Skip to content

Art Historians

Trichet du Fresne, Raphaël

Full Name: Trichet du Fresne, Raphaël

Gender: male

Date Born: 1611

Date Died: 1661

Place Born: Bordeaux, Centre-Val de Loire, France

Place Died: Paris, Île-de-France, France

Home Country/ies: France

Subject Area(s): Italian (culture or style) and painting (visual works)

Career(s): publishers


Overview

First publisher of Leonardo’s treatise on painting in 1651 and author of the first published annotated art bibliography. Trichet du Fresne was the son of the lawyer and bibliophile Pierre Trichet (1586/7-ca. 1649). He studied at the Collège de Guyenne, Paris. While working for the brother of Louis XIII, Gaston d’Orléans (1608-60), he acquired works of art on buying excursions. While in Rome around 1630, he encounter the French expatriate intellectual community, centered around Sébastien Bourdon. Back in Paris by 1640 Trichet secured an appointment by Cardinal Richelieu to the Imprimerie Royale, reading texts for official authorization. There he met Nicolas Poussin. He was in Rome by 1644 facilitating the interactions between Poussin and the French ambassador to Venice, M. des Hameaux. Trichet published Leonardo da Vinci’s treatise on painting, Trattato della pittura, which had circulated in manuscript form, in 1651. His Trattato contained an early biography of Leonardo and Alberti and contained a list of books at the end, forming the first annotated bibliography of art literature. By the following year, Trichet was working as the librarian and art curator to Queen Christina of Sweden in Stockholm. When the Queen abdication in 1654 and emigrated to Italy, Trichet followed her to Rome. Eventually he returned to Paris where he was the librarian to Nicolas Fouquet, and finally for Jean-Baptiste Colbert. Trichet maintained a personal library of more than 1400 volumes, which was acquired by Fouquet for Saint-Mandé, and later by Colbert for the Bibliothèque Royale (Bibliothèque Nationale). Trichet also amassed a picture collectionincluded the paintings then attributed to Gentile Bellini (The Audience of a Venetian Embassy in an Eastern Town, today at the Louvre, and Bacchanal before a Temple by Poussin and Dead Christ with Angels by Ludovico Carracci, both lost today.


Selected Bibliography

Trattato della pittura di Lionardo da Vinci. Paris: Appresso Giacomo Langlois, 1651; Catalogus librorum bibliothecae Raphaelis Tricheti du Fresne. Paris: apud viduam & haeredes, ruë du Mail, 1662.


Sources

Dezeimeris, Reinhold. Pierre Trichet: un bibliophile bordelais au XVIIe siècle. Bordeaux: Impr. Gounouilhou, 1878; Bonnaffé, Dictionnaire des amateurs français au XVIIe siècle. Paris: A. Quantin, 1884; Bajou, Thierry, Dictionary of Art; Sorensen, Lee. “Art Bibliographies: A Survey of their Development, 1595-1821” Library Quarterly 56 (January 1986): 31-55.




Citation

"Trichet du Fresne, Raphaël." Dictionary of Art Historians (website). https://arthistorians.info/trichetdufresner/.


More Resources

Search for materials by & about this art historian:

First publisher of Leonardo’s treatise on painting in 1651 and author of the first published annotated art bibliography. Trichet du Fresne was the son of the lawyer and bibliophile Pierre Trichet (1586/7-ca. 1649). He studied at the Collège de Guy

Treu, Georg

Full Name: Treu, Georg

Gender: male

Date Born: 1843

Date Died: 1921

Place Born: St. Petersburg, Russia

Place Died: Dresden, Saxony, Germany

Home Country/ies: Germany

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


Overview

Led later excavation expeditions to Olympia (1878-1881) for Ernst Curtius, and subsequently was Director of the museum in Berlin devoted to the results.


Selected Bibliography

Bildwerke von Olympia in Stein und Thon, 3 vols. 1894-1897.


