Art historian and dealer, responsible for many sensational painting discoveries in the post-World-War II period. Carritt was educated at Rugby School 1939-44 before attending Christ Church College, Oxford. While still at school he drew the attention of Benedict Nicolson, then editor of the Burlington Magazine, as someone which extraordinary art-historical perceptiveness. Nicholson took Carritt to visit the great Italian art authority, Bernard Berenson in Florence, who also was impressed with the Carritt’s gifts. (Of this encounter, Carritt related that he “corrected” some of Berenson’s attributions). In 1952, Carritt, then only 25, made perhaps the most important discovery in his career. In the remote home of a retired surgeon captain of the British Navy, Carritt discovered a painting by Caravaggio, The Musicians, now owned by the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. Carritt worked freelance for a few years before becoming a director at Christies auction house in 1964. During his years at Christies, Carritt obtained many important pictures for the firm to sell. He left Christie’s in 1970 to found his own firm, David Carritt, Ltd, and become director of the international consortium of art dealers, Artemis. In 1977, Carritt identified a painting at Mentmore Towers auction house, incorrectly attributed to Carl van Loo, as actually by Fragonard. Though the sale was heavily attended and publicized, Carritt bought the masterpiece for a nominal £38000 (ca. $14000). The painting, today known as Toilet of Psyche, is now owned by the National Gallery, London, valued for more than 70 times what Carritt paid for it. Among his other discoveries were a Roger van der Weyden at a cottage in Bray and a set of large Guardi canvases rolled at a country house in Ireland. As the head of David Carritt, Ltd., Carritt sponsored many scholarly exhibitions and issued important catalogs. He died of cancer at age 55.Carritt represented the 19th-century-style art historian, whose position was based primarily upon opinions, connoisseurship, hubris and an extensive amount of travel and personal experience. Notoriously outspoken, he devoted more of his energies to the life of a raconteur than a scholar. Of his extensive knowledge, very little was left in published form.
Selected Bibliography
Fifteen Etchings by Rembrandt. London: D. Carritt, 1993; The Classical Ideal: Athens to Picasso. London: D. Carritt, 1979.
Sources
Russell, John. “David Carritt, English Art Critic, Historian and Dealer, Dies at 55.” New York Times August 5, 1982; p. B14; “Mr David Carritt.” The Times [London]. August 4, 1982; p. 12.
Citation
"Carritt, David Graham." Dictionary of Art Historians (website). https://arthistorians.info/carrittd/.
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Art historian and dealer, responsible for many sensational painting discoveries in the post-World-War II period. Carritt was educated at Rugby School 1939-44 before attending Christ Church College, Oxford. While still at school he drew the attenti
Place Died: Old Lyme, New London, Connecticut, USA
Home Country/ies: United States
Subject Area(s): graphic arts and prints (visual works)
Career(s): curators
Institution(s): Harvard University and Museum of Fine Art Boston
Overview
Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, curator of prints, founded Print Collector’s quarterly. Carrington was born in Surbiton, Surrey, England (today, Greater London) in 1869 to R. C. and Sarah Jane (née Pewtress) Carrington. He was educated at Bute House in Petersham, England before attending college at Victoria College on the Island of Jersey. In 1886, he moved to Minnesota, United States. He briefly worked in agriculture, but soon began surveying for the Great Northern Railway. Afterwards, he was employed by Harington Beard (ca. 1868-1940), a fine art dealer in the city. In 1892, he moved to New York City and began working as a clerk and salesman at Keppel & Co, a business that sold etchings and engravings. He worked his way through the ranks at Keppel & Co. first as partner, then general manager, treasurer, and a minority stockholder. He married Charlotte Austen Singleton (1873-1951) in 1897. In 1899, he began publishing books, though his initial works mainly focus on poetry. Though not formally trained as an art critic, he is recognized as one in the 1908 edition of Who’s Who in New York City and State due to his work editing, arranging, and writing introductions for various books of fine art. At the time most of these were still books of poetry, but some had started to feature pictures as complements to the verse. In 1911 he began publishing The Print-Collector’s Quarterly, at the time “the only serious journal devoted to prints in the English language.” (Sizer) In 1912, Carrington published Prints and their Makers: Essays on Engravers and Etchers Od and Modern. In 1913, the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston appointed him Curator of the Department of Prints and taking over the publication of the Quarterly. He was simultaneously recommended by the Fine Arts Department at Harvard University to serve as a lecturer. During his time in Boston, he also assisted founding the Children’s Art Center. During World War I publication of the Quarterly ceased and afterward it was transferred to the British Museum on the editorship of Campbell Dodgson. Carrington resigned from the Museum to return to private business in 1921, succeeded at the Museum by Henry P. Rossiter. Carrington worked for M. Knoedler & Co., art gallery in New York. He retired in 1942. While visiting friends in Old Lyme, Connecticut, in 1954 he died.
