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Art Historians

Mekhitarian, Arpag

Full Name: Mekhitarian, Arpag

Gender: male

Date Born: 1911

Date Died: 2004

Place Born: Ṭanṭā, Al Gharbīyah, Egypt

Place Died: Schaerbeek, Brussels-Capital Region, Belgium

Home Country/ies: Belgium

Subject Area(s): Egyptian (ancient) and painting (visual works)

Institution(s): Free University of Brussels


Overview

Wrote the Great Centuries of Painting (Skira) volume on Egyptian art (1954).





Contributors: Lee Sorensen


Citation

Lee Sorensen. "Mekhitarian, Arpag." Dictionary of Art Historians (website). https://arthistorians.info/mekhitariana/.


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Wrote the Great Centuries of Painting (Skira) volume on Egyptian art (1954).

Meiss, Millard

Full Name: Meiss, Millard

Gender: male

Date Born: 1904

Date Died: 1975

Place Born: Cincinnati, Hamilton, OH, USA

Place Died: Princeton, Mercer, NJ, USA

Home Country/ies: United States

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


Overview

Historian of late medieval and early Renaissance art. Meiss’ parents were Leon Meiss and Clara Loewenstein (Meiss). He studied architecture at Princeton University, receiving his B. A. in 1926. He worked as a construction supervisor in New York two years because his father, a businessman, initially refused to fund graduate work in art history. Meiss returned to scholarship in art history at the Graduate school at Harvard University in 1928, marrying Margaret Louchheim, later a psychotherapist, the same year. He transferred almost immediately to New York University to study medieval and Renaissance painting. His master’s thesis, written under Walter F. Friedländer was published as his first article, appearing in the Art Bulletin in 1931. His dissertation, on Francesco Traini, written under under Richard Offner and influenced by Erwin Panofsky, was approved for his Ph.D. in 1933. Meiss taught as an instructor at NYU, accepting a position at Columbia University in 1934. Between 1940 and 1942, he served as the editor of Art Bulletin, and later became an honorary trustee of the Museum of Modern Art in New York. After World War II he chaired the American Committee for the Restoration of Italian Monuments. In 1951 he published his first book, the product of a Fulbright grant, Painting in Florence and Siena after the Black Death, a groundbreaking tome combining social history and rigorous connoisseurship. Meiss received the Haskins Medal in 1953 and the same year moved from Columbia to Harvard to be professor of art and curator of painting that the Fogg Art Museum. The fine collection of Italian “primitives” collected by Edward Waldo Forbes was a strong incentive. In 1958 he left Harvard to be Professor of Art at the Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton, N. J., succeeding Panofsky, his former teacher at NYU. In 1962 he published, with Leonetto Tintori, The Painting of The Life of St. Francis in Assisi, a book using technical evidence in mural painting to settle large debates of art history. He edited the Festschrift for Panofsky in 1963. In 1966, the floods in Florence led him to organize and chair the Committee to Rescue Italian Art, whose mission was to restore the damaged frescoes and buildings. His research focus broadened in the 1960s to include manuscript illumination. His series French Painting in the Time of Jean de Berry began appearing in 1967. Meiss’ Great Age of Fresco: Discoveries, Recoveries and Survivals, 1970, was the result of excavation of Santa Croce after the flood, which revealed sinopia cartoons. It is not only a technical explanation of the history of fresco painting, but an account of the rescue of Italian art. His reputation as a scholar gained him membership into the American Academy of Arts, the American Philosophical Society, and the British Academy, as well as several French and Italian academic societies. In 1974 Meiss was diagnoses with a terminal illness. He resigned from the Institute, dying at home in his study, surrounded by his family and books. The College Art Association named its grant for book illustration after him. His papers form part of the Archives of American Art. Like his teacher, Offner, Meiss sought to incorporate traditional connoisseurship methodology into art-historical work of a broader range which included social history and Panofsky’s brand of iconography. His 1951 book, Painting in Florence and Siena after the Black Death, suggested that the horrors of the plague in Italy caused a change in iconography and painting style. In the years since its publication, this thesis has been challenged by Bruce Cole (who asserted the change in style was underway before the 1348 plague) and Henk Van Os, who felt Meiss reacting to the Weltanschauung of contemporary painting (Rothko’s black paintings). Meiss was among the first American scholars to have benefited from the arrival of German scholars fleeing the Nazis in the 1930s and was considered among their best students. His articles on the reconstruction of an altarpiece by Piero della Francesca was described by John Pope-Hennessy as “brilliant.” His caustic review of Florentine Painting by the Marxist art historian Frederick Antal in the Art Bulletin underlines the limits both of Antal’s methodology and Meiss’ tolerance of social analysis.


