Art Historians

Poole, Reginald Stuart

November 8, 2023March 29, 2024

Full Name: Poole, Reginald Stuart

Gender: male

Date Born: 1832

Date Died: 1895

Place Born: London, Greater London, England, UK

Place Died: Kensington, Kensington and Chelsea, London, England, UK

Home Country/ies: United Kingdom

Subject Area(s): Ancient Greek (culture or style), coins (money), Early Western World coins, metal, metalwork (visual works), metalworking, and numismatics

Career(s): curators

Overview

Keeper of Coins, British Museum, 1870-1893, early exponent of the relationship to Greek art to coinage. Poole was born to Reverend Edward R. Poole (c. 1805-1884) and Sophia Lane (Poole) (1804-1891), the latter a grand niece of Thomas Gainsborough. His mother left his father in 1842 because of his bibliomania and alcoholism. Poole was subsequently raised by his mother and uncle, Edward W. Lane (1801-1876), the eminent Orientalist, accompanying them the same year to Egypt where Edward was assembling an Arabic dictionary. The younger Poole spent seven years in Egypt, mostly in Cairo, tutored by a family friend and studying the region. Not yet 17, he contributed a series of articles on Egyptian chronology to the Literary Guide between 1847-1848. These were published in 1851 under the patronage of Algernon Percy, the fourth Duke of Northumberland (1792-1865), who was also the patron of his uncle’s lexicon. The Duke recommended the younger Poole to a position of first-class assistant (lower section) in the department of antiquities at the British Museum in 1852, where Poole immediately began lecturing. In 1858 he was charged to rewrite and issue catalogs on the ancient coin collections of the Museum. He collaborated with his mother on a series of descriptions for the book Egypt, Sinai, and Jerusalem: a Series of Twenty Photographic Views by the photographer Francis Frith (1822-1898), published 1860-1861. When the keeper of the department of antiquities, Edward Hawkins, (1780-1867) retired in 1861, the department was divided and Poole assigned to the new department of coins and medals and Samuel Birch (1813-1885) appointed the keeper of the department of oriental antiquities. By 1864 Poole was delivering lectures at the Royal Institute on his recurring theme: the relationship of Greek coinage to Greek art. Among those who acknowledged his findings as important were the classicist Adolf Furtwängler. He married Eliza Christina Forlonge in 1863. In 1866 Poole was appointed Assistant Keeper of Coins at the Museum and in 1870, Keeper, succeeding William Sandys Wright Vaux (1818-1885). Poole changed the department precedent by overseeing the publication of catalogs of the coin collection. Some sixteen catalogs appeared over the twenty-two years of his tenure, beginning in 1873, authored by himself and other scholars including Percy Gardner. Poole received an honorary doctorate from Cambridge for his work. In 1869-1870 he returned to Egypt for a research trip. In 1885, Poole succeeded his friend and colleague Charles T. Newton (1816-1894) as Yates chair of archaeology at University College, Cambridge. Poole never relinquished his interest in Egyptology. In 1882 he helped found the Egypt Exploration Fund and in 1884 the Society of English Medalists with the Egyptologist Amelia B. Edwards (1831-1892). In later years he harbored deep animosities toward several colleagues. Jealous of Birch’s position as head of Oriental archaeology and the latter’s emphasis on Assyriology, Poole accused Birch of preventing Poole’s succession the the Department of Oriental Antiquities. Poole’s championing of Edouard Naville (1844-1926) over the much higher profile Flinders Petrie (1853-1942) as archaeologist for the Egypt Exploration Fund resulted in Petrie’s blaming Poole for mishandling the Fund. He retired in 1894 and his dream, a separate medal room for the Museum, was completed the same year. In retirement, Poole contributed the article on numismatics to the 8th edition of the Encyclopedia Britannica. He died of a heart ailment at his West Kensington home. His nephews carried on the family tradition of scholarship; Stanley Lane-Poole (1854-1931) was a professor of Arabic at Trinity College, Dublin, and Reginald Lane Poole (1857-1939), was Keeper of the Archives at Oxford University.