Colleagues estimated that Carrington did “more…for scholarship in prints in English” than nearly any other person. (Sizer) Though not a trained or especially learned scholar, his devotion to the field of etchings and engravings brought him high profile. The lectures he gave on prints at Harvard were among the first–if not the first–formal courses offered on prints, a curatorial discipline later developed at Harvard by Paul J. Sachs. As an exponent of prints as an art form he stands in league with early curators of prints, William M. Ivins, Jr., A. Hyatt Mayor, Carl Zigrosser and Adelyn Dohme Breeskin. He raised the profile of prints studies in America, particularly fifteenth-century engravings.
Carrington, Fitz Roy. 1917. Engravers and etchers; six lectures delivered on the Scammon Foundation at the Art Institute of Chicago, March 1916. [Chicago]: The Art Institute of Chicago. https://archive.org/details/engraversetchers00carr/page/n4.
Sources
Hamersly, Lewis Randolph, John W. Leonard, William Frederick Mohr, Herman Warren Knox, Frank R. Holmes, and Winfield Scott Downs. Who’s Who in New York City and State. New York, NY: L.R. Hamersly Co., 1904. https://archive.org/details/whoswhoinnewyor00holmgoog/page/n126.
“The Print Department of the Museum: Appointment of Mr. FitzRoy Carrington.” Museum of Fine Arts Bulletin 10, no. 59 (1912): 42. http://www.jstor.org/stable/4423566.
Whitehill, Walter Muir. Museum of Fine Arts, Boston: a Centennial History. Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press, 1970, pp. 387-390.
Contributors: Arial Hart
Citation
Arial Hart. "Carrington, Fitzroy." Dictionary of Art Historians (website). https://arthistorians.info/carringtonf/.
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Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, curator of prints, founded Print Collector’s quarterly. Carrington was born in Surbiton, Surrey, England (today, Greater London) in 1869 to R. C. and Sarah Jane (née Pewtress) Carrington. He was educated at B
Professor Akademie der Künste, Munich; author of the Bilder Atlas. The Bilder-Atlas was later translated by Arthur Lincoln Frothingham, Jr., and Allan Marquand. In 1880 J. J. Tikkanen studied under Carrière. In the early 1890’s Carrière was criticized by the young Richard Muther in the Münchner Neuesten Nachrichten as being provincial. Carrière was “an idealist aesthetician, half literary scholar, half art historian, and a representative of the Kunst-und-Kulture school of thought” (Ringbom).
Selected Bibliography
Die Kunst im Zusammenhang der Culturentwickelung und die Ideale der Menschheit. 5 vols. Leipzig: F. A. Brockhaus, 1877-86; Bilder-Atlas, English, Marquand, Allan, and Frothingham, Arthur. Sculpture and Painting. vol. 3 of Iconographic Encyclopedia of the Arts and Sciences. Philadelphia: Iconographic Pub. Co., 1885ff.
Sources
Dilly, Heinrich. Kunstgeschichte als Institution: Studien zur Geschichte einer Diziplin. Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp, 1979; 23 quoted; Metzler Kunsthistoriker Lexikon: zweihundert Porträts deutschsprachiger Autoren aus vier Jahrhunderten. Stuttgart: Metzler, 1999, p. 278; [brief profile] Busch, Werner, and Beyrodt, Wilhelm, eds. Kunsttheorie und Malerei, Kunstwissenschaft. vol. 1 of Kunsttheorie und Kunstgeschichte des 19. Jahrhunderts in Deutschland: Texte und Dokumente. Stuttgart: Reclam, 1982, p. 379; Ringbom, Sixten. Art History in Finland before 1920. Helsinki: 1986, p. 63.