Selected Bibliography

[master’s thesis:] Ugolino Lorenzetti. New York University, 1930, published under the same title, Art Bulletin 13 (September 1931): 376-97; [dissertation:] The Problem of Francesco Traini (Italy). New York University, 1933, published, Art Bulletin 15 (June 1933): 96-173; [collected essays:] The Painters Choice: Problems in the Interpretation of Renaissance Art. New York: Harper & Row, 1976; “The Madonna of Humility.” Art Bulletin 18 (1936): 435-64; “Light as Form and Symbol in Some Fifteenth-Century Paintings.” Art Bulletin 27 (1945): 175-81; Painting in Florence and Siena after the Black Death. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1951; War’s Toll of Italian Art: an Exhibition Sponsored by the American Committee for the Restoration of Italian Monuments. s.l.: s.n., 1940s; Giotto and Assisi. New York: New York University Press, 1960; Andrea Mantegna as Illuminator: an Episode in Renaissance Art, Humanism, and Diplomacy. New York: Columbia University Press, 1957; Giovanni Bellini’s St. Francis in the Frick Collection. Princeton: Frick Collection/Princeton University Press, 1964; “Jan van Eyck and the Italian Renaissance.” Proceedings of the Eighteenth International Congress of the History of Art. Venice: CHA, 1955, pp. 58-69; and Tintori, Leonetto. The Painting of The Life of St. Francis in Assisi. New York: New York University Press, 1962. [facsimile editions:] and Thomas, Marcel. The Rohan Master: a Book of Hours: Bibliotheque nationale, Paris (M.S. Latin 9471). New York: G. Braziller, 1973; French Painting in the Time of Jean de Berry (series) volume I: The Late XIVth Century and the Patronage of the Duke. New York, 1967; volume II: The Boucicaut Master. 1969, volume III: The Limbourg and their contemporaries. 1974; “Documented Altarpiece by Piero della Francesca: Reconstruction of Altarpiece Made for the Church of S Agostino in Borgo Sansepolcro.” Art Bulletin 23 (March 1941): 53-68; “Once Again Piero della Francesca’s Montefeltro Altarpiece.” Art Bulletin 48 (June 1966): 203-6.


Sources

Kleinbauer, W. Eugene. Research Guide to the History of Western Art. Sources of Information in the Humanities, no. 2. Chicago: American Library Association, 1982, p. 67 mentioned, pp. 81, 117; Kleinbauer, W. Eugene. Modern Perspectives in Western Art History: An Anthology of 20th-Century Writings on the Visual Arts. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1971, p. 48 mentioned, pp. 51, 47 n. 96; Bazin, Germain. Histoire de l’histoire de l’art: de Vasari à nos jours. Paris: Albin Michel, 1986, p. 483; The Dictionary of Art; Maginnnis, Hayden. Painting in the Age of Giotto: A Historical Reevaluation. University Park, PA: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1997, p. 167;[obituaries:] (reminiscences) “Millard Meiss: In Memoriam.” Lee, Rensselaer W. and Pope-Hennessy. John. Art Journal 35 no. 3. (Spring, 1976): 261-262; Maginnis, Hayden B. J. “Millard Meiss (25th March 1904-12th June 1975).” The Burlington Magazine 117 no. 869, [Special Issue Devoted to the Italian Trecento in Memory of Millard Meiss.] (August 1975): 544-547; Lee, Rensselaer W. “Millard Meiss (1904-1975).” Year Book of the American Philosophical Society 1976, pp. 95-100; Connaissance des Arts no. 283 (September 1975): 23; Glueck, Grace. “Millard Meiss Dead at 71; Renaissance Art Authority.” New York Times June 14, 1975, p. 30; Pope-Hennessy, John. “Dr Millard Meiss: A Distinguished Art Historian.” The Times (London) June 25, 1975 p. 16.




Citation

"Meiss, Millard." Dictionary of Art Historians (website). https://arthistorians.info/meissm/.


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Historian of late medieval and early Renaissance art. Meiss’ parents were Leon Meiss and Clara Loewenstein (Meiss). He studied architecture at Princeton University, receiving his B. A. in 1926. He worked as a construction supervisor in New York tw

Meier, Hans

Full Name: Meier, Hans

Gender: male

Date Born: 1872

Date Died: 1941

Place Died: London, Greater London, England, UK

Home Country/ies: Germany


Overview

Collaborated with Fritz Saxl on Verzeichnis astrologischer und mythologischer illustrierter Handschriften des lateinischen Mittelalters (1915). At the urging of Saxl, his Verzeichnis was completed by the young Ph.D. student Harry Bober. Died in an air raid.


Selected Bibliography

and Saxl, Fritz. Verzeichnis astrologischer und mythologischer illustrierter Handschriften des lateinischen Mittelalters. volume 1 (only), Heidelberg: C. Winter, 1915; and Saxl, Fritz. Zucchi, Jacopo. Antike Götter in der Spätrenaissance. Berlin: B. G. Teubner, 1927; A Bibliography of the Survival of the Classics [covering years 1931-1932/33]. 2 vols. London: Warburg Institute, 1934-38;





Citation

"Meier, Hans." Dictionary of Art Historians (website). https://arthistorians.info/meierh/.


