

Herrera wrote an article titled Frida Kahlo in 1976 which led to a publishing agency requesting a full book. She received her Ph.D. from City University of New York, writing a Kahlo for her thesis, in 1981. Herrera published a form of her thesis as 1983 Frida: A Biography of Frida Kahlo, to resounding success. Her next book, Mary Frank, appeared in 1990 and Matisse: A Portrait in 1993. In 1996, Herrera was awarded the Guggenheim Fellowship award in the field of biography. Herrera later published her 2003 book Arshile Gorky: His Life and Work, later nominated for a Pulitzer. In 2005, Herrera published Joan Snyder. In 2015, Herrera published Listening to Stone: The Art and Life of Isamu Noguchi, later receiving the Book Award for biography for this work. After her divorce, she married Desmond Heath (b. 1931), a British New York psychiatrist. Herrera continues to write articles and reviews for Art in America, Art Forum, Connoisseur, and the New York Times. She teaches Latin American art at NYU and art history at the School of Visual Arts in New York.

Herrera’s Kahlo book was the inspiration for Julie Taymor’s 2002 film Frida.


Selected Bibliography

  • [dissertation:] Frida Kahlo: her Life, her Art. 1981
  • Frida: A Biography of Frida Kahlo. Harper & Row, 1983.
  • Mary Frank. Harry N. Abrams, 1990.
  • Frida Kahlo: Paintings. HarperCollins, 1991.
  • Arshile Gorky: His Life and Work. Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2003.
  • Joan Snyder. Harry N. Abrams, 2005.
  • Listening to Stone: The Art and Life of Isamu Noguchi. Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2015.

Sources

Walker Art Center. “Frida Kahlo: Opening-Day Talk with Hayden Herrera.” YouTube, 16 Mar. 2009, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xlk-xHbOg3s.

 



Contributors: Kerry Rork


Citation

Kerry Rork. "Herrera, Hayden." Dictionary of Art Historians (website). https://arthistorians.info/herrerah/.


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Art historian; author of biographies on artists Frida Kahlo and Arshile Gorky. Hayden Phillips was born in Boston, the daughter of Elizabeth and John Phillips and the grand niece of William Phillips (1878-1968) Ambassador of Italy from 1917-1941.

Harper, Paula

Image Credit: New York Times

Full Name: Harper, Paul Hays

Other Names:

  • Paula Hays Fish

Gender: female

Date Born: 1930

Date Died: 2012

Place Born: Scituate, Plymouth, MA, USA

Place Died: Miami, Miami-Dade, FL, USA

Home Country/ies: United States

Subject Area(s): feminism and Modern (style or period)

Career(s): educators

Institution(s): University of Miami


Overview

Art historian, feminist lecturer, and Miami University professor. Fish was born in Scituate, Massachusetts in 1930 though her family moved to Philadelphia thereafter. In her 20’s, she moved to New York City to join the modern dance company Munt-Brooks (later known as “The Changing Scene”) dancing with the group until a dance injury caused her resignation. Fish was married and divorced twice, but kept her married name, Harper. Harper earned her bachelor’s degree and master’s in art history at Hunter College in Manhattan. She then received her Ph.D. at Stanford in 1976. In the early 1970s, she worked as a lecturer at the California Institute of the Arts. She was foundational in the creation of the first feminist arts program at this institute. Harper introduced her students to women that had long been forgotten in the art world. She inspired artists Judy Chicago and Miriam Schapiro to make the “Womanhouse,” an art installment about the meanings of domesticity and home for women. In 1980, she co-authored a major biography of Camille Pissarro, “Pissarro: His Life and Work,” with Ralph E. Shikes. This was the first comprehensive biography on this Impressionist painter, using interviews with relatives, the artist’s letters, and any unpublished material. In the early 1980’s, Harper worked as a visiting professor at Mills College, becoming close friends with journalist Judith Robinson. From 1982 to 1987, Harper lived in Miami, working for the Miami News and ‘Art in America’ as an art critic. She also wrote catalogs for regional exhibitions. Harper divided her time between New York, directing the Hunter College art gallery and and Florida teaching contemporary art at the University of Miami from 1983 to her retirement in 2011. In 2007, as an expert on Christo’s fabric-wrapped environmental art, Harper was invited to speak at the Solomon B. Guggenheim Museum in New York. Harper died from a rare form of skin cancer in 2012.