Citation
"Carrière, Moritz." Dictionary of Art Historians (website). https://arthistorians.info/carrierem/.
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Professor Akademie der Künste, Munich; author of the Bilder Atlas. The Bilder-Atlas was later translated by Arthur Lincoln Frothingham, Jr., and Allan Marquand. In 1880
Art historian of Classical art; interested in ancient materials and methods. Carpenter’s father, William Henry Carpenter was a provost at Columbia University, which the younger Carpenter attended, graduating at age 19. He received a Rhodes scholarship at Oxford, studying at Balliol College. At Oxford he published poetry and took both a second B.A. (1911) and an M.A. (1914). He had spent the year 1912-13 at the American School of Classical Studies at Athens, which ignited a passion for classical studies. Learning of his preciosity, Bryn Mawr president Martha Carey Thomas (1857-1935) asked Carpenter to establish a department of classical archaeology there. Carpenter did, continuing coursework at Columbia. He graduated from Columbia in 1916, writing his dissertation on the ethics of Euripides. By 1918 he was already full professor. The same year he married Eleanor Houston Hill, a student at Bryn Mawr. After war service (1917-19) he was a member of the American Commission to Negotiate Peace in Paris. Ever fascinated by the larger archaeological world, Carpenter journeyed over a thousand miles in Guatemala, the account of his trip published in 1920 as The Land beyond Mexico. In 1921 he published perhaps his most widely read book, The Aesthetic Basis of Greek Art. An introduction to Greek art, Carpenter attempted to place the production of Greek art (mostly sculpture and architecture) in terms of artistic behavior. The starting point of analyzing Greek art, Carpenter contended, was the practice of artistic production. His The Greeks in Spain, 1925, was the result of archaeological excavations in that country. In 1926 Carpenter was appointed an annual professor at the American School of Classical Studies in Athens, merging those duties with that of director (1927-32). During that time he founded the school’s journal, Hesperia, in 1932. The beginning of the American excavations in the Agora in Athens were also under his tenure. His Sculpture of the Nike Temple Parapet appeared in 1929. Carpenter returned to teaching full-time at Bryn Mawr in 1932. He delivered the Martin Classical Lectures at Oberlin College, which appeared in print as The Humanistic Value of Archaeology in1933. Despite mounting tensions in Europe on the eve of World War II, he held a 1939-40 professorship of Classical School of the American Academy in Rome. Carpenter used the years of World War II to publish lectures from symposia and other lectures. His Art, a Bryn Mawr Symposium (1940) and The Bases of Artistic Creation (1942), both focus on esthetics. His 1946 Folk Tale: Fiction and Saga in the Homeric Epics, the result of the Sather Classical Lectures given at the University of California at Berkeley, suggested that the folk tails of Europe deeply influenced the Homer’s writings, still a controversial theory. Among his last students at Bryn Mawr were Bruni Ridgway, who wrote her Master’s thesis under him. He retired from Bryn Mawr in 1955, issuing a second edition of Esthetic Basis of the Greek Art in 1959. In retirement he held visiting professorships at the University of Pennsylvania in 1960, was Andrew W. Mellon professorship at the University of Pittsburgh for 1961-1962, and another visiting scholar position at the University of Washington (1963-1964). Together with James S. Ackerman, Carpenter wrote Art and Archaeology, 1962, a handbook for practitioners of the discipline of art history. His theory that catastrophes and migrations in ancient history were because of climate changes manifested itself in the volume, Discontinuity in Greek Civilization, 1966. His final book, published at age 81, was Architects of the Parthenon, 1970. Privately, Carpenter was a dogs lover and bred them as a hobby. In 1997, the art and archaeological library at Bryn Mawr was named for him. Carpenter was an unconventional scholar whose reputation, both as a teacher and as a scholar, were extensive. His lecturing style was so elegant he was known at the “Bryn Mawr nightingale.” He argued for a later dating of the Greek alphabet to the eighth century B.C., a date now generally accepted. His use of the wide range of evidence that contributes to art history as well as his interest in all the areas of archaeology is the strongest aspect of his reputation. His teaching style was “entirely Socratic” according to Ridgway, asking questions and letting students discover the answers. He was little interested in what others wrote (his books contain few footnotes), preferring to base his analysis on strict and direct observation of the object (Ridgway).