Sources

Archäologenbildnisse: Porträts und Kurzbiographien von Klassichen Archäologen deutscher Sprache. Reinhard Lullies, ed. Mainz am Rhein: Verlag Philipp von Zabern, 1988: 83-84.




Citation

"Treu, Georg." Dictionary of Art Historians (website). https://arthistorians.info/treug/.


More Resources

Search for materials by & about this art historian:

Led later excavation expeditions to Olympia (1878-1881) for Ernst Curtius, and subsequently was Director of the museum in Berlin devoted to the results.

Tresham, Henry

Full Name: Tresham, Henry

Gender: male

Date Born: c. 1749-1751

Date Died: 1814

Place Born: Dublin, Ireland

Place Died: London, Greater London, England, UK

Home Country/ies: United Kingdom

Subject Area(s): British (modern) and catalogues raisonnés


Overview

Together with William Young Ottley, wrote a catalog for the British Gallery, 1818. Tresham was an art student at the Dublin Society of Artists where he won a prize in 1773. After moving to London, he met John Campbell, later 1st Baron Cawdor (1753-1821). It was likely with Campbell that Tresham journeyed to Rome in 1775 where he remained for 14 years. In Rome he met the various artists who comprised the classical revival movement, including Antonio Canova (Tresham was Campbell’s agent with Canova), Henry Fuseli, and Thomas Banks. Tresham worked primarily a painter, creating large-scale pictures from classical history for Frederick Augustus Hervey, 4th Earl of Bristol (1730-1803), Bishop of Derry. He also dealt in art and antiquities. In 1784, still in Italy, he issued his Le avventure di Saffo, a folio of aquatints. His stature as an artist and connoisseur was such that at his return to London in 1789 he immediately exhibited at the Royal Academy. He was appointed an Associate of the Royal Academy in 1791 full member of the Royal Academy in 1799. He was professor of painting 1807-09. Tresham continued to deal in art in England, his most famous and infamous sale being the group of supposedly authentic Etruscan vases to Frederick Howard, 5th Earl of Carlisle (1748-1825). Tresham began writing a guide to the British Gallery, but died of an unspecified illness before completion. It was taken over by William Young Ottley and completed in 1818. Tresham never married. Many of his drawings are housed at the Yale Center for British Art.


Selected Bibliography

and Ottley, William Young. The British Gallery of Pictures: Selected from the Most Admired Productions of the Old Masters in Great Britain, accompanied with Descriptions, Historical and Critical. London: Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme, and Brown, 1818.


Sources

Dictionary of Art; Egerton, Judy. “Henry Tresham.” Oxford Dictionary of National Biography.




Citation

"Tresham, Henry." Dictionary of Art Historians (website). https://arthistorians.info/treshamh/.


More Resources

Search for materials by & about this art historian:

Together with William Young Ottley, wrote a catalog for the British Gallery, 1818. Tresham was an art student at the Dublin Society of Artists where he won a prize in 1773. After moving to London, he met John Campbell, later

Trendall, A. D.

Full Name: Trendall, A. D.

Other Names:

  • Arthur Dale Trendall

Gender: male

Date Born: 1909

Date Died: 1995

Place Born: Auckland, New Zealand

Place Died: Melbourne, Victoria, Australia

Home Country/ies: Australia

Subject Area(s): ancient, ceramic ware (visual works), Classical, Italian (culture or style), and pottery (visual works)