Selected Bibliography

and Frith, Francis, and Poole, Sophia Lane. Egypt, Sinai, and Jerusalem: a Series of Twenty Photographic Views. London : William Mackenzie, 1860, and Cairo, Sinai, Jerusalem, and the Pyramids of Egypt. London: J. S. Virtue, 1860; A Catalogue of the Greek Coins in the British Museum: Italy. London: Woodfall and Kinder, 1873; and Head, Barclay Vincent. Catalogue of Greek Coins: Macedonia, etc. London: British Museum, 1879; and Lane-Poole, Stanley. Coins and Medals; their Place in History and Art. London: British Museum,1885; and Keary, Charles Francis, and Grueber, Herbert A. A Catalogue of English Coins in the British Museum. Anglo-Saxon Series. London: British Museum, 1887-93; and Head, Barclay Vincent. Catalogue of Greek Coins. Attica-Megaris-Aegina. London: British Museum, 1888; Catalogue of Greek Coins: Corinth, Colonies of Corinth, etc. London: British Museum, 1889.

Sources

Shakira Hussein, personal correspondence, 2008; Caygill, M. L. “Poole, (Reginald) Stuart (1832-1895).” Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, 2004; [obituary:] “Mr. Reginald Stuart Poole.” Times (London), February 9, 1895 p. 5; “Poole, Reginald Stuart.” Encyclopedia Britannica. 11th ed.

Pool, Phoebe

November 8, 2023March 29, 2024

Full Name: Pool, Phoebe

Other Names:

Phoebe Pool

Gender: female

Date Born: 1913

Date Died: 1971

Place Born: London, Greater London, England, UK

Place Died: UK

Home Country/ies: United Kingdom

Subject Area(s): French (culture or style), nineteenth century (dates CE), and painting (visual works)

Overview

Scholar of nineteenth-century French painting. Pool was the daughter of Gordon Desmond Pool and Agatha Eleanor Burrows (Pool). At an early age Pool was diagnosed with depression. This often incapacitated her for months and would affect her education and output. In 1931 Pool won a senior scholarship to Somerville College, Oxford University entering in 1932 to study history. She was awarded the Deakin History Essay Prize in 1934, but her mental illness prevented her from taking her degree. For some years she lectured for the Workers’ Educational Association (WEA), before teaching at Westminster Tutors, London, from 1942 (through 1952), and writing reviews for the Spectator. Pool spent the whole of World War II in Air Raid Precautions, 1939-1945. At the end of the war, she published a poetry anthology, Poems of Death, in 1945. She turned to art history in 1954, and, studying as an external student at the University of London, received a B. A. in 1957 with first class honors. She was granted her Ph.D., also from London, in 1959, wring her thesis was on the literary and philosophical background to the early work of Picasso to 1906, supervised by the Courtauld Institute”s Anthony Blunt. Sections of her dissertation appeared in 1962 in a book with Blunt, Picasso: The Formative Years: a Study of his Sources. Pool began an art publishing career, mostly smaller books on nineteenth-century masters, the first of which was Degas in 1963. In 1964 with her second book, Constable, she also began lecturing at the University of Reading, part-time. In 1967 her book on Impressionism became a popular success. Written in her direct and unpretentious style, it nevertheless address the intellectual concepts of the movement. The same year her translation of the Picasso catalog by Pierre Daix and Georges Boudaille, appeared.

She published another small monograph on Delacroix in 1969. Pool used the library of the Courtauld Institute for most of her research and became a fixture there, except when her depression would keep her away, sometimes for months. She committed suicide in 1971 by throwing herself under a train. A work on Paul Gauguin was published posthumously in 1978. In 1987 is was revealed in a book that Pool had at one time been a courier of secrets from Blunt to Russian operatives. One of her unsuspecting go-betweens was another Courtauld scholar, Anita Brookner (Wright).

Pool’s art-historical writing is belies a knowledge of the literary and philosophical background the art period and the artists on which she wrote. Her writing style was simple, but not simplistic. She could discuss Constable’s relation to English Romantic poetry or Delacroix’s straddling between classicism and romanticism without ostentation. Pool was well versed on Picasso. Her treatment of his anarchism in Barcelona and Paris is directly correlated to his painting.

Selected Bibliography

and Stephenson, Flora. Plan for Town and Country. London: Pilot Press, 1944; and Blunt, Anthony. Picasso: The Formative Years: a Study of his Sources. Greenwich, CT: New York Graphic Society, 1962; Degas. London: Spring Books, 1963; John Constable. Blandford, 1964; Impressionism. New York: Praeger, 1967; Delacroix. London: Hamlyn, 1969; Paul Gauguin. New York: Funk & Wagnalls, 1978.