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. 43; 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. 40; Medwid, Linda M. The Makers of Classical Archaeology: A Reference Work. New York: Humanity Books, 2000 pp. 48-51; Lang, Mabel L. “Rhys Carpenter.” American National Biography 4: 433-34; Chambers, Mortimer. “Rhys Carpenter.” Encyclopedia of the History of Classical Archaeology. Nancy Thomson de Grummond, ed. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1996, pp. 245-46; [obituary:] New York Times, January 4, 1980: 15; Ridgway, Brunilde [personal email recollections contained in an essay] “A Carpenter Builds.” Section IV in Dessy, Raymond. Exile from Olynthus: Wilhelmina van Ingen http://scholar.lib.vt.edu/faculty_archives/dessy/Section_IV.pdf. [bibliography to 1969]: Hesperia 38 no. 2 (1969) : 123-132; [dissertation:] The Ethics of Euripides. Columbia University, 1918; Greek Sculpture: a Critical Review. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1960; and Ackerman, James. Art and Archaeology. New York: Prentice Hall, 1963; Humanistic Value of Archaeology. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1933; The Esthetic Basis of the Greek Art of the Fifth and Fourth Centuries B. C.. New York: Longmans, Green and Co., 1921; Ancient Corinth a Guide to the Excavations. Athens: Hestia, 1936; Art: a Bryn Mawr Symposium. Bryn Mawr, PA: Bryn Mawr College, 1940; Discontinuity in Greek Civilization. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1966; Folk Tale: Fiction and Saga in the Homeric Epics, Berkeley: University of California Press, 1946; The Greeks in Spain. New York: Longmans, Green and Co., 1925; The Humanistic Value of Archaeology … Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1933; Historical Aspects of the Fine Arts: Addresses by Rhys Carpenter [and others]. Oberlin, OH: Oberlin College, 1938; The Sun-Thief, and Other Poems, London: H. Milford, 1914.
Art historian of Classical art; interested in ancient materials and methods. Carpenter’s father, William Henry Carpenter was a provost at Columbia University, which the younger Carpenter attended, graduating at age 19. He received a Rhodes scholar
Subject Area(s): architecture (object genre), Crusader (style), French (culture or style), French Medieval styles, Medieval (European), and sculpture (visual works)
Overview
Architectural historian and crusader for the protection of French medieval monuments; harsh opponent of Eugène Viollet-le-Duc‘s restorations.
Selected Bibliography
edited, Les pierres de France. Société pour le respect et la protection des anciens monuments français. 1937- ; La Cathédrale de Reims tuée et empuantie au point le plus sensible. Paris, Les Pierres de France, 1955; Les anciens monuments dans la civilisation nouvelle. 5 vols. Paris, 1937-1950
Citation
"Carlier, Achille." Dictionary of Art Historians (website). https://arthistorians.info/carliera/.
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Professor of art history, University of Pisa in 1940-1973 and Director of the Pinacoteca, Siena, 1952-1973. Carli was born to Plinio Carli, a university professor, and Else Onetti (Carli). He studied at the University of Pisa, first under Mario Salmi and then Matteo Marangoni, receiving a B.Litt., in 1927. He married Tina Zanni in 1938. Carli was appointed professor of art history (“professore universitario di storia dell’arte medievale e moderna”) at the University of Pisa in 1940, where he remained for most of his career. His Pisa years focused on the important indigenous sculptors, Giovanni and Nicola Pisano and others, resulting in the 1946 exhibition “Mostra della scultura pisana.” In 1952 he became the Director of the Pinacoteca in Siena and the superintendent of fine arts in Siena, later doing the same for Grosseto, Italy. He was awarded the Mangia d’Oro from the City of Siena in 1959. In 1965 he received the Cittadino Benemerito Pisano award. He retired from Pisa in 1970 to become professor of art history at the University of Siena, adding the rectorship of the Opera del Duomo, also in Siena, the following year. Carli retired from the University in Siena and his superintendent roles in 1973. In 1977 he was elected president of the Accademia degli Intronati. The Premio del Presidente della Republica was awarded to him in 1980. He died at age 88.Carli helped establish the importance of the Renaissance Pisan sculptors within the context of the history of art in western Europe. He was not drawn to any particular methodology