Selected Bibliography

  • Harper, Paula Hays. “California Art for Peace: May 1970.” Art Journal 30, no. 2, 1970: 163-64. doi:10.2307/775431;
  • Harper, Paula Hays and Shikes, Ralph E. Pissarro: His Life and Work. Horizon, 1980;
  • Harper, Paula Hays. “The First Feminist Art Program: A View from the 1980s.” Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society 10, no. 4, 1985. https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/abs/10.1086/494182?journalCode=signs.

Sources



Contributors: Kerry Rork


Citation

Kerry Rork. "Harper, Paula." Dictionary of Art Historians (website). https://arthistorians.info/harperp/.


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Art historian, feminist lecturer, and Miami University professor. Fish was born in Scituate, Massachusetts in 1930 though her family moved to Philadelphia thereafter. In her 20’s, she moved to New York City to join the modern dance company Munt-Br

Gouma-Peterson, Thalia

Image Credit: Wikipedia

Full Name: Gouma-Peterson, Thalia

Other Names:

  • Thalia Gouma-Peterson

Gender: female

Date Born: 20 June 1933

Date Died: 2001

Place Born: Athens, Region of Attica, Greece

Place Died: Oberlin, Lorain, OH, USA

Home Country/ies: United States

Subject Area(s): Byzantine (culture or style), feminism, and Medieval (European)

Institution(s): College of Wooster


Overview

Professor of Art at the College of Wooster, feminist and Byzantine art historian, and former director of the college’s museum. Thalia Gouma-Peterson was born in Athens, Greece in November, 1933 to Sophia Bitzanis and Lambros Groumas. She attended Arsakeion, Athens and Pierce College, Helleniko for her elementary and secondary education, respectively. She received her junior college diploma from Pierce College in 1952. Following this, Gouma-Peterson came to the United States as a Fullbright scholar. She attended Mills College from 1952 to 1957, receiving both her B.A. and M.A.

Influenced by her professors Horlbeck, Watrous, and Barkere, Gouma-Peterson received her Ph.D. from UW Madison in 1964. Her thesis, entitled “The Frescoes of the Parecclesion of St. Euthymios in Thessalonica: An Iconographic and Stylistic Analysis,” began her lifelong fascination with Byzantine art and culture. After being appointed as a professor at the College of Wooster, she moved to Oberlin in 1958 with her husband Carl Peterson.

Gouma-Peterson was a professor at the College of Wooster for 32 years. Throughout her time there, particularly during the 1980’s, at the College of Wooster, Gouma-Peterson showcased contemporary female artists, like Faith Ringgold, Audrey Flack, and Hung Liu.

Her passion for the art of Miriam Schapiro began in 1977 at the College Art Association meetings in Los Angeles. Gouma-Peterson attended a panel entitled “The Decorative in Contemporary Painting” with Miriam Schapiro. Drawn to her two works, Lady Gengi’s Maze and Anatomy of a Kimono, Gouma-Peterson then introduced herself to Schapiro, beginning a lifelong friendship. Due to their close relationship, Gouma-Peterson has been able to see the changes in the art of Schapiro, often visiting her in New York and East Hampton. A year later, at the Board meeting of the Women’s Caucus for Art of CAA and in her studio, Gouma-Peterson decided to begin working with Schapiro on creating an exhibition at the College of Wooster. In 1980, Gouma-Peterson completed her work Miriam Schapiro, A Retrospective: 1953-1980. She used this piece as a catalog for the exhibition. This work included essays from other leading art historians, namely Linda Nochlin, Norma Broude, John Perreault, Paula Bradley, and Ruth A. Appelhof. The exhibition was later shared with eight other museums, expanding its scope outside New York. In 1990, Gouma-Peterson began working on her most well-known work, Miriam Schapiro: Shaping the Fragments of Art and Life. While researching the work, she consulted with Schapiro. Gouma-Peterson received her notebooks, consisting of more than 100, as resources throughout her writing process. Gouma-Peterson worked under the direction of Executive Director of the Polk Museum in Lakeland, Florida, Daniel E. Stetson.
In 2000, Gouma-Peterson wrote her last work, entitled Anne Komnene and Her Times cataloging a collection of letters by a 12th century Byzantine princess and author. Throughout her career, Gouma-Peterson was featured in a number of other art history works. Additionally, she served as a member of the College Art Association. She retired emerita. Gouma-Peterson died on June 20, 2001 of complications from ovarian cancer.