Sources

[obituaries:] Blunt, Anthony. “Phoebe Pool.” Burlington Magazine 114, no. 828 (March 1972): 177;
“Miss Phoebe Pool.” Times (London) December 28, 1971, p. 8.
Wright, Peter and Greengrass, Paul. Spycatcher: the Candid Autobiography of a Senior Intelligence Officer. New York, NY: Dell, 1988, p. 264;

Pommer, Richard

November 8, 2023March 29, 2024

Full Name: Pommer, Richard

Other Names:

Richard Behr Pommer

Gender: male

Date Born: 1930

Place Born: New York, NY, USA

Home Country/ies: United States

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

Overview

Architectural historian. Pommer graduated from Columbia University with a B.S. in 1953 and from New York University with an M.A. in 1957. He was awarded a: Fulbright grant for the 1958-59 year. He completed his Ph.D., in architectural history, also at NYU, in 1961. He joined Vassar College as professor of the history of architecture in 1966. The following year he received the Alice Davis Hitchcock Award, Society of Architectural Historians. Pommer married the art historian Linda Nochlin in 1968. He was a Kress fellow at the Villa I Tatti, Florence, for 1968-69. He was acting as chair of Department of Art at Vassar between 1974-78. He was director of the Society of Architectural Historians between 1982-84. Pommer became director of Urban Studies Program for the 1986-87 year at New York University, Institute of Fine Arts, and left Vassar in 1988 to be Sheldon H. Solow Professor of the History of Architecture.

Selected Bibliography

[dissertation:] Some 18th Century Piedmontese Interiors by Juvarra, Alfieri and Vittone. New York University, 1961; Eighteenth-Century Architecture in Piedmont: The Open Structures of Juvarra, Alfieri and Vittone. New York: 1967.

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. 51 mentioned; Dissertation Abstracts International

Pollock, Griselda

November 8, 2023July 8, 2024

Full Name: Pollock, Griselda

Other Names:

Griselda Pollock

Gender: female

Date Born: 11 March 1949

Place Born: Bloemfontein, Free State, South Africa

Home Country/ies: Canada

Subject Area(s): feminism

Overview

Early and prominent feminist art historian in the revision of art history of the late 20th century; Professor emerita of Social and Critical Histories of Art, University of Leeds Pollock’s parents were Alan Winston Seton Pollock and Kathleen Alexandra Sinclair Pollock. She grew up in South Africa until she was seven when her family moved to Canada in 1956. As a teenager her family relocated again Britain in 1962. In 1967, Pollock entered Oxford University, graduating with honors in modern history in 1970. She continued at the Courtauld Institute between 1970 and 1972. Pollock embraced activist feminism, becoming active in the Women’s Art History Collective. Pollock taught as a lecturer at Canterbury College of Art, Reading University, before joining Manchester University in 1974. She moved to Leeds in 1977 with the appointment of “Lecturer in History of Art and Film.” The same year, 1977, Pollock wrote the article, “What’s Wrong with Images of Women?” a piece which established, along with Carol Duncan and her article of the same year, the disparities of meanings between images of male and females (Gouma-Peterson/Mathews).

She received her Ph.D. from the Courtauld Institute in 1980, writing a dissertation on the approaches to modernism thought the art of Vincent van Gogh. She married Antony Bryant and co-authored, with Rozsika Parker, Old Mistresses: Women, Art and Ideology the following year. Pollock remained at Leeds, rising to senior lecturer in 1987. The following year she published the second in her triumvirate of feminist theory, Vision and Difference. Pollock was named Director of the Centre for Cultural Analysis in 1989 which she held until 2000. The following year, 1990, she was appointed chair in Social and Critical Histories of Art at Leeds. Differencing the Canon appeared in 1999. In 2001 she accepted the appointment of Director of Centre for Cultural Analysis, Theory and History as Professor of Social and Critical Histories of Art. In 2010 Pollock received the College Art Association’s Distinguished Feminist Award for Promoting Equality in Art. She was named professor emerita at Leeds.