Selected Bibliography
Il duomo di Orvieto. Rome: Istituto Poligrafico Della Stato, Libreria Dello Stato, 1965; Il Duomo di Siena. Genova: SAGEP, 1979; Giotto and His Contemporaries. New York: Crown Publishers, 1958; Giovanni Pisano. Pisa: Pacini, 1977; Il gotico. Milan: Electra, 1967; Guide to the Pinacoteca of Siena. Milan: A. Martello, 1967; Italian Primitives: Panel painting of the Twelfth and Thirteenth Centuries. New York: H. N. Abrams, 1965; The Maestà, Duccio di Buoninsegna. Milan: A. Martello, 1969; The Miniatures of Liberale da Verona from the Antiphonaries in Siena Cathedral. Milan: Martello, 1960; Les musées de Sienne /The Museums of Siena. Novara: Istituto Geografico de Agostini, 1964; Il Pintoricchio. Milan: Electa editrice, 1960; Pittura pisana del Trecento. 2 vols. Milan: A. Martello, 1958-61; La pittura senese del Trecento. Milan: Electa, 1981; Pre-conquest Goldsmiths’ Work of Colombia in the Museo del Oro, Bogotá. London: Heinemann, 1957; Il pulpito interno della Cattedrale di Prato. Prato: Azienda autonoma di turismo, 1981; Sassetta e il Maestro dell’Osservanza. Milan: A. Martello, 1957; Gli scultori senesi. Milan: Electa, 1980; Sienese Painting. Greenwich, CT: New York Graphic Society, 1956; Notizie storiche di Giovanni Cecchini. Milan: Electra editrice, 1963.
Sources
Archivio Enzo Carli “Note biografiche.” Facoltà di Lettere e Filosofia, Centro Servizi Biblioteca. University of Siena (website) http://prometeo.lett.unisi.it/informazioni/archivi/archivio_enzocarli; Enciclopedia biografica e bibliografica “Italiana.” vol. 4 Storici, teorici e critici delle arti figurative: 1800-1940. Rome: Tosi, 1942; Cristiani, Maria Laura. “Enzo Carli critico d’arte e maestro.” Critica d’arte 63 (June 2000): 66-73; Berruti, Paolo. “Enzo Carli, molti ricordi.” Lorenzi, Lorenzo, ed. Andrea Delitio: i luoghi e le opere: atti del convegno in memoria di Enzo Carli. Celano, 2002; Ghisetti Giavarina, Adriano. “Enzo Carli e l’Abruzzo.” Rivista abruzzese 53 no. 1 (January-March 2000): 44-46.
Professor of art history, University of Pisa in 1940-1973 and Director of the Pinacoteca, Siena, 1952-1973. Carli was born to Plinio Carli, a university professor, and Else Onetti (Carli). He studied at the University of Pisa, first under
Early art historian at Oberlin College. Capps’ father was a Princeton University classicist and director of the American School of Classical Studies in Athens, Edward Capps, Sr. (1866-1950). The younger Capps was born while his father was on the faculty of the fledgling University of Chicago. From his father he learned a devotion to languages and classical studies. After receiving his A.B. from Princeton in 1924, he continued to Harvard University for his master’s degree, receiving both that and the Princeton M.F.A., which scholars of art history were granted, in 1927. He joined the faculty of Oberlin College the same year with a joint appointment in both Classical Studies and Art, while pursing a Ph.D. degree at Princeton. At Princeton, Capps worked closely with Charles Rufus Morey. However, Capps disagreed with Morey’s view of Byzantine art stemming from either neo-Attic or Alexandrine models. He declined to have Morey supervise his dissertation, which was accepted in 1931. At Oberlin, Capps taught both medieval and ancient art history courses. He retired from the College in 1968 after teaching at Oberlin for 41 years. His son, Edward Capps III, is also a classicist.
Selected Bibliography
“The Style of the Consular Diptychs.” Art Bulletin 10 (1927): 61-101; “Red-figured Pitcher by Douris.” Allen Memorial Art Museum Bulletin 13 no. 1 (1955): 4-10.