Selected Bibliography

  • “The Frescoes of the Paracclesion of St. Euthymios in Thessalonica: An Iconographic and Stylistic Analysis (Volumes One and Two)” Order No. 6410290, The University of Wisconsin – Madison, 1964;
  • Miriam Schapiro, A Retrospective: 1953-1980;
  • Miriam Schapiro: Shaping the Fragments of Art and Life. New York City: Harry N. Abrams, Inc., Publishers (1999);
  • Anne Komnene and Her Times. Oxfordshire: Routledge, 2000.

Sources



Contributors: Kerry Rork


Citation

Kerry Rork. "Gouma-Peterson, Thalia." Dictionary of Art Historians (website). https://arthistorians.info/goumapetersont/.


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Professor of Art at the College of Wooster, feminist and Byzantine art historian, and former director of the college’s museum. Thalia Gouma-Peterson was born in Athens, Greece in November, 1933 to Sophia Bitzanis and Lambros Groumas. She attended

Goldschmidt, Werner

Full Name: Goldschmidt, Werner

Other Names:

  • André Vernet

Gender: male

Date Born: 27 June 1903

Date Died: 13 June 1975

Place Born: Hildesheim, Lower Saxony, Germany

Place Died: Baden-Baden, Baden-Württemberg, Germany

Home Country/ies: Germany

Subject Area(s): Medieval (European) and sculpture (visual works)


Overview

Spanish art authority. Student of Wilhelm Waeztoldt and Adolph Goldschmidt. Fled to Paris during WW II under the assumed name of André Vernet. 1952 returned to Germany.


Selected Bibliography

  • “W. A. Lindgens.” Deutsche Kunst Dekoration 69 (1932):  211-215;
  • “Spanish bookbindings from the 13th to the 19th century.” Apollo. (1934): 329-332;
  • “Romantic portrait painting in Spain” Studio (1934): 286-289;
  • “Luis de Morales ‘EI divino’.” Connoisseur (1935): 333-339;
  • “EI portico de San Vicente in Avila.” Archivo Español de Arte 33 (1935): 259-273;
  • “EI sepulcro de San Vicente, en Avila.” Archivo Español de Arte 35 (1936): 161-170;
  • “Glassmaking in Spain.” Connaisseur 99 (1937): 25-29;
  • “The Westportal of San Vincente at Avila.” Burlington Magazine 71 (1937): 110-123;
  • “Spanish baroque sculpture.” Connoisseur 11 (1938): 136-142;
  • “Toulouse and Ripoll: The origin of the style of Gilabertus.” Burlington Magazine 74 (1939): 104-110.

Sources

  • Wendland, Ulrike. Biographisches Handbuch deutschsprachiger Kunsthistoriker im Exil: Leben und Werk der unter dem Nationalsozialismus verfolgten und vertriebenen Wissenschaftler. Munich: Saur, 1999, vol. 1, pp. 219-20.


Contributors: Lee Sorensen


Citation

Lee Sorensen. "Goldschmidt, Werner." Dictionary of Art Historians (website). https://arthistorians.info/goldschmidtw/.


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Spanish art authority. Student of Wilhelm Waeztoldt and Adolph Goldschmidt. Fled to Paris during WW II under the assumed name of André Vernet. 1952 returned to Germany.

Gaya Nuño, Juan Antonio

Full Name: Gaya Nuño, Juan Antonio

Gender: male

Date Born: 29 January 1913

Date Died: 06 July 1976

Place Born: Tardelcuende, Soria, Castile-Leon, Spain

Place Died: Madrid, Spain

Home Country/ies: Spain

Subject Area(s): Modern (style or period)