Pollock formed the strand of feminist art history scholarship employing the Marxist-socialist approach (Broud/Garrard). She critiqued the structures of art historical writing that sustained an ideological exclusion of women artists and their consistent stereotyping of those mentioned (Pollock). She adopted an activist-feminist scholar role, referring, for example, to other female artists and art historians as “sisters”. In this she contrasted other feminist scholars, for example, Ann Southerland Harris (most publicly with Lawrence Alloway, also a pro-women’s-issue scholar). Alloway, as did other art historians, took issue with her call for the rejecting of all previously written art history to efface ideology and embrace female standards.

Selected Bibliography

[dissertation:] Vincent van Gogh and Dutch Art: a Study of the Development of Van Gogh’s Notion of Modern Art with Special Reference to the Critical and Artistic Revival of Seventeenth Century Dutch Art in Holland and France in the Nineteenth Century. Courtauld Institute, University of London, 1980;
and Parker, Rozsika. Old Mistresses: Women, Art, and Ideology. New York: Pantheon Books, 1981;
Vision and Difference: Femininity, Feminism, and Histories of Art. New York: Routledge, 1988;
Differencing the Canon: Feminist Desire and the Writing of Art’s Histories. New York: Routledge, 1999; [Alloway debate:] Alloway, Lawrence. “[review of] Old Mistresses: Women, Art and Ideology.” Woman’s Art Journal 3, no. 2 (Autumn 1982/Winter 1983): 60-61;
and Harris, Ann Sutherland. “Women, Art and Ideology: Questions for Feminist Art Historians.” Woman’s Art Journal 4, no. 2 (Autumn 1983/Winter 1984): 53-54;
“Women, Art, and Ideology: Questions for Feminist Art Historians.” Women’s Studies Quarterly 15, no. 1/2 (Spring/ Summer, 1987): 2-9;
Killing Men & Dying Women: Imagining Difference in 1950s New York Painting. Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2022.
“The Curse of Celebrity, Colonial Territory and the Flight to Freedom AMY!” in Fuke, Oliver, ed. The Films of Peter Wollen and Laura Mulvey: Scripts,Working Documents, Interpretation London: BFI Bloomsbury, 2023.
Woman in Art: Helen Rosenau’s ‘Little Book’ of 1944 Personal Memoir by Adrian Rifkin, a biographical essay by Rachel Dickson and historical analysis by Griselda Pollock (London: Paul Mellon Centre, 2023
On Gauguin New York: Thames & Hudson, 2024.

Sources

Broude, Norma, and Garrard, Mary D. “Feminist Art History and the Academy: Where Are We Now?” Women’s Studies Quarterly 15, no. 1/2 (Spring – Summer, 1987): 10-16;
Gouma-Peterson, Thalia, and Mathews, Patricia. “The Feminist Critique of Art History.” Art Bulletin 69, no. 3 (September 1987): 326-357;
[interview] Yefimov, Alla. “Feminist Interventions, Shifting Terrains.” Afterimage 17 (March 1990): 8-11; [transcript] Griselda Pollock. Interviews with Art Historians, 1991-2002. Getty Research Institute, Malibu, CA.;
Encyclopedia of Feminist Theories. New York: Routledge, 2000;
Who’s Who in the World 2009. 26th edition, 2008, p. 2150;
personal correspondence, April 2024;
faculty profile, University of Leeds. https://ahc.leeds.ac.uk/fine-art/staff/410/griselda-pollock

Early and prominent feminist art historian in the revision of art history of the late 20th century. Pollock’s parents were Alan Winston Seten Pollock and Kathleen Alexandra Sinclair Pollock. She grew up in South Africa until she was seven when her

Pollitt, J. J.

November 8, 2023March 29, 2024

Full Name: Pollitt, J. J.