Sources
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. 59 mentioned; 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. 63 mentioned; Weitzmann, Kurt. “The Contribution of the Princeton University Department of Art and Archaeology to the Study of Byzantine Art.” Byzantium at Princeton: Byzantine Art and Archaeology at Princeton University. Curcic, Slobodan, and St. Clair, Archer, eds. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Library, Dept. of Rare Books and Special Collections, 1986, pp. 11-30; Kourelis, Kostis. “Byzantium and the Avant-Garde.” Hesperia 76 (2007): 427; personal correspondence, Oberlin College Archives, 2008; [obituary:] Allen Memorial Art Museum Bulletin 27 no. 2 (Winter 1970): 103-4.
Citation
"Capps, Edward, Jr.." Dictionary of Art Historians (website). https://arthistorians.info/cappse/.
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Early art historian at Oberlin College. Capps’ father was a Princeton University classicist and director of the American School of Classical Studies in Athens, Edward Capps, Sr. (1866-1950). The younger Capps was born while his father was on the f
Place Born: Brussels, Brussels-Capital Region, Belgium
Place Died: Etterbeek, Brussels-Capital Region, Belgium
Home Country/ies: Belgium
Subject Area(s): Egyptian (ancient) and Egyptology
Career(s): curators
Overview
Egyptologist; Chief Curator of the Brussels Royal Museums of Art and History. In 1898, Capart finished his study of Law at the Free University of Brussels. He won an award for his thesis on Egyptian penal law, Droit pénal égyptien, and an abridged version of it was published in Revue de l’Université de Bruxelles (1899-1900). For further training in Egyptology, Capart attended the lessons of Alfred Wiedemann (1856-1936) at Bonn University and also visited other universities. In 1900, he obtained a position as assistant-curator of the Egyptian Antiquities at the Royal Museums of Art and History in Brussels. He soon traveled to Egypt to purchase new treasures for the collection. In 1912, he was appointed secretary, and he served as chief curator between 1925 and 1942. From 1903 onwards, he combined his work at the museum with a professorship at Liège University, teaching ancient art and archaeology. In 1904, he published Les débuts de l’art en égypte, an overview of Egyptian art, based on the recent discoveries in the oldest sites of Upper Egypt. The book received great acclaim and in 1905 a revised and enlarged edition appeared in English, Primitive Art in Egypt. Convinced of the importance of photographic documentation, he published several volumes of photographs of newly discovered Egyptian art. In 1920, he published the texts underlying his academic teaching, Leçons sur l’art égyptien, of which the introductory chapters appeared in 1923 in an illustrated English edition, Egyptian Art. Introductory Studies. In 1930 he was elected member of the Royal Academy of Sciences, Arts and Fine Arts of Belgium. For his books on Thebes and Memphis, both published in collaboration with Marcelle Werbrouck (1889-1959), he was granted the 1925-1930 Prix quinquennal des Sciences Historiques. In his museum in Brussels, he acted as an enthusiastic manager and took many new initiatives. In 1922, he established an educational service, following a general trend of museum reform in Belgium and abroad. As curator, he paid much attention to the question of authenticity of the new acquisitions and to the state of preservation of the growing collection. In 1934, he employed a chemist, Paul Coremans, to set up a scientific laboratory in the museum, and to reorganize the photographic documentation. Both the laboratory and the documentation service, successfully directed by Coremans, eventually became a separate institution, since 1957 known as Royal Institute for the Study and Conservation of Belgium’s Artistic Heritage. Capart traveled often to Egypt, as well as to the United States. On February 18, 1923, her Majesty Queen Elisabeth of Belgium visited, in the company of Capart, the tomb of Tutankhamen, which had recently been opened by the British archaeologist Howard Carter (1874-1939). On this occasion, the Queen took the initiative to establish the Fondation égyptologique Reine Elisabeth for the promotion of the study of Egyptology. The first aim of this foundation, directed by Capart, was to expand the library of Egyptology at the Brussels Royal Museums of Art and History. A section for papyrology was set up in 1925. In the same year, Capart created the journal Chronique d’égypte, issued by the Queen Elisabeth Foundation. In 1924-25, Capart gave a series of lectures for various societies of the Archaeological Institute of America. This trip was sponsored by the Foundation of the Commission for the Relief of Belgium. In 1928, he published the text of his lectures, including one on the tomb of Tutankhamen, Lectures on Egyptian Art. A French edition appeared in 1931, Propos sur l’art égyptien. In the 1930s he served the Brooklyn Museum of Art in New York as advisory curator of the Charles Edwin Wilbour (1833-1896) Collection of Egyptian Art. Capart’s annotated and illustrated publication of the personal letters of this American Egyptologist appeared in 1936, Travels in Egypt (December 1880 to May 1891). Letters of Charles Edwin Wilbour. In 1946, Capart published Fouilles en égypte: El Kab, impressions et souvenirs. This Belgian excavation campaign at El Kab, first directed by Capart, and sponsored by the Queen Elisabeth Foundation, began in 1937 and continues today. Capart died in 1947. One of his last works Pour faire aimer l’art égyptien, a brief overview of Egyptian art, was published posthumously by the Queen Elisabeth Foundation. In 1956, a memorial tablet was placed in the narthex of the Brussels museum, in honor of its former Chief Curator. During an official ceremony, Her Majesty Queen Elisabeth unveiled the stone, representing the face of this many-sided man, to whom she had given so much support during his life.