Overview

Classical art historian of south Italian pottery from the 5th to the 4th centuries BC. Trendall’s father was a woodworker in New Zealand. A severe case of peritonitis forced him a year’s recuperation in bed where he developed a passion for literature. At 17 he enrolled at the University of Otago (then part of the University of New Zealand) to study mathematics, but changed after the hearing lectures of T. D. Adams, to classics. He also attended King’s College, Auckland. In 1931 he was awarded a postgraduate scholarship to Trinity College, Cambridge, and became a Fellow there from 1936 to 1940. He traveled widely in Italy, exploring ancient Greek colonial sites. The influence of these early travels, as well as the work of his mentor, J. D. Beazley, led to his a study the Greek red figure pottery in southern Italy, first published in 1938 in the Bilder griechischer Vasen series and later translated into English as Early South Italian Vase-Painting. After graduation from Cambridge, Trendall moved to Rome where he had been awarded a scholarship. For the next two years he worked as the librarian at the British School in Rome studying Italiote vases, which was to be the foundation for all his later study. Between 1939-54 he held the Chair of Greek at the University of Sydney, Australia and from 1948 onwards, t he newly instituted Chair of Archaeology. His war years were spent in the Signals Intelligence, where he worked in cryptography, breaking Japanese diplomatic messages and codes. Trendall moved to Canberra in 1954 to become the first Master of University House. He assisted in the establishment of the Australian Humanities Research Council. Retiring in 1969 Trendall became a resident Fellow of La Trobe University, producing some of his most important work. Among the most important of his works are the two volume The Red-Figured Vases of Lucania, Campania and Sicily (1968), Illustrations of Greek Drama (1972), The Red-Figured Vases of Paestum (1987) and Greek Red-figured Fish-plates (1987). Trendall’s importance lies in his establishing the basic framework for the study of Greek-produced pottery in Italy. When he started his work, vases were scattered throughout the world, and the literature on the topic was small. Trendall compiled notes on more than 20,000 vases, establishing relationships between the painters, workshops and the use of themes on the pottery. By evaluating the frequency and representation of the scenes appearing on pottery, Trendall concluded, for example, that Euripedes, who was not particularly celebrated in his lifetime, later surpassed both Sophocles and Aeschylus in popularity, while Aristophanes lost his artistic following to Menander.


Selected Bibliography

Greek Red-figured Fish-plates. Basel: Vereinigung der Freunde antiker Kunst, 1987; and T. B. L. Webster. Illustrations of Greek Drama, New York: Praeger, 1971; Paestan Pottery: a Study of the Red-Figured Vases of Paestum, London: British School at Rome, 1936; Phlyax Vases. London: University (Institute of Classical Studies), 1967; Red Figure Vases of South Italy and Sicily : a Handbook. New York: Thames and Hudson, 1989; The Red-Figured Vases of Paestum. London: British School at Rome, 1987; Frühitaliotische Vasen. Bilder griechischer Vasen 12. Leipzig: Verlag Heinrich Keller, 1938, English, Early South Italian Vase-Painting. Mainz: Verlag P. von Zabern, 1974.


Sources

Obituary. The Tiimes (London), December 4, 1995




Citation

"Trendall, A. D.." Dictionary of Art Historians (website). https://arthistorians.info/trendalld/.


More Resources

Search for materials by & about this art historian:

Classical art historian of south Italian pottery from the 5th to the 4th centuries BC. Trendall’s father was a woodworker in New Zealand. A severe case of peritonitis forced him a year’s recuperation in bed where he developed a passion for literat

Trautscholdt, Eduard

Full Name: Trautscholdt, Eduard

Gender: male

Date Born: 1893

Date Died: unknown

Home Country/ies: Germany


Overview



Sources

Ladendorf, Heinz, ed. Festschrift Dr. h.c. Eduard Trautscholdt zum siebzigsten Geburtstag am 13. Januar. 1963. Hamburg: E. Hauswedell, 1965.




Citation

"Trautscholdt, Eduard." Dictionary of Art Historians (website). https://arthistorians.info/trautscholdte/.