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Collaborated with Fritz Saxl on Verzeichnis astrologischer und mythologischer illustrierter Handschriften des lateinischen Mittelalters (1915). At the urging of Saxl, his Verzeichnis was completed by the youn

Meier-Graefe, Julius

Full Name: Meier-Graefe, Julius

Other Names:

  • Julius Meier-Graefe

Gender: male

Date Born: 10 June 1867

Date Died: 05 June 1935

Place Born: Banat, Romania

Place Died: Vevey, Vaud, Switzerland

Home Country/ies: Germany

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


Overview

Modernist art historian and reformer of art history. Meier-Graefe was the son of, Edward Meier, a civil engineer for the Austro-Hungarian Empire and Marie Graefe, (d. 1867) who died giving birth to him. He was born in Pesitza, Banat, Hungary [formerly Austro-Hungarian Empire; which is present-day Banat, Romania. The family moved to the Rhineland area of Germany; Meier-Graefe grew up near Düsseldorf, gaining his Abitur in 1879. As an adult, he added his mother’s name to his in her memory. He married Clotilde Vitzthum von Eckstädt, related to the future art historian Georg Vitzthum von Eckstädt. Under pressure from his father he initially studied engineering in Munich in 1888, spending a semester in Zürich (1889) and then at Lüttich. He traveled to Paris the same year to see the World’s Fair, intent on becoming a fiction writer. By 1890 he was back in Germany, in Berlin, studying art history under Herman Grimm. He also heard lectures by the cultural sociologist and art writer Georg Simmel (1858-1918), the philosopher Moritz Lazarus (1824-1903), the historian Heinrich von Treitschke (1834-1896) and the social economist Adolf Wagner (1835-1917). Leaving Berlin without receiving a degree, he published two novellas, Ein Abend bei Laura and Nach Norden, 1890 and 1893, both published by the illustrious Fischer Verlag. Meier-Graefe frequented the Berlin intelligencia, whose ranks included the writers Otto Julius Bierbaum (1865-1910), Stanislaw Przybyszewski (1868-1927), the poet Richard Dehmel (1863-1920), the philosopher August Strindberg (1849-1912) and Edvard Munch. Meier-Graefe’s first art criticism was reviewing Munch’s work. In 1894, he, Meier-Graefe, helped found the cultural periodical Pan, acting as its art editor. The periodical attracted original graphics by important artists (including Toulouse-Lautrec) and art-historical writing by Eberhard Freiherr von Bodenhausen, Harry Klemens Ulrich Kessler and Wilhelm Bode. However, Meier-Graefe was dismissed after the initial issue by the magazine’s wealthy backers because of the lack of attention to German artists. He returned to Paris in 1895 where he began his own avant-garde art journal, Dekorative Kunst, in 1898. The magazine publicized the Jugendstil (Art Nouveau) style. The following year, Meier-Graefe opened La Maison Moderne, a gallery devoted to art nouveau works, with the artist Henry van de Velde. In 1902 he was commissioned to write on French Impressionism by the art historian Richard Muther for Muther’s pocket-sized surveys of art, the Klassische Illustratoren series and the Sammlung illustrierter Monographien. The first volume was Edouard Manet und sein Kreis. His gallery closed in 1903 and he returned to Berlin to write his ground-breaking history of modern art, Die Entwicklungsgeschichte der modernen Kunst (The Developmental History of Modern Art). Meier-Graefe opposed valuing art based upon nationalism or the criteria of the academy. In his 1905 book Der Fall Böcklin und die Lehre von den Einheiten (The Case of Böcklin and the Teaching of Unity), Meier-Graefe pointed out how lacking in modernity the popular Swiss artist was compared to the truly avant-garde of France. The book caused a furor, touching chords of nationalism and a particularly vitriolic attack by Henry Thode (and met with an equally powerful rebuttal by the painter Max Liebermann). He returned to French art and the work of Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot and Courbet as well as the Impressionists. In 1910, he published his book Spanische Reise (Spanish Journey) which again broke ground with an analysis, sometimes described as a “rediscovery” of El Greco. While others, such as William Stirling Maxwell had written favorably of El Greco previously, Meier-Graefe described El Greco as an Expressionist artist. Meier-Graefe’s commitment to the primary sources of art history led him to translate Delacroix’s journals into German in 1912. However–and ironically–German Expressionism itself repelled him. In 1915 he volunteered in the German army on the Eastern front where he was captured and interned in a Russian POW camp in 1916. After his release, he divorced his first wife in 1917 and married Helene Lienhardt, settling in Dresden. Together with the art historian Wilhelm Hausenstein, he edited the art-history yearbook, Ganymede, beginning in 1919. He moved to Berlin in 1921, occupying a house designed by architect and architectural historian Hermann Muthesius. In 1922, he wrote a biography of van Gogh, titled Vincent. Of van Gogh, Meier-Graefe characterized his art as addressing the alienation modernity. Meier-Graefe’s embrace of most modern art drew the ire of national socialism in Germany. He moved to France in 1930 for health reasons, resulting in permanent exile by the rise of Nazism in 1933. The Nazi’s included him, one of the few art historians, in their attack on “Degenerate Art,” (Entartete Kunst). Die Entwicklungsgeschichte is a key writing in the history of modern art historiography. Meier-Graefe created a history of art for the nineteenth century, relating artists from Delacroix to Cézanne into a continuum, which had never been done before. Die Entwicklungsgeschichte traced nineteenth-century art through the conception of artistic impulses (das Bildhafte) as opposed to economic or historical forces in art. He was the first to conceive the modern era of art as a series of formal problems solved on the canvas. His books were quickly translated into English and his writings accessible to an English-reading public. John Rewald characterized Meier-Graefe as influential for French modernist art historians, an art historian uninterested in scholarship or “library research,” (“The French learned…from Meier-Graefe,” he wrote). Meier-Graefe could never shake off the reputation of being anti-German, however. His attempts to show the work of Böcklin as reactionary resulted in an understandable backlash (see Adolf Grabowsky book, below). His failure to embrace twentieth-century art forms (Cubism, German Expressionism) was particularly tragic and raised the ire of at least Emil Nolde, who branded him an “enemy to German art.” At sixtieth birthday in 1927, shortly before hostilities against him would again foment, tributes poured out from personalities as different as the playwright Gerhart Hauptmann (1862-1946) and the art historian Emil Waldmann.