Selected Bibliography
for a review of his publications, see the above-mentioned articles of Maurice Stracmans; Folkers, Theunis Liste des publications de M. Jean Capart, président du XXme Congrès international des Orientalistes (Bruxelles 5-10 septembre 1938) avec portrait, offerte aux membres du dit congrès. Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1938; Les débuts de l’art en égypte. Brussels: Vromant & Co, 1904; Primitive Art in Egypt. London: H. Grevel, 1905; Bulletin critique des religions de l’égypte. Brussels: Misch et Thron, 1905-1913; Leçons sur l’art égyptien. Liège: Vaillant-Carmanne, 1920; Egyptian Art. Introductory Studies. London: G. Allen & Unwin ltd., 1923; and Werbrouck, Marcelle Thebes, the Glory of a Great Past. London: G. Allen & Unwin ltd, 1926; and Werbrouck, Marcelle Memphis à l’ombre des pyramides. Brussels: Vromant & Co, 1930; Lectures on Egyptian Art. Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press, 1928; Propos sur l’art égyptien. Brussels: Fondation égyptologique Reine Elisabeth, 1931; Travels in Egypt (December 1880 to May 1891) Letters of Charles Edwin Wilbour. Brooklyn, N.Y.: Brooklyn Museum, 1936; and others. Tout-ankh-amon. Brussels: Vromant, 1943; Fouilles en égypte: El Kab, impressions et souvenirs. Brussels: Fondation égyptologique Reine Elisabeth, 1946; Pour faire aimer l’art égyptien. Brussels: Fondation égyptologique Reine Elisabeth, 1949.
Sources
Prof. Jean Capart to visit America Art News 31 (April 1933): 10; Marlier, G. Jean Capart, égyptologue et manager des Musées Royaux d’Art et d’Histoire. Beaux Arts Magazine (March 24, 1939): 5; Lavachery, H.A. Jean Capart, conservateur en chef des Musées Royaux d’Art et d’Histoire. Bulletin des Musées Royaux d’Art et d’Histoire series 3, part 14 (November 1942): 122-126; De Genouillac, Henri Bulletin des Musées Royaux d’Art et d’Histoire series 3, part 14 (March 1942): 47-48; Obituary Art News 46 (July 1947): 9; Van de Walle, B. and others Jean Capart (1877-1947) Chronique d’égypte 22 (July 1947): 181-218; Obituary Arts, Beaux-Arts, Littérature, Spectacles (June 27 1947): 3; Obituary Bulletin des Musées Royaux d’Art et d’Histoire series 4, part 19 (July 1947): 103-104; Tribute American Journal of Archaeology 51 (October 1947): 434; De Borchgrave d’Altena, J. and Coremans, P. Inauguration du mémorial dédié à Jean Capart/Inhuldiging van de gedenkplaat ter nagedachtenis van Jean Capart Bulletin des Musées Royaux d’Art et d’Histoire series 4, 28 (1956): 1-5; De Roo, R. Les services éducatifs/Educational services Museum 20, 4 (1967): 269-275. Stracmans, Maurice L’œuvre égyptologique de Jean Capart Annuaire de l’Institut de Philologie et d’Histoire Orientales et Slaves 14 (1954-1957): 51-84; Van de Walle, Baudouin Jean Capart (1877-1947). Extract from Liber Memorialis, l’Université de Liège de 1936 à 1966 2. Notices biographiques. Liège: Université de Liège, 1967; Stracmans, Maurice Jean Capart et l’histoire des religions Annuaire de l’Institut de Philologie et d’Histoire Orientales et Slaves 20 (1968-1973): 403-425.