More Resources

Search for materials by & about this art historian:

Trachtenberg, Marvin

Full Name: Trachtenberg, Marvin

Other Names:

  • Marvin Lawrence Trachtenberg

Gender: male

Date Born: 1939

Place Born: Tulsa, OK, USA

Home Country/ies: United States

Subject Area(s): architecture (object genre), Gothic (Medieval), Italian (culture or style), Italian Renaissance-Baroque styles, Renaissance, and sculpture (visual works)


Overview

Scholar of Gothic and Italian Renaissance architecture; Edith Kitzmiller Professor of the History of Fine Arts, Institute of Fine Arts, New York University. Trachtenberg’s parents were Russian Jewish immigrants who “barely survived the [Russian] Revolution” (Trachtenberg). His father, William Trachtenberg (1905-1973) and mother, Leona Fox (Trachtenberg) (1907-2000), settled in Oklahoma in the 1930s “dustbowl” where William worked as an independed oil producer. The younger Trachtenberg entered Yale University intending a career in science. However, the lectures of the literature scholar Harold Bloom (b. 1930) convinced him to switch to the humanities. He graduated magna cum laude in 1961, marrying Heidi Feldmeier the same year. Trachtenberg attended the Institute of Fine Arts, New York University, on a Woodrow Wilson fellowship, 1961-1962 securing his A.M., in 1963. He gravitated to medieval and Renaissance architectural history studying under Wolfgang Lotz and Richard Krautheimer. A Fulbright fellowship in Florence, Italy, 1964-1966 and Bernard Berenson fellowship allowed him to complete his Ph. D. at New York University, in 1967. Trachtenberg began teaching at his alma mater while working on his dissertation in 1964 rising to assistant professor. His 1968 dissertation, written under Krautheimer, was on the campanile (tower) of the cathedral at Florence. He was appointed associate professor in 1969. He collaborated with medievalist Otto von Simson on the fourth volume on medieval art for the new edtion of the Propyläen Kunstgeschichte, which appeared in 1972. The revision of his dissertation, published as Campanile of Florence Cathedral: ‘Giotto’s Tower, 1971, was awarded the Alice Davis Hitchcock Prize (Society of Architectural Historians) in 1974. Trachtenberg was a National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) Senior Fellowship 1974-1975 and Villa I Tatti Fellow, Harvard University, 1974-76. He authored one of the final volumes in the Art in Context series, the brainchild of Hugh Honour and John Fleming and the publisher Allen Lane (1902-1970), on the Statue of Liberty in 1976. The same year he was promoted to (full) professor at the Institute. In 1985 he was awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship. Trachtenberg was selected in 1988 to contribute the ground-breaking series of literature reviews for the Art Bulletin‘s “State of the Discipline” series on recent architectural history. He was named Edith Kitzmiller Professor of the History of Fine Arts in 1990. He divorced in 1992, marrying the art historian and IFA student, Anne-Marie Sankovitch (1959-2005) in 1993. In 1996 his article “Why the Pazzi Chapel is not by Brunelleschi,” Trachtenberg reattributed the famous chapel from Brunelleschi to Michelozzo. A monograph on the architecture of Florence, Dominion of the Eye: Urbanism, Art, and Power in Early Modern Florence, was published 1997, winning his second Hitchcock Prize. In 1999 he was awared the Charles Rufus Morey Prize by the College Art Association. He received a Graham Foundation Grant for 2000-2001. The same year he issued a revised edition of his advisor, Krautheimer, book on Rome: Profile of a City, 312-1308. Trachtenberg’s piece in the NewYork Times in 2003 endorsed Daniel Libeskind’s entry for the hotly debated Ground Zero site; shortly after which the architect won the commission. After the death of his second wife from cancer in 2005, he became engaged to the Barnard College historian Dorothy Ko (b. 1957). His students included Christine Smith, Anita Moskowitz, Lisa Reilly, Gary Radke, and Ena Giurescu. As a scholar Trachtenberg built a career on reinterpretation and rethinking the commonplaces of art history. His assertion that the “Gothic” was “medieval modernism” was frequently formulated in articles in Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians, RES, and Gesta. Fundamental studies of major trecento buildings, particularly the Campanile and Palazzo Vecchio remain the standard treatment of the field. His co-authored textbook (with Isabelle Hyman), on western architecture is still the mainstay survey text for the topic.