Selected Bibliography

[complete bibliography:] Moffet, Kenworth. Meier-Graefe as Art Critic. Munich: Prestel-Verlag, 1973; Entwicklungsgeschichte der modernen Kunst: vergleichende Betrachtung der bildenen Künste, als Beitrag zu einer neuen Aesthetik. 3 vols. Stuttgart: J. Hoffmann, 1904, English, Modern Art: Being a Contribution to a New system of æsthetics. London: W. Heinemann/New York, G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1908; Der Fall Böcklin und die Lehre von den Einheiten. Stuttgart: J. Hoffmann, 1905; [example of Klassische Illustratoren series] William Hogarth. Munich: R. Piper & Co., 1907; Hans von Marées: sein Leben und sein Werk. 3 vols. Munich: R. Piper, 1909-1910; Spanische Reise. Berlin: S. Fischer, 1910, English, The Spanish Journey. New York: Harcourt, Brace, 1927; [example of Sammlung illustrierter Monographien series] Auguste Renoir: mit hundert Abbildungen. Munich: R. Piper & Co., 1911; translated, Delacroix, Eugène. Literarische Werke. Leipzig, Insel-Verlag, 1912; Cézanne und sein Kreis: ein Beitrag zur Entwicklungsgeschichte. Munich: R. Piper, 1918; edited, with Hausenstein, Wilhelm. Ganymed: Jahrbuch für die Kunst. vols. 1-5. Munich: R. Piper & Co/Verlag der Marées-Gesellschaft, 1919-1925. Vincent. Munich: R. Piper, 1922, English, Vincent van Gogh, a biographical study. London/Boston: The Medici Society Ltd., 1922; Eugène Delacroix, Beiträge zu einer Analyse. Munich: R. Piper, 1922; Pyramide und Tempel: Notizen während einer Reise nach ägypten, Palästina, Griechenland, und Stambul. Berlin: E. Rowohlt, 1927, English, Pyramid and Temple. New York: Macaulay Co., 1930.


Sources

[reaction to Meier-Graefe’s Böcklin’s book:] Grabowsky, Adolf. Der Kampf um Böcklin. Berlin: S. Cronbach, 1906; Moffet, Kenworth. Meier-Graefe as Art Critic. Munich: Prestel-Verlag, 1973; Rewald, John. “The William C. Seitz Collection.” Art Journal 37, no. 1 (Autumn, 1977): 49; Belting, Hans. The End of the History of Art? 2nd ed. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1987, p. 37; Belting, Hans. “Nachwort.” Entwicklungsgeschichte der modernen Kunst. Munich: R. Piper, 1987; Kultermann, Udo. The History of Art History. New York: Abaris, 1993, pp. 153-156; Metzler Kunsthistoriker Lexikon: zweihundert Porträts deutschsprachiger Autoren aus vier Jahrhunderten. Stuttgart: Metzler, 1999, pp. 262-5, 278; “Julius Meier-Graefe: Autobiographische Skizze.” in Krahmer, Catherine, and Grüninger, Ingrid. Kunst ist nicht für Kunstgeschichte da: Briefe und Dokumente. Göttingen: Wallstein, 2001, pp. 11-17; Breitschmid, Markus. “Biographical Information.” in, Meier-Graefe, Julius. A Modern Milieu. Backsburg, VA: Virginia Tech Architecture Pblications, 2007, pp. 69-73.




Citation

"Meier-Graefe, Julius." Dictionary of Art Historians (website). https://arthistorians.info/meiergraefej/.


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Modernist art historian and reformer of art history. Meier-Graefe was the son of, Edward Meier, a civil engineer for the Austro-Hungarian Empire and Marie Graefe, (d. 1867) who died giving birth to him. He was born in Pesitza, Banat, Hungary [form

Megaw, Peter

Full Name: Megaw, Peter

Other Names:

  • Peter Megaw

Gender: male

Date Born: 1910

Date Died: 2006

Home Country/ies: United Kingdom

Subject Area(s): Ancient Greek (culture or style), archaeology, and Classical

Institution(s): British School at Athens


Overview

British School of Athens scholar under Humfry Payne.


Selected Bibliography

and Hawkins, E. J. W. The Church of the Panagia Kanakariáat Lythrankomi in Cyprus: its Mosaics and Frescoes. Washington, DC: Dumbarton Oaks Center for Byzantine Studies/Locust Valley, NY: J. J. Augustin, 1977.




Contributors: Lee Sorensen


Citation

Lee Sorensen. "Megaw, Peter." Dictionary of Art Historians (website). https://arthistorians.info/megawa/.


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British School of Athens scholar under Humfry Payne.