Egyptologist; Chief Curator of the Brussels Royal Museums of Art and History. In 1898, Capart finished his study of Law at the Free University of Brussels. He won an award for his thesis on Egyptian penal law, Droit pénal égyptien, and an
Subject Area(s): Abstract Expressionist and anti-modernism
Career(s): art critics
Overview
Professor of art history, University of Virginia, 1938-1950; chief art critic (and anti-modernist) for the New York Times during the period of abstract expressionism. Canaday was the son of Franklin Canaday and Agnes Musson (Canaday). His father was a Kansas attorney. The younger Canaday moved to Texas with his family at age seven. He attended the University of Texas in Austin, receiving his B.A. in 1925. His M.A. was granted from Yale University in 1932. He married Katherine Hoover in 1935. Between 1938-1950 he taught art history at the University of Virginia, Charlottesville. During World War II, the federal government’s Board of Economic Welfare sent Canaday to the Belgian Congo as an interpreter. When he returned, he served in the United States Marine Corps in World War II, 1943-45 rising to first lieutenant in the Pacific Theater. In 1950 he moved to Newcomb College, Tulane University, to chair the school of art. In 1952, Canaday was hired by the Philadelphia Museum of Art to head the education division, which he did until 1959. In 1958, Canaday wrote an introductory educational series for the Metropolitan Museum of Art. That year, too, the New York Times hired him as art critic, and the following year appointed chief art critic. Canaday used his art criticism to accuse many of the emerging modernist artists in New York, including the abstract expressionists, as frauds and charlatans. He criticized both the Frank Lloyd Wright’s Guggenheim Museum and the art inside. Simultaneously he accused art faculty of brainwashing the public into accepting modern art. The relentless animadversion brought a response by the art community. In “A Letter to the New York Times” of 1961, a group of collectors, art history professors and artists wrote to protest to his views accusing artists of duping the art public. Among Canaday’s supporters was the artist Edward Hopper. Canaday continued his anti-modernist, anti-intellectual reviews, and the art community, specifically voiced by Howard S. Conant, chairman of the art department of New York University and the critic Irving Sandler When the Times assistant art critic, Dore Ashton, was supportive of the movement the Times fired her (Sandler). Canaday published several sets of essays and memoirs, including Embattled Critic. Borrowing the title of the famous work by Giorgio Vasari, Canaday issued his Lives of the Painters, also in 1963. He “asked to be relieved” of his art critic duties from the Times in 1973, remaining as restaurant critic of the New York Times until 1976. He died of pancreatic cancer in 1985. Canaday published mystery novels under the name Matthew Head.Canaday had a strong pedagogical manner and elegant writing style which made sales of his introductory surveys of art brisk among the general public. His writing was not primarily based on original research. His views on abstract expressionist art and the motivations of those artists have not stood the test of time.
Selected Bibliography
Embattled Critic: Views on Modern Art. New York: Farrar, Straus and Cudahy, 1963; Culture Gulch: Notes on Art and its Public in the 1960’s. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1969; and Canaday, Katherine H. Keys to Art. New York: Tudor Pub. Co., 1963; The Lives of the Painters. 4 vols. New York: Norton, 1969; Mainstreams of Modern Art. New York: Holt, 1959; Metropolitan Seminars in Art. 12 vols. New York: Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1958-59, revised and reissued as, What is Art? An Introduction to Painting, Sculpture, and Architecture. New York: Knopf/Random House, 1980.
Sources
Canaday, John. Embattled Critic: Views on Modern Art. New York: Farrar, Straus and Cudahy, 1963; “A Letter to the New York Times.” New York Times February 26, 1961, p. X19; Sandler, Irving. A Sweeper-up After Artists: a Memoir. London: Thames & Hudson, 2003, pp. 241-44; [obituary:] Berger, Joseph. “John Canaday, Former Times Art Critic, Dies.” New York Times July 21, 1985, p. 28.
Professor of art history, University of Virginia, 1938-1950; chief art critic (and anti-modernist) for the New York Times during the period of abstract expressionism. Canaday was the son of Franklin Canaday and Agnes Musson (Canaday). His