Selected Bibliography

[dissertation:] The Campanile of Florence Cathedral. New York University,1968, published as The Campanile of Florence Cathedral: “Giotto’s Tower”. New York: New York University Press, 1971; and Hyman, Isabelle. Architecture: from Prehistory to Post-modernism: the Western Tradition. London: Academy Editions, 1986; The Statue of Liberty. Art in Context series. London: Allen Lane, 1976; and Hyman, Isabelle. Architecture, from Prehistory to Post-modernism: the Western Tradition. New York: H.N. Abrams, 1986; “Some Observations on Recent Architectural History.” Art Bulletin 70 (June 1988): 208-41; “Archeology, Merriment, and Murder: the First Cortile of the Palazzo Vecchio and its Transformations in the Late Florentine Republic.” The Art Bulletin 71 (December 1989): 565-609; “What Brunelleschi Saw: Monument and Site at the Palazzo Vecchio in Florence.” Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians 47 no. 1 (March 1988): 14-44; “Why the Pazzi Chapel is not by Brunelleschi.” Casabella (June 1996): 58-77; “Why the Pazzi Chapel is by Michelozzo.” Casabella (February 1997):, 56-75; Dominion of the Eye: Urbanism, Art, and Power in Early Modern Florence. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997;


Sources

Trachtenberg, Marvin. The Statue of Liberty. Art in Context [series]. London: Allen Lane, 1976 [wrappers flap]; Goldberger Paul. “Challenge to the Origin of a Florentine Chapel: Asserting that a Famous Work of Brunelleschi was Built by a Follower.” New York Times January 1, 1997, p. 30; personal correspondence with the subject, August, 2009.




Citation

"Trachtenberg, Marvin." Dictionary of Art Historians (website). https://arthistorians.info/trachtenbergm/.


More Resources

Search for materials by & about this art historian:

Scholar of Gothic and Italian Renaissance architecture; Edith Kitzmiller Professor of the History of Fine Arts, Institute of Fine Arts, New York University. Trachtenberg’s parents were Russian Jewish immigrants who “barely survived the [Russian] R

Toynbee, J. M. C.

Full Name: Toynbee, Jocelyn Mary Catherine

Other Names:

  • Jocelyn Mary Catherine Toynbee

Gender: female

Date Born: 1897

Date Died: 1985

Place Born: Paddington, City of Westminster, London, England, UK

Place Died: Oxford, Oxfordshire, England, England, UK

Home Country/ies: United Kingdom

Subject Area(s): ancient, archaeology, and Classical

Institution(s): Newnham College (Cambridge University)


Overview

Art historian and archaeologist of the classical era. Toynbee was the daughter of Harry Valpy Toynbee (1861-1941) and Sarah Edith Marshall (Toynbee) (1859-1939). Her mother had studied history at Cambridge at at time when women could not be granted degrees there. Jocelyn Toynbee attended Winchester High School for Girls and Newnham College, Cambridge, where she received an M.A., in 1919. She taught classics at Ladies’ College, Cheltenham (England) between 1920-1921 and then St. Hugh’s College, Oxford as a classical tutor between 1921-1924. In 1924 she was part of a mass resignation of tutors protesting the dismissal of the Italianist historian Cecilia Ady (1883-1955). She became a lecturer in classics at the University of Reading, until 1927. That year she accepted the position of director of studies in classics, and a fellow of Newnham College, Cambridge University. She continued work on a Ph.D. at Oxford University, which was awarded in 1930. Her dissertation, on Roman art, at a time when most art historians saw it as a decadent subset of Greek art, showed her tenacity. As a woman in the field of classical studies, she was much encouraged and maintained an professional correspondence with Eugénie Sellers Strong, whom she met during her visits to Rome. In 1951 she was named Laurence Professor of Classical Archaeology at Cambridge. She published with J. B. Ward-Perkins.  The Shrine of St. Peter and the Vatican Excavations in 1956. A converted and devout Roman Catholic, the project held special significance for her. The following year The Flavian Reliefs from the Palazzo della Cancelleria in Rome appeared. She retired emerita in 1962, being named an honorary fellow of Newnham College. In retirement she mounted a major exhibition of Roman-British art for the Guildhall Museum, London (today the Museum of London), and provided the catalog Art in Roman Britain. A companion Art in Britain under the Romans appeared in 1964. Toynbee retired with her sister, Margaret, in Oxford, to produce some final, broadly based monographs. Death and Burial in the Roman World,1971, and Animals in Roman Life and Art, 1973 were the products of these years. Her final book was Roman Historical Portraits (1977). Her brother was the eminent historian Arnold Joseph Toynbee (1889-1975).