Meer, Frits, van der

Full Name: Meer, Frits, van der

Other Names:

  • Frederik Gerben van der Meer

Gender: male

Date Born: 1904

Date Died: 1994

Place Born: Bolsward, Friesland, Netherlands

Place Died: Lent, Gelderland, Netherlands

Home Country/ies: Netherlands

Career(s): clergy


Overview

Professor of Art History, catholic priest. Frits van der Meer attended the Gymnasium in Sneek (The Netherlands). In 1919, he decided to become a priest, and continued high school at the Aartsbischoppelijk Kleinseminarie in Culemborg. Between 1924 and 1928 he studied Theology at the Grootseminarie Rijsenburg near Driebergen. He was ordained priest in 1928. In 1932, after a trip to the Balkan, Istanbul, Greece and Italy, he began studying Christian archeology at the Instituto di Archeologia Cristiana in Rome. In 1934, he received his doctorate with a dissertation on the theme of the Maiestas Domini in representations of the Apocalypse. It was published in 1938: Maiestas Domini. Théophanies de l’Apocalypse dans l’art chrétien. Etude sur les origines d’une iconographie spéciale du Christ. While in Rome, he visited the Near East and Jerusalem. In1939, after a three-year period of pastoral service as chaplain in Hilversum, he was appointed lecturer of Christian Archeology and Liturgy at the Catholic University of Nijmegen. His inaugural lecture, entitled: Iets over de oorspronkelijkheid der oud-Christelijke kunst (On the originality of Early Christian Art), became the subject of a later publication in 1949: Christus’ oudste gewaad: over de oorspronkelijkheid der oud-christelijke kunst. In this book Van der Meer explored the rich thoughts and visions of early Christianity that shaped a new, transcendent art form. In 1940, Van der Meer already had written the much acclaimed Geschiedenis eener kathedraal (History of a Cathedral). One of his sources of inspiration had been the famous study on Religious Art in France of the Thirteenth Century by the French art historian Émile Mâle, first published in 1898. From 1946 onwards, Van der Meer was extraordinarius Professor of Christian Archeology and Liturgy as well as of Early Christian and Mediaeval Art. In the latter position he succeeded Professor Gerard Brom (1882-1959), while another part of Brom’s field was given to J. J. Tikkanen who, in 1947, became extraordinarius Professor of Aesthetics and Art History of the New Era. In 1955, Van der Meer eventually obtained a full professorship. He was an inspired teacher, overwhelming his students with his somewhat extravagant enthusiasm (C. Peeters, 1998). He however did not participate in the broader administration of the faculty and university, disliking meetings and public events. He neither used to attend international symposia, nor maintained professional contacts with colleagues art historians. His many publications, written with eloquence and poetical inspiration, attest to his scholarly dedication as well as to his profound religiosity. In addition to the early Christian era, he had a special interest in the arts and ideas that flourished and developed in twelfth-century France and in his view were the expression of new awakenings of western civilization. In Keerpunt der Middeleeuwen. Tussen Cluny en Sens (Turning-point in the Middle-Ages. Between Cluny and Sens), published in 1951, he considered this specific era as an age of renewal, preceding the Italian Renaissance. In this he followed the earlier study by Charles Homer Haskins (1870-1937): The Renaissance of the Twelfth Century. In 1951, Van der Meer published his famous Atlas van de Westerse beschaving(Atlas of Western Civilization). Another well known atlas followed in 1958: Atlas van de Oudchristelijke wereld (Atlas of the Early Christian World). Both works were translated into French, English, and German. These convenient large-scale books, illustrated with several maps, are still today consulted by students and scholars all over the world. As a theologian he became internationally known for his famous monograph on Saint Augustine: Augustinus de zielzorger. Een studie over de praktijk van een kerkvader. It was published in 1947, and translated in German, French, English (translated as Augustine the Bishop. The Life and Work of a Father of the Church) and Spanish. The book deals with the daily pastoral practice of this great Church Father. In 1950, Van der Meer was invited to become a member of the Koninklijke Nederlandse Akademie van Wetenschappen, and in 1964, he was granted the national P.C. Hooft Award for literature. In 1963-64 he wrote the script for the television show Reise in die früchristliche Welt, a European co-production which was broadcast in the Netherlands in 1968. After his retirement, in 1974, he carried on his scholarly work. In 1978, his richly illustrated Apocalypse appeared simultaneously in Dutch, German, French and English. In 1980, the city of Nijmegen granted him the Karel de Grote (Charlemagne) Award.


