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Cott, Perry Blythe

Image Credit: Monuments Men and Women

Full Name: Cott, Perry Blythe

Gender: male

Date Born: 27 March 1909

Date Died: 1998

Place Born: Cleveland, Cuyahoga, OH, USA

Place Died: Vevey, Vaud, Switzerland

Home Country/ies: United States

Subject Area(s): Arabic (style), Italian (culture or style), and Renaissance

Career(s): curators

Institution(s): National Gallery of Art and Worcester Art Museum


Overview

Chief Curator, National Gallery of Art, 1956-1969. Cott was born in Cleveland, Ohio, in 1909, and raised by his mother, Laura Jane Daugherty, and father, Edison Perry Cott. Cott graduated from Princeton University with an undergraduate degree. Soon after, he pursued a PhD in Fine Arts from the same institution, which was conferred in 1938. His dissertation topic was on the Sicilian-Arabic ivory carvings of the middle ages, written under advisors Charles Rufus Morey, E. Baldwin Smith and George Elderkin. He subsequently published this thesis in 1939 under the same title.

The same year, Cott began his career as a curator and administrator at the Worcester Art Museum in Worcester, Massachusetts. During this, he wrote “A Sasanian Stucco Plaque in the Worcester Art Museum.”, published by Ars Islamica 6 in 1939. His tenure was interrupted in 1943 to serve in World War II, where he served as a Monuments, Fine Arts, and Archives (MFAA) “Monuments Men” Officer for Western Sicily. Cott spent much of his time assessing the condition of sites such as the Arch of Constantine and Galleria Borghese and coordinating repair operations. He concurrently collaborated with the Director of Fine Arts for the Vatican States to curate “Exhibition of Masterpieces of European Painting”, which remained open for viewing at the Palazzo Venezia from August 27, 1944 to February 18, 1945. In August 1945, Cott was transferred to Austria, where he curated an exhibition of paintings from the Vienna Kunsthistorisches Museum at the Hofburg Palace in Vienna.

Following his service, Cott returned briefly to his role at the Worcester Art Museum and penned the museum’s handbook, Art Through Fifty Centuries, in 1948. On September 1st, 1949, Cott succeeded Charles Seymour Jr. as the National Gallery of Art’s Assistant Chief Curator. Seven years later, he was promoted to the Chief Curator for the National Gallery of Art, a post he remained in for 13 years. During his tenure, the gallery acquired over 900 paintings, including some of the gallery’s most illustrious works, A Young Girl Reading by Fragonard, and Ginevra de’Benci by Leonardo da Vinci. Cott wrote a book about the latter work titled Leonardo Da Vinci: Ginevra de’Benci, published in 1967.

On July 1st, 1969, Cott retired from his post as the Chief Curator and Executive Officer of the National Gallery of Art. When the director of the gallery, John Walker, announced both his own and Cott’s retirement, he noted that “During his [Cott’s] 13 years as Chief Curator, years when the National Gallery acquired so many important paintings, Perry Cott has influenced every decision.”


Selected Bibliography

  • “American Painting of Today.” The American Magazine of Art 27, no. 1 (1934): 10–17. http://www.jstor.org/stable/23954939.
  • Art Through Fifty Centuries from the Collections of the Worcester Art Museum. Worcester, MA: Worcester Art Museum, 1948.
  • “A Sasanian Stucco Plaque in the Worcester Art Museum.” Ars Islamica 6, no. 2 (1939): 167–68. 
  • Leonardo Da Vinci: “Ginevra de’Benci.” The National Gallery of Art, 1967.
  • “Siculo-Arabic Ivories.” Journal of the American Oriental Society 60, no. 3 (September 1940): 424.
  • “Summaries of Papers Read at the Recent Annual Meeting of the College Art Association.” Parnassus 2, no. 1 (1930): 40–42.

Sources



Contributors: Zahra Hassan


Citation

Zahra Hassan. "Cott, Perry Blythe." Dictionary of Art Historians (website). https://arthistorians.info/cottp/.


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Chief Curator, National Gallery of Art, 1956-1969.