Other Names:

Jerome Jordan Pollitt

Gender: male

Date Born: 1934

Place Born: Fair Lawn, Bergen, NJ, USA

Home Country/ies: United States

Subject Area(s): archaeology and Classical

Overview

Professor of classical art and archaeology, Yale University, 1962-1999. Pollitt was born to John K. Pollitt, an New Jersey business man and mayor, and Doris Jordan (Pollitt). He graduated from Yale University with a B. A. in 1957, serving in the United States Army Reserve between 1958 and 1964. He continued graduate work at Columbia University. In 1962 he was appointed assistant professor of classical art and archaeology at Yale University. The following year his Ph.D. was granted from Columbia, his dissertation on the topic terminology of ancient Greek art. He wrote the volumes on ancient art for the ground-breaking “Sources and Documents” series in 1965 and 1966. In 1969 he was made associate professor at Yale. He chaired the department of Classics for the 1971-1972 year (and a second time 1974-1975). His 1972 introduction to classical art, Art and Experience in Classical Greece, brought his reputation as a progressive scholar to a wide range of students. In 1973 he was promoted full professor. He was Editor-in-Chief of the American Journal of Archaeology between 1974-1978. He chaired the department of the history of art from 1981-1984. He was named John M. Schiff Professor of Classical Archeology and the History of Art at Yale in 1990. That year he wrote a second edition of this “Sources and Documents” book, The Art of Ancient Greece. Pollitt served as dean of the Yale Graduate School from 1986-1991. During that time he was responsible for the unpopular Kagan-Pollitt decision, cutting back on graduate students who taught and their salaries. He retired from Yale, as Sterling Professor Emeritus of Classical Archeology in 1999. Pollitt’s work has focused overall on how ancient Greek art expresses the same cultural characteristics for which Greek literature and philosophy are noted. His 1972 book Art and Experience in Classical Greece has long been a staple in introductory art history courses on ancient art. It elucidates classical art less in terms of style and more in functionality and daily life. Pollitt was one of a few professors to have served as chair of two departments at Yale University.

Selected Bibliography

[dissertation:] (as “Jerry Pollitt”) The Critical Terminology of the Visual Arts in Ancient Greece. Columbia, 1963; The Ancient View of Greek Art. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1974; The Art of Greece: ca. 1400-31 B.C., Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall 1965; The Art of Ancient Greece: Sources and Documents [revision of the Art of Greece, 1965] New York: Cambridge University Press 1990; The Art of Rome: ca. 753 B.C. – A. D. 337. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall 1966; Art and Experience in Classical Greece. New York: Cambridge University Press 1972; The Ancient View of Greek Art. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1974; edited, with Matheson, Susan. Greek Vases at Yale 1975; Art in the Hellenistic Age. New York: Cambridge University Press 1986; edited, with Palagia, Olga. Personal Styles in Greek Sculpture. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1996.

Sources

Who’s Who in American Art 16 (1984): 735;Yale University History of Art Department, http://www.yale.edu/arthistory/faculty/page/pollittpage; Leatherman, Courtney. “Yale’s Labor Strife Leads Some of Its Ph.D.s to Abandon Academe for Union Organizing.” The Chronicle of Higher Education December 5 1997, p. A16.

Pollak, Oskar

November 8, 2023March 29, 2024

Full Name: Pollak, Oskar

Gender: male

Date Born: 1893

Date Died: 1915

Home Country/ies: Czechoslovakia

Subject Area(s): Italian (culture or style), Italian Renaissance-Baroque styles, and Renaissance

Overview

Barberini scholar; studied and published documents 1928-31, Student of Max Dvořák.

Selected Bibliography

and Frey, Dagobert. Die Kunsttätigkeit unter Urban VIII. Vienna: B. Filser, 1928-1931; Johann und Ferdinand Maximilian Brokoff : ein Beitrag zur Geschichte der Österreichischen Barockplastik / von Oskar Pollak. Published: Prag : J.G. Calve, 1910; Der neue Humanismus : Geist und Gesellschaft an der Zeitenwende / Oscar Pollak. Published: Wien : Europa Verlag, c1962.

Sources

Rokyta, Hugo.”Max Dvora´k und seine Schule in den Böhmischen Ländern.” Österreichische Zeitschrift für Kunst und Denkmalpflege 28 no. 3 (1974): 81-89; KRG, 35

Barberini scholar; studied and published documents 1928-31, Student of Max Dvořák.