Selected Bibliography

[of art-historical works:] Maiestas Domini: théophanies de l’apocalypse dans l’art chrétien: étude sur les orgines d’une iconographie spéciale du Christ. Studi di antichità Cristiana 13. Roma: PIAC, 1938; Iets over de oorspronkelijkheid der oud-Christelijke kunst. (Openbare les Nijmegen, 23 januari 1939) Nijmegen: Dekker & van de Vegt, 1939; Geschiedenis eener kathedraal. Utrecht: Het Spectrum, 1940. Fourth revised edition: 1961; Christus’ oudste gewaad: over de oorspronkelijkheid der oud-christelijke kunst. Utrecht: Het Spectrum, 1949. Second edition: (Bronnen van de Europese cultuur, 1) Baarn: Ambo, 1989; Edelsmid: eerste der ambachten. Amsterdam: Witteman, 1950; (Uitg. n.a.v. een tentoonstelling van werken van Nico Witteman te Amsterdam); Rome: een keur uit haar kunstwerken, 300 v.C.-1800. Ars mundi 1. Amsterdam: Contact, 1950; Keerpunt der Middeleeuwen: tussen Cluny en Sens. Utrecht: Het Spectrum, 1950. Second edition: 1962 (Aula-boeken, 82); Atlas van de Westerse beschaving. Amsterdam: Elsevier 1951. Fourth revised edition: 1963 (Elseviers internationale uitgaven). Chartres. Amsterdam: Contact, 1951; and Schwartz M.A. Beknopte atlas van de westerse beschaving. Amsterdam: Elsevier1952; Atlas de la civilisation occidentale. Paris: Elsevier, 1952; Atlas of Western Civilization. Translated by T.A. Birrell. Amsterdam: Elsevier – London: Cleaver-Hume, 1954. Second revised edition: Princeton, N.J.: Van Nostrand, 1960; Het devotiebeeld der Moeder Gods Carmel 7 (1954); Uit het oude Europa: twintig herinneringen. Amsterdam: Elsevier 1957; And Mohrmann Christine Atlas van de oudchristelijke wereld. Amsterdam: Elsevier 1958. Second edition: 1961; and Mohrmann Christine Atlas of the Early Christian World. Translated and edited by Mary F. Hedlund and H. H. Rowley. London: Nelson, 1958; Oudchristelijke kunst. (Phoenix pocket, 16) Zeist: De Haan – Antwerpen: Standaard Boekhandel, 1959. Second edition: (De Haan paperbacks voor geschiedenis, kunst en cultuur) Bussum: De Haan, 1972; and Mohrmann Christine Bildatlas der frühchristlichen Welt. Translated by Heinrich Kraft. Gütersloh: Mohn, 1959; Paasmorgen: bij het altaarluik van Rogier van der Weyden in het museum te Berlijn en de feestikoon genaamd Anástasis. Utrecht: Het Spectrum, 1959; Altchristliche Kunst. Translated from the Dutch by Auguste Schorn. Köln: Bachem, 1960; and Mohrmann Christine Atlas de l’antiquité chrétienne. Translated by Denise van Weelderen-Bakelants and Pierre Golliet. Paris: éd. Sequoia, 1960; Bildatlas der abendländischen Kultur. Gütersloh: Gerd Mohn 1962; Zeven ware legenden. Utrecht: Het Spectrum 1962; and Lemmens, G. Kleine atlas van de Westerse beschaving. (Kleine atlassen) Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1964; Atlas de l’Ordre cistercien. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1965; Atlas de l’ordre cistercien. Paris: Editions-Sequoia, 1965; and Lemmens, G. Shorter Atlas of Western Civilization. Translated from the Dutch by Marian Powell. London: Nelson, 1967; Early Christian Art. Translated [from the revised German ed.] by Peter and Friedl Brown. London: Faber and Faber, 1967; Onbekende kathedralen in Frankrijk. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1967; Van den heiligen Johannes den Damascener de derde verhandeling tegen hen die de heilige ikonen smaden. Translated by F. van der Meer and G. Bartelink. Utrecht: Het Spectrum, 1968; De kleine stad lang geleden. Bolsward: Osinga, 1977; Apocalypse.Visioenen uit het Boek der Openbaring in de kunst. Antwerpen: Mercatorfonds, 1978. Simultaneously edited in German, French and English; Imago Christi: Christusbeeltenissen in de sculptuur benoorden Alpen en Pyreneeën. Antwerpen: Mercatorfonds, 1980; Het toneel is in de hemel: bloemlezing uit het werk van F. van der Meer. Edited and introduced by Kees Fens. Baarn: Ambo: 1981; De kerstikoon, genaamd Hè Gennèsis Tijdschrift voor liturgie 65, 6 (1981); Rome en Chartres: een stad – een kathedraal. Antwerpen: De Nederlandsche boekhandel, 1982; Die Ursprünge christlicher Kunst. Translated from the Dutch by Frans Stoks. Freiburg: Herder, 1982; Feestelijke gedachtenis: beschouwingen over het kerkelijk jaar. Chosen and introduced by Wouter Kusters en Gerard Lemmens. Nijmegen: Sun, 1995. With a complete bibliography: 173-190.


Sources

Fens, Kees De leerstoel van Lent: in memoriam F.G. van der Meer. [Nijmegen]: Verzameld Werk, [1994] (Also published in De Volkskrant, 20-7-1994; Van Schaik, Ton in HN Magazine, 30-7-1994; Van Laarhoven, Jan in De Bazuin. Opinieweekblad voor kerk en samenleving, 5-8-1994; Peeters, C. in Koninklijke Nederlandse Akademie van Wetenschappen. Levensberichten en herdenkingen 1995: 71-76; idem, Frits van der Meer in Corman, Hennie (ed.) Nijmeegse gezichten. Vijfenzeventig jaar Katholieke Universiteit. Nijmegen, 1998: 86-95; Van Schaik, A.H.M. in Bosmans, J. a.o (eds.) Biografisch Woordenboek van Nederland 5. The Hague: Instituut voor Nederlandse Geschiedenis, 2001: 330-332; Evert Frans van der Grinten e.o. (eds.) Feestbundel F. van der Meer: opstellen aangeboden aan Prof. Dr. F.G. L. van der Meer ter gelegenheid van zijn zestigste verjaardag op 16 november 1964. Amsterdam: Elsevier [1966] With bibliography F. van der Meer.



Contributors: Monique Daniels


Citation

Monique Daniels. "Meer, Frits, van der." Dictionary of Art Historians (website). https://arthistorians.info/meerf/.