Career(s): art critics

Institution(s): Galerias Layetas


Overview

Author, art critic. Gaya Nuño was born in Tardelcuende, Spain to Antonio Gaya Tovar (1876-1936) and Gregoria Nuño Ortega. His father came from a wealthy family of physicians with republican ideals. In 1920, his family moved to Soria where he earned his bachelor’s degree at the Instituto de Soria. He earned a degree in Filosofia y Letras (Philosophy and Letters) from the Universidad Central de Madrid in 1932. He defended his thesis El románico en la provincia de Soria (Romanesque in the Province of Soria) in 1934. At the university, he worked under Manuel Gómez-Moreno Martínez (1870-1970), Manuel Bartolomé Cossío (1857-1935) and Elias Tormo (1869–1954), Leopoldo Torres Balbás (1888–1960), and Blas Taracena (1895–1951) who later became his mentor. He became a member of the Real Academia de la Historia in 1935. He worked for the Sección de Letras del Instituto de Soria and as an archivist-librarian at the Diputación Provincial de Soria. While he was a candidate to be a professor of Art History, Archaeology, and Numismatics at the University of Santiago and Murica, his career was interrupted by the Spanish Civil War in 1936. Prior to the outbreak of the war, Gaya Nuño was a supporter of Manuel Azaña (1880-1940). The assasination of his father during the first weeks of the war compelled him to join the Frente Popular. He was a lieutenant of the Numancia Battalion and fought in Guadalajara. He married Concepcion Gutierrez de Marco (1916-1989) in 1937. After the war, he surrendered himself and the Consejo de Guerra sentenced him to twenty years in prison. He was imprisoned between 1939 to 1943 at the prisons of San Anton, Carabanchel, Valdenoceda, and Las Palmas de Gran Canaria. After he was released, he moved to Madrid and met Spanish art historian Jose Gudiol Ricart (1904-1985). Thanks to Gudiol, he became the director of the Galerias Layetas from 1947 to 1951. He took interest in Modern art and published volume V Arquitectura y Escultura Románicas for the Ars Hispaniae with Guidol in 1948 and La pintura española del medio siglo (Mid-century Spanish Painting) in 1952. During these years, he travelled throughout Spain studying museums and private collections and wrote Historia y guia de los Museos de España (History and Guide of Museums in Spain) (1955). He was the director of the Boletín de la Sociedad Española de Excursiones (Bulletin of the Spanish Society of Excursions) and worked with the Instituto Diego Velazques as an advisor of scientific investigations. He was named to the Hispanic Society of New York because of his knowledge of North American historiography, and was also part of the Academia Breve de Critica de Arte. He was awarded the Premio Nacional de Literatura in 1957 along with his close friend and Spanish art historian Jose Camon Aznar (1898-1979). He was a visiting professor at the Universidad de San Juan de Puerto Rico between 1962 to 1963. He published La pintura española del siglo XX (Spanish Painting of the 20th Century) in 1970 and Historia de la crítica de arte en España (History of Art Criticism in Spain) in 1975.

Gaya Nuño published more than sixty-six books in his career, where he analyzed artistic movements and schools as well as individual artists. He took particular interest in the study of sources of information used in artistic historiographies. In a time of social, political, and economic uncertainty, Gaya Nuño’s ability to collect and synthesize information allowed for this data to be accessible to a larger population. He not only was the most prolific photographic documentor in Spanish history, he also wrote extensively on foreign artists (with a particular focus in North America) (Alzuria and Martin). While the government and universities refused to offer him a permanent office because of his political ideologies, he is unanimously recognized by art historians for his extensive and exhaustive contributions.


Selected Bibliography

  • La Pintura española en el medio siglo. Barcelona: Omega, 1952;
  • Escultura española contemporánea. Madrid, 1957;
  • Historia y guía de los museos de España. Madrid: Espasa-Calpe, 1968;
  • La pintura española del siglo XX. Madrid: Ibérico Europea de Ediciones, 1972;
  • El Románico En La Provincia de Soria. Madrid: Departamento de Historia del Arte, Instituto de Historia, Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas, Centro de Estudios Sorianos, 2003;

Sources

  • Angulo Iñiguez, Diego. “Juan Antonio Gaya Nuño.” Archivo Español de Arte; Madrid 49, no. 195 (July 1, 1976): 361–362;
  • Marco, Concha de, José María Martínez Laseca, and Ignacio del Río Chicote.Juan Antonio Gaya Nuño, 1913-1976 entre el espectador y el arte. 1990;
  • Alzuria, Gonzalo Pasamar, and Ignacio Peiró Martín. Diccionario Akal de Historiadores españoles contemporáneos. Ediciones AKAL, 2002;
  • Jiménez-Blanco, Dolores. “Gaya Nuño, Juan Antonio.” Oxford Art Online. 2003; https://cvc.cervantes.es/el_rinconete/anteriores/mayo_11/09052011_02.htm;

  • Río Chicote, Ignacio del, and José María Martínez Laseca. “Juan Antonio Gaya Nuño  Real Academia de La Historia.” https://gayanuno.es/wp-content/uploads/2019/01/Bellas-Artes-sept.-1976.pdf


Contributors: Denise Shkurovich


Citation

Denise Shkurovich. "Gaya Nuño, Juan Antonio." Dictionary of Art Historians (website). https://arthistorians.info/gayanunoj/.


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Search for materials by & about this art historian:

Author, art critic. Gaya Nuño was born in Tardelcuende, Spain to Antonio Gaya Tovar (1876-1936) and Gregoria Nuño Ortega. His father came from a wealthy family of physicians with republican ideals. In 1920, his family moved to Soria where he earne