Caviness, Madeline

Image Credit: Tufts Journal

Full Name: Caviness, Madeline Harrison

Other Names:

  • Madeline Caviness
  • Madeline Harrison
  • Madeline Viva Harrison

Gender: female

Date Born: 27 March 1938

Place Born: London, Greater London, England, UK

Home Country/ies: United Kingdom and United States

Subject Area(s): feminism, Medieval (European), and stained glass (visual works)

Career(s): art historians

Institution(s): Tufts University


Overview

Tufts University professor, medievalist scholar, and feminist theorist. Caviness, born Madeline Harrison, was born in London to Eric Vernon Harrison and Gwendoline Rigden (Harrison). Learning to read at a young age, Harrison spoke French at age five and studied Latin at age seven (Howard). She received her B.A. in 1959 from Newnham College, the University of Cambridge, where she studied Archaeology and Anthropology and English. Through Caviness’ background in Anthropology, she set her sight on a civil service career in Africa upon graduation. However, she faced tremendous resistance as the British Council then considered women unsuitable for overseas jobs. The thwarted path to civil service led to the beginning of her art historian career. Caviness accepted a scholarship to work with specialists in documenting and preserving medieval stained glass at Sorbonne Université, Paris. In 1962, she married Verne Strudwick Caviness (1934-2021), a medical student who became a Professor of Neurology at Harvard University. She received her M.A. from the University of Cambridge in 1963. During the Vietnam War, her husband was posted in the Air Force in Japan; Caviness wrote her dissertation in that country. Her completed Ph.D. in Fine Arts at Harvard University was awarded in 1970. Titled “The Stained Glass of the Trinity Chapel Ambulatory of Canterbury Cathedral,” the dissertation was written under the supervision of Harvard Professors John Coolidge and Ernst Kitzinger and Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, scholar Hanns Swarzenski. During the doctoral program, Caviness frequently audited Medieval Art courses by Linda Seidel. She started as an assistant professor at Tufts University’s Fine Arts Department in 1972 and held the department chair position during 1975-1982 and 1988-1990. Caviness published her first book, The Early Stained Glass of Canterbury Cathedral, a continuation of her doctoral dissertation, in 1977. The book was positively reviewed by Seidel, who described it as “an indispensable book for the scholar of early Gothic painting.” Caviness was appointed full professor at the Department of Art and the History of Art in 1981.

She served as the first woman President of the International Center of Medieval Art during 1984-1987, President of the Medieval Academy of America during 1993-1994, and Honorary President of Union Académique Internationale in Brussels from 2001. Describing her studies in feminist theory in medieval times as her “second career,” Caviness taught and published books on the topic of women and medieval art. Her article on Hours of Jeanne d’Evreux, published on Speculum in 1993, was described by Caviness as her “first overtly feminist article.” The article aroused exasperated criticism in the Medievalist academia but received appreciation from students and became a classical read for later university courses on gender theory. Her book Visualizing Women in the Middle Ages: Sight, Spectacle and Scopic Economy continued the feminist methodology. Caviness conducted research with her colleague Professor Emeritus Charles G. Nelson (1925-2008) to examine the limited protection of women and Jews through illustrated German law books from the 14th century focusing on feminist theory. She retired as Professor Emerita from Tufts University in 2007.


Selected Bibliography

  • [dissertation:] The Stained Glass of the Trinity Chapel Ambulatory of Canterbury Cathedral. Harvard University, 1970;
  • The Early Stained Glass of Canterbury Cathedral, ca. 1175-1220, Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1977;
  • The Windows of Christ Church Cathedral, Canterbury. London: Oxford University Press for the British Academy, 1981;
  • Stained Glass before 1540: An Annotated Bibliography, Boston: G.K. Hall, 1983;
  • “Saint-Yved of Braine: The Primary Sources for Dating the Gothic Church.” Speculum 59 (1984): 524-558;
  • “Patron or Matron? A Capetian Bride and a Vade Mecum for Her Marriage Bed,” Speculum 68 (1993): 333-362;
  • “Learning