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Professor of Art History, catholic priest. Frits van der Meer attended the Gymnasium in Sneek (The Netherlands). In 1919, he decided to become a priest, and continued high school at the Aartsbischoppelijk Kleinseminarie in Culemborg. Between 1924

Meeks, Carroll L. V.

Full Name: Meeks, Carroll Louis Vanderslice

Gender: male

Date Born: 21 May 1907

Date Died: 27 August 1966

Place Born: Bridgeport, Fairfield, CT, USA

Place Died: New Haven, New Haven, CT, USA

Home Country/ies: United States

Subject Area(s): architecture (object genre) and sculpture (visual works)

Institution(s): Yale University


Overview

Architectural historian of 17th to 19th century Europe at Yale. Meeks was born in Bridgeport, Connecticut in 1907, the son of Joseph Vanderslice Meeks. He received a Ph.B. degree from Yale University in 1928. Meeks joined the faculty at Yale — where he would spend his entire teaching career — as an assistant in architecture in 1930. He earned a B.F.A. in 1931 and an M.A. in 1934, both at Yale. In the same year, he was married to Carol Silvester and was appointed Assistant Professor of art in 1937. Throughout his career at Yale, Everett V. Meeks (1879-1954), Dean of the School of Architecture, exerted a strong influence over the younger professor. It was Dean Meeks “who encouraged and stimulated [his] interest in architecture” (Meeks, Railroad Station). During this period, Meeks became one of the earliest members of the Society of Architectural Historians (SAH), an institution to which he became devoted and served in a range of capacities throughout his life.

Meeks was appointed Associate Professor of architecture and the history of art in 1946 and, following this, he earned a Ph.D. from Harvard in 1948. Meeks’ dissertation, entitled “The Architectural Development of the American Railroad Station,” would go on to form the basis of his first book. In the same year, he received a Guggenheim fellowship to study in Europe. Between 1950 and 1956 he served his first term as director of the SAH. Meeks was appointed Professor in 1956 and his first book, The Railroad Station: An Architectural History, was published. Following the influence of Henry Focillon (1881-1943) — a visiting professor at Yale in his final years— The Railroad Station was focused on the “metamorphosis of a great central theme” (Kleinbauer, 1982). The book traces the chronological history of Western Architecture from the nineteenth to the mid-twentieth century through a focus on this particular eponymous building type. Meeks explored the railway station as a type of building that existed at the intersection of architecture, engineering, and art. Between 1958 and 1965 (and briefly again in 1966) he served as director of the SAH for a second time. Meek’s final book — the completed version of which he sent to the publishers before his death — was Italian Architecture: 1750-1914. It was published posthumously in 1966, an overview of architecture on the peninsula during the long nineteenth century. His students include George Hersey.


Selected Bibliography

  • The Railroad Station: An Architectural History. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1956;
  • Italian Architecture: 1750-1914. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1966.

Sources

  • “Carroll L. V. Meeks Negatives: An inventory of the collection at Syracuse University.” Accessed June 18, 2021. https://library.syr.edu/digital/guides/m/meeks_clv.htm;
  • Carroll L. V. Meeks, 1907-1966  Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians (1966) 25 (4): 988351. https://doi.org/10.2307/988351;
  • Carroll Meeks, Professor, Dies. New York Times, August 28, 1966, 93;
  • Kleinbauer, W. Eugene. Research Guide to the History of Western Art. Sources of Information in the Humanities, no. 2. Chicago: American Library Association, 1982, 73;
  • Kleinbauer, W. Eugene. Modern Perspectives in Western Art History: An Anthology of 20th-Century Writings on the Visual Arts. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1971, pp. 42, 51 mentioned, 67 cited;
  • “Meeks, Carroll L. V.” Archives at Yale.Accessed August 11, 2021 https://archives.yale.edu/agents/people/75424;
  • Overby, Osmund. “From 1947: The Society of Architectural Historians.” Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians 49, no. 1 (1990): 9-14. Accessed June 18, 2021. doi:10.2307/990495;
  • The Railroad Station: An Architectural History. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1956.

Archives


Contributors: Lee Sorensen and Shane Morrissy


Citation

Lee Sorensen and Shane Morrissy. "Meeks, Carroll L. V.." Dictionary of Art Historians (website). https://arthistorians.info/meeksc/.


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Search for materials by & about this art historian:

Architectural historian of 17th to 19th century Europe at Yale. Meeks was born in Bridgeport, Connecticut in 1907, the son of Joseph Vanderslice Meeks. He received a Ph.B. degree from Yale University in 1928. Meeks joined the faculty at Yale — whe

Meder, Joseph

Full Name: Meder, Joseph

Gender: male

Date Born: 1857

Date Died: 1934

Place Born: Zlovedice, Czech Republic

Place Died: Vienna, Vienna state, Austria

Home Country/ies: Germany


Overview

Director of the Albertina museum, 1905-23. He was born in Lobeditz, which is present day Zlovedice, Czech Republic. From 1884 onward he was active in the Vienna University library; in 1889 he was placed in charge of the Erzherzog Albrechts von Habsburg collection at the Albertina; between 1905-23 he was Director of the Albertina.