Poggi, Giovanni

November 8, 2023March 29, 2024

Full Name: Poggi, Giovanni

Gender: male

Date Born: 1880

Date Died: 1961

Place Born: Florence, Tuscany, Italy

Place Died: Florence, Tuscany, Italy

Home Country/ies: Italy

Subject Area(s): museums (institutions)

Career(s): museologists

Overview

Museum administrator and historian of Italian art. After receiving his degree from the Instituto di Studi Superiori in Florence, Poggi became the Director of the Museo Nazionale del Bargello in Florence. During his early years, his friends included Jean Jacques Dwelshauvers and Aby M. Warburg. When the Mona Lisa was stolen from Paris in 1911, he helped to arrange its return to France. Poggi was appointed Director of the Uffizi in 1912, and reformed the administrations of several Italian musuems, making them more organized and better maintained. He merged the Uffizi with the Galleria Antica e Moderna, which was renamed the Galleria dell’Accademia. In 1925, Poggi was named Soprintendente dell’Arte Medievale e Moderna for the Tuscany region. As a scholar, Poggi’s biggest project was as an editor of an edition of Michaelangelo’s correspondences. The project involved dozens of scholars, but the collection and documentation of the letters was slow. In 1918 until publication, Poggi became the project’s main editor, supervising its minute details to ensure its accuracy and expedient publication.

Sources

The Dictionary of Art; Bonet, M.-N. “Dwelshauvers, Jean-Jacques.” Dictionnaire biographique du mouvement ouvrier francais 12: 135.

Contributors: LaNitra Michele Walker

Podro, Michael

November 8, 2023March 29, 2024

Full Name: Podro, Michael

Other Names:

Michael Isaac Podro

Gender: male

Date Born: 1931

Place Born: London, Greater London, England, UK

Home Country/ies: United Kingdom

Subject Area(s): art theory, historiography, Italian (culture or style), Italian Renaissance-Baroque styles, and Renaissance

Overview

Historian of the Italian Renaissance; writer on art theory and art historiographer. Podro was the son of the German Jewish author and journalist Joshua Podro and Fanny Podro. Podro received his M.A. in English Literature from Jesus College, Cambridge, in 1954. His Ph.D. was granted from the University College, London in 1961, under E. H. Gombrich, and the philosophers A. J. Ayer (1910-1989) and Richard Wollheim (1923-2003), writing a dissertation on the topic of art theory of Konrad Fiedler (1841-1895). He married the museum conservator and Egyptologist Charlotte Booth the same year. Podro began as a lecturer in art history at Camberwell School of Art, where he was department head, 1961 to 1967. In 1967 he joined the Warburg Institute of the University of London as a lecturer in philosophy of art. He became a Reader at the University of Essex in the Department of Art History and Theory in 1969, advancing to professor of art history and theory in 1973. He spent the 1974 year as Charlton Lecturer at University of Newcastle upon Tyne, publishing his lecture, “Piero della Francesca’s Legend of the True Cross,” the same year. During these years Podro began focusing his research on the historiography of art, lecturing on various aspects and personalities of the discipline. After a year as a visiting professor at the University of Tel Aviv in 1981, he issued a book-length study on German historiography and its theorists, Critical Historians of Art in 1982. The book was the first full-length treatment of the history of art history in English. His friend, the painter R. B. Kitaj painted Podro’s portrait, “The Jewish Rider,” in 1985-1986. Podro was named a Trustee of the Victoria and Albert Museum beginning in 1987, weathering, among other issues, the controversial hiring of the director, Elizabeth Esteve-Coll. He retired from Essex in 1996. His research migrated toward contemporary visual theory with his 1998 book Depiction. He wrote an insightful article on his mentor, Wollheim, in 2004, whom he linked with Walter Pater. Podro published comparatively little given his academic position. His historical subject area was the Florentine Quattrocento Renaissance. He is most widely known as an historian of art theory and historiography. His book Critical Historians of Art organized major German art historians and the philosophers who affected their thinking, into intellectual rather than strict chronological groupings.

Selected Bibliography

[dissertation:] Konrad Fiedler’s Theory of the Visual Arts. University College, London, 1961, published, The Parallel of Linguistic and Visual Formulation in the Writing of Konrad Fiedler. Turin: Edizioni di “Filosofia,” 1961; The Manifold in Perception: Theories of Art from Kant to Hildebrand. Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1972; Piero della Francesca’s Legend of the True Cross. Newcastle upon Tyne: University of Newcastle upon Tyne, 1974; The Critical Historians of Art. New Haven, CT : Yale University Press, 1982; Depiction. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1998; “On Richard Wollheim.” British Journal of Aesthetics 2004 44 no. 3: 213-225.