Richard Brilliant used Toynbee as an example of a traditional art historian who viewed late Roman art (from the third century onward) as continuum of late Imperial style and not an individual style of its own, as Aloïs Riegl (and Franz Wickhoff did. Her archaeological work in Roman Britain broadened to a wider appreciation of provincial and Celtic art.


Selected Bibliography

[dissertation:] Oxford University, 1930, published as, The Hadrianic School: a Chapter in the History of Greek Art. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1934; Animals in Roman Life and Art. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1973; The Ara Pacis Reconsidered and Historical Art in Roman Italy. Proceedings of the British Academy, 1953, vol. 39. London: British Academy , 1953; Art in Britain under the Romans. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1964; Art in Roman Britain. London Phaidon Press/Society for the Promotion of Roman Studies, 1962; The Flavian Reliefs from the Palazzo della Cancelleria in Rome. 39th Charlton Lectures on Art. London: Oxford University Press, 1957; Roman Historical Portraits. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1978; Roman Medallions. New York: The American Numismatic Society, 1944; and Ward-Perkins, John. The Shrine of St. Peter and the Vatican Excavations. London: Longmans, Green, 1956; Some Notes on Artists in the Roman World. Brussels: s.n.,1951.


Sources

Image and Mystery in the Roman World: Three Papers Given in Memory of Jocelyn Toynbee. Gloucester: Sutton, 1988; Brilliant, Richard. “Introduction.” Roman Art: from the Republic to Constantine. New York: Phaidon, 1974, p. 16, mentioned; Todd, Malcolm. “Toynbee, Jocelyn Mary Catherine (1897-1985).” Oxford Dictionary of National Biography 2004; [obituaries] Times (London) January 4, 1986; Reynolds, J. M. “Jocelyn Mary Catherine Toynbee, 1897-1985.” Proceedings of the British Academy 80 (1993):499-508.



Contributors: Lee Sorensen


Citation

Lee Sorensen. "Toynbee, J. M. C.." Dictionary of Art Historians (website). https://arthistorians.info/toynbeej/.


More Resources

Search for materials by & about this art historian:

Art historian and archaeologist of the classical era. Toynbee was the daughter of Harry Valpy Toynbee (1861-1941) and Sarah Edith Marshall (Toynbee) (1859-1939). Her mother had studied history at Cambridge at at time when women could not be grante

Toussaint, Manuel

Full Name: Toussaint, Manuel

Gender: male

Date Born: 1895

Date Died: 1955

Place Born: Mexico City, Lea, New Mexico

Place Died: New York, NY, USA

Home Country/ies: Mexico

Subject Area(s): architecture (object genre), Colonial Latin American architecture styles, Colonial Latin American styles, Colonial Spanish American, colonialism, colonization, Latin American, sculpture (visual works), and Spanish (culture or style)

Institution(s): National Autonomous University of Mexico


Overview

Early work on the history of colonial Spain; architectural history of Latin America; created the Institute for aesthetic reserach at the University of Mexico. (Laboratorio de Arte)


Selected Bibliography

Tasco. Mexico 1931.; Arte mudejar en America. Mexico.; La catedral y las iglesias de Puebla. Mexico, 1954.


Sources

Bazin 454



Contributors: Lee Sorensen


Citation

Lee Sorensen. "Toussaint, Manuel." Dictionary of Art Historians (website). https://arthistorians.info/toussaintm/.