Sources

Metzler Kunsthistoriker Lexikon: zweihundert Porträts deutschsprachiger Autoren aus vier Jahrhunderten. Stuttgart: Metzler, 1999, pp. 260-2; http://www.museen.de/MusWiss_9132026.




Citation

"Meder, Joseph." Dictionary of Art Historians (website). https://arthistorians.info/mederj/.


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Director of the Albertina museum, 1905-23. He was born in Lobeditz, which is present day Zlovedice, Czech Republic. From 1884 onward he was active in the Vienna University library; in 1889 he was placed in charge of the Erzherzog Albrechts von Hab

McNulty, Kneeland

Full Name: McNulty, Kneeland

Gender: male

Date Born: 1922

Date Died: 1991

Place Born: Suzhou, Jiangsu, China

Place Died: Albuquerque, Bernalilo, New Mexico

Home Country/ies: United States

Subject Area(s): prints (visual works)

Career(s): curators

Institution(s): Philadelphia Museum of Art


Overview

Zigrosser hired Kneeland McNulty, an Elmer Adler protegé, at the Print Collection at the Philadelphia Museum of Art.





Contributors: Lee Sorensen


Citation

Lee Sorensen. "McNulty, Kneeland." Dictionary of Art Historians (website). https://arthistorians.info/mcnultyk/.


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Zigrosser hired Kneeland McNulty, an Elmer Adler protegé, at the Print Collection at the Philadelphia Museum of Art.

McIlhenny, Henry P.

Full Name: McIlhenny, Henry P.

Other Names:

  • Henry McIlhenny

Gender: male

Date Born: 1910

Date Died: 1986

Place Born: Philadelphia, Philadelphia, PA, USA

Place Died: Philadelphia, Philadelphia, PA, USA

Home Country/ies: United States

Subject Area(s): decorative art (art genre)

Career(s): art collectors and curators


Overview

Art collector and curator of the decorative arts, Philadelphia Museum of Art, from 1935 to 1963. McIlhenny was the son of a former president of the Philadelphia Museum of Art, John D. McIlhenny (1866-1925) and the Frances G. Plumer (McIlhenny). His grandfather had been an Irish immigrant who invented the gas meter, bringing the family an immense fortune. The younger McIlhenny attended the Episcopal Academy in Philadelphia and Milton Academy in Boston, before graduating from Harvard as a Phi Beta Kappa in 1933, where he studied under A. Kingsley Porter. McIlhenny completed a graduate degree in art history at the Fogg Art Museum, Harvard University, under Paul J. Sachs. His prominence as a collector in Philadelphia led to an appointment as curator of the decorative arts at the Philadelphia Museum of Art, a post for which he accepted a salary of $1 a year. McIlhenny served the museum between 1935 and 1963, with four years’ service in the United States Navy during World War II. During the 1930s, McIlhenny developed one of the finest private collections of French late-19th-century painting in the United States. His acquisitions included the 1936 purchase of Degas’ masterwork “Interior” 1868-69. In 1937 he purchased the mansion in Ireland, Glenveagh, owned by his former Harvard art professor, Porter. As curator, he was also instrumental in organizing the important Degas exhibition in 1936, collaborating with his Fogg mentors Paul J. Sachs and Agnes Mongan. Other exhibitions included one on Daumier in 1937, and “Philadelphia Silver” in 1956. After his resignation from the Museum he was elected a trustee in 1964 serving as vice president from 1968 to 1976, and as the chairman of the Philadelphia Museum’s board of trustees from 1976 until his death. He died after undergoing heart surgery. His art collection, valued at $100 million at his death, was left to the Philadelphia Museum. The collection included Ingres’ 1812 portrait, “Countess of Tournon,” Jacques-Louis David’s “Pope Pius VII and Cardinal Caprara,” 1805, four Delacroix paintings (including a small version of “The Death of Sardanapalus,” 1844), van Gogh’s “Rain,” 1889, three Toulouse-Lautrecs (including his self-portrait of 1896 and his “Dance at the Moulin Rouge,” 1890), Renoirs, Matisses and Cézanne’s portrait of his wife (1883-87). A fairly open homosexual (for the time), McIlhenny was one of the more knowledgeable collector’s of his art, thought not a scholar.


Selected Bibliography

and Howe, Thomas Carr. The Henry P. McIlhenny Collection: Paintings, Drawings, and Sculpture: an Exhibition Sponsored by Patrons of Art and Music at the California Palace of the Legion of Honor, Lincoln Park, San Francisco. San Francisco: The Palace of the Legion of Honor, 1962.


Sources

Rishel, Joseph J. The Henry P. McIlhenny Collection: an Illustrated History. Philadelphia, PA: Philadelphia Museum of Art, 1987; Lord, James. “One Joyful Millionaire: Henry McIlhenny.” in A Gift for Admiration: Further Memoirs. New York : Farrar Straus & Giroux, 1998, pp. 3-42; [obituary:] Russell, John. “Henry McIlhenny, Head of the Philadelphia Art Museum.” New York Times May 13, 1986, p. 26;




Citation

"McIlhenny, Henry P.." Dictionary of Art Historians (website). https://arthistorians.info/mcilhennyh/.


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Art collector and curator of the decorative arts, Philadelphia Museum of Art, from 1935 to 1963. McIlhenny was the son of a former president of the Philadelphia Museum of Art, John D. McIlhenny (1866-1925) and the Frances G. Plumer (McIlhenny). Hi