Sources

Chancellor’s address, University of Essex, http://www.essex.ac.uk/vc/orate2000/Podro%20Oration.rtf; Solheim, Randi. “Michael Podro.” in, Konsten-en Trävetenskaplig Horizont/Subjectivity and Art historical Methodology. Eidos 23 http://www.arthistory.su.se/eidos23.htm.

Pluym, Willem van der

November 8, 2023March 29, 2024

Full Name: Pluym, Willem van der

Other Names:

Willem Alexander Etienne van der Pluym

Gender: male

Date Born: 1879

Date Died: 1960

Place Born: Zierikzee, Duiveland, Zeeland, Netherlands

Place Died: Bussum, North Holland, Netherlands

Home Country/ies: Netherlands

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

Overview

Architect and architectural historian; professor of art history at the Amsterdam Rijksacademie (1918) and at Delft University of Technology (1943). Van der Pluym began his training in architecture at age 16, after having left high school without graduating. Two years later he obtained a position at the Rijksgebouwendienst (Dutch Government Buildings Agency) and later at Monumentenzorg (Netherlands Department for Conservation). He received further training at the Amsterdam Rijksmuseum School, where he graduated, in 1904, in drawing and architecture. He then moved to Brussels, where he worked under the Belgian architect Paul Saintenoy (1862-1952) as designer in historical styles. In 1905 he returned to the Netherlands. At Utrecht University he studied archaeology and art history during one year under Willem Vogelsang. Van der Pluym’s involvement in archaeology began in 1906, when Carel Willem Vollgraff (1876-1967) invited him to accompany him at his second digging campaign in Argos, Greece. (Van der Pluym continued to collaborate as draughtsman in the campaigns of 1912, 1928, and 1930.) In 1907 he supervised the construction of the Gouda Hospital under the Dutch architect Willem Kromhout (1864-1940). In 1910, Van der Pluym became the latter’s successor as art history instructor at the Amsterdam Museum School. With Marcel Laurent, professor of art history at Liège University in Belgium, he wrote a broad overview of the highlights of sculpture and architecture from Antiquity to the present. The 1916 Dutch publication was followed by French and Italian editions. From 1916 to c. 1944, Van der Pluym taught art history at the Amsterdam institution “Voortgezet Hooger Bouwkunst Onderricht” (Continuing higher architectural instruction), set up in 1908. In 1918 he in addition became professor of general art history at the Amsterdam Rijksacademie van Beeldende Kunsten, as the successor of Jan Six. He served the academy until age 70. From 1922 onward he began his academic career at Amsterdam University as privaatdocent of the history of architecture. Between 1943 and 1949 he in addition held the position of extraordinarius professor of the history of visual arts at Delft University of Technology. In the 1940s and 1950s he published a series of volumes on the evolution of the interior of the Dutch house and its furniture. After his retirement from Amsterdam University at age 76, he continued working and publishing and he kept traveling together with his wife. His eightieth birthday was celebrated in the national press with various articles. The most important aspect of Van der Pluym’s multifaceted career is his exceptional technical knowledge in the field of the history of architecture and furniture.

Selected Bibliography

and Laurent, Marcel. De meesterwerken der beeldhouwkunst en der bouwkunst: uit den vroegsten tot in dezen tijd. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1916, French, Les chefs-d’oeuvre de la sculpture et de l’architecture depuis l’antiquité à nos jours. Paris: E. Flammarion, s.d.; Leo Gestel: De schilder en zijn werk. Amsterdam: De Spieghel, 1936; Het Nederlandsche binnenhuis en zijn meubels. 3 vols. Amsterdam: A. De Lange, 1941-1951; Vijf eeuwen binnenhuis en meubels in Nederland, 1450-1950. Amsterdam: A. De Lange, 1954; Het beleven van beeldende kunst. Delft: Meinema, 1945; and Vollgraff, Carl Wilhelm and Roes, Anne. Le sanctuaire d’Apollon pythéen à Argos. Paris: J. Vrin, 1956.