More Resources

Search for materials by & about this art historian:

Early work on the history of colonial Spain; architectural history of Latin America; created the Institute for aesthetic reserach at the University of Mexico. (Laboratorio de Arte)

Tormo y Monzó, Elías

Full Name: Tormo y Monzó, Elías

Other Names:

  • Elias Tormo

Gender: male

Date Born: 1869

Date Died: 1954

Home Country/ies: Spain

Subject Area(s): architecture (object genre), sculpture (visual works), and Spanish (culture or style)

Career(s): educators


Overview

Chair in art history at the University of Madrid; Minister of Public Instruction; his Monastery of Guadalupe was chosen for English translation by the Hispanic Society of America for their series Art in Spain. Tomro was among the first generation of professional Spanish art historians (Bazin), whose ranks included.


Selected Bibliography

The Monastery of Guadalupe. Art in Spain, [published] under the Patronage of the Hispanic Society of America. Barcelona: Hijos de J. Thomas, 1923.


Sources

Bazin, Germain. Histoire de l’histoire de l’art; de Vasari à nos jours. Paris: Albin Michel, 1986 p. 441.




Citation

"Tormo y Monzó, Elías." Dictionary of Art Historians (website). https://arthistorians.info/tormoymonzoe/.


More Resources

Search for materials by & about this art historian:

Chair in art history at the University of Madrid; Minister of Public Instruction; his Monastery of Guadalupe was chosen for English translation by the Hispanic Society of America for their series Art in Spain. Tomro was among the first generation

Tonks, Oliver Samuel

Full Name: Tonks, Oliver Samuel

Gender: male

Date Born: c. 1873-1874

Date Died: 1953

Place Died: Poughkeepsie, Dutchess, NY, USA

Home Country/ies: United States

Career(s): educators


Overview

Head of the Art Department, Vassar College. Tonks graduated from Princeton University undergraduate and received his Ph.D. from Harvard in 1903. His thesis topic was on the Greek vase painter Brygos. In 1905 he accepted a position by Allan Marquand at the College of New Jersey (now Princeton) to assist as preceptor in the senior Greek sculpture class. When Tonks was hired at Vassar in 1911, he had been the sole appointment of the Department of Art. He remained at Vassar 33 years. Among his accomplishments were the modernization of the teaching of art history, a standardization of the major, and the introduction of lectures and study material. The preceptorial system he introduced remains the foundation of Art 105/106 courses at Vassar. He also reinstated studio art classes and created a professor of “History and Criticism.” In 1927 he issued a survey of Italian art. Tonks retired in 1944, and was succeeded by Agnes Rindge Claflin.


Selected Bibliography

[dissertation:] Brygos. Harvard University, 1903, published, “Brygos, His Characteristics” Memoirs of the American academy of arts and sciences 13, no. 2 (1904): 61-117; A History of Italian Painting. New York: D. Appleton and Company, 1927; “An Interpretation of the so-called Harpy Tomb.” American Journal of Archaeology 11 no. 3 (1907): 321-338


Sources

“The History and Dispersal of the Vassar College Collection of Casts and Copies Oliver S. Tonks – Innovations in Art History.” http://vassun.vassar.edu/madull/tonks; Lavin, Marilyn Aronberg. The Eye of the Tiger: The Founding and Development of the Department of Art and Archaeology, 1883-1923, Princeton University. Princeton, NJ: Department of Art and Archaeology and Art Museum, 1983, p.19; [obituary:] “Prof. Oliver S. Tonks.” New York Times December 27, 1953. p. 60.




Citation

"Tonks, Oliver Samuel." Dictionary of Art Historians (website). https://arthistorians.info/tonkso/.


More Resources

Search for materials by & about this art historian:

Head of the Art Department, Vassar College. Tonks graduated from Princeton University undergraduate and received his Ph.D. from Harvard in 1903. His thesis topic was on the Greek vase painter Brygos. In 1905 he accepted a position by

  • 1
  • 37
  • 38
  • 39
  • 40
  • 41
  • 252