Sources

Ter Kuile, E. H. “In memoriam Willem van der Pluym.” Nieuwsbulletin Koninklijke Nederlandse Oudheidkundige Bond, 6de s., 13 (1960): 185-186; Boeyinga, B. T. “Willem Alexander Etienne van der Pluym (Zierikzee, 19 augustus 1879-Bussum, 21 juli 1960)” Jaarboek van de Maatschappij der Nederlandse Letterkunde te Leiden, 1962-1963 (1963): 150-154.

Contributors: Monique Daniels

Plunkett, George Noble

November 8, 2023March 29, 2024

Full Name: Plunkett, George Noble

Other Names:

Killeen Count Plunkett, pseudonym

Gender: male

Date Born: 1851

Date Died: 1948

Place Born: Dublin, Ireland

Place Died: Dublin, Ireland

Home Country/ies: Ireland

Subject Area(s): biography (general genre)

Overview

Botticelli biographer and director of the Science and Arts Museum of Ireland, 1907-16. Plunkett was the son of Patrick Joseph Plunkett (1817-1918), a builder, and Elizabeth Noble (Plunkett). The family income, derived from the Rathmines, Dublin, allowed Plunkett to attend school at Nice and Dublin (1863-7), Clongowes Wood College, county Kildare (1867-9), and beginning in 1872, Dublin University. At Dublin he studied Renaissance and medieval art among other topics, ultimately graduating in 1884. That year he married Josephine Cranny (1858-1944). Plunkett traveled widely, particularly in Italy, where he was made a Papal Count by Pope Leo XIII in 1877. Returning to Ireland, he entered politics winning a nationalist’s seat in 1900. That year, perhaps to supplement his income, he used his conversancy in both Italian and French to published a biography of Sandro Botticelli. The income allowed him to rent Kilternan Abbey, Dublin, as his home. His prominence as a Irish Republican and an art historian ultimately led to his 1907 appointment as director of the Science and Arts Museum (later National Museum) of Ireland. As director, his policies increased attendance from 100 to 3000 yearly. In 1908 he wrote the architectural history, Handbook to the Dublin District. In 1911 he revised the Early Christian art in Ireland by the late Margaret Stokes (1832-1900). His son, Joseph Mary, was part of an armed uprising for Irish independence (the Easter Rising of 1916), and ultimately executed. Plunkett was fired from the Museum and deported to Oxford the same year. He returned to Ireland illegally winning election to the Unionist party in 1917. His political front became the Sinn Féin party, although still pledged to the republic. In 1918 Plunkett was jailed again, but released after his landslide election for the Sinn Féin. In 1921 De Valera offered him the minister for fine arts position, an assignment outside the cabinet. Plunkett’s work for the ministry, including the Dante sexcentenary commemoration, was dwarfed by the treaty with Britain, which Plunkett bitterly opposed. Plunkett joined the ensuing civil war and was interned again in late 1923. Plunkett remained in pro-Republican movements in Ireland until he ultimately transferred republican authority to the Irish Republican Army army council in 1938. His wife, Josephine died in 1944. In March of 1948 Plunkett died of cancer at his home in Dublin. He is buried in the republican plot at Glasnevin cemetery, Dublin. Plunkett also wrote for the Irish Monthly under the pseudonym “Killeen,” a popular race horse.

Selected Bibliography

Sandro Botticelli. London: G. Bell and Sons, 1900; revised, Stokes, Margaret. Early Christian Art in Ireland. Dublin: His Majesty’s Stationery Office/Cahill, 1911; “The Architecture of Dublin.” in, Cole, Grenville Arthur James, and Praeger, R. Lloyd. Handbook to the City of Dublin and the Surrounding District. Dublin: University press/British Association for the Advancement of Science, 1908 ; Introduction to Church Symbolism.1932 [untraceable].[estate catalog] Catalogue of Books from the Library of Count Plunkett: to be Sold by Auction 3rd March, 1925 [by Walsh, Beckett and Co.] Dublin: G. O’Callaghan, 1925.

Sources

O’Connor Lysaght, D. R. “Plunkett, George Noble, Count Plunkett in the Papal Nobility (1851-1948).” Oxford Dictionary of National Biography; Gombrich, Ernst H. “Botticelli’s Mythologies: A Study in the Neoplatonic Symbolism of His Circle.” Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes (1945): 11-12, note 4; Ryan, William Patrick. The Irish Literary Revival: its History, Pioneers and Possibilities. London: Privately Printed, 1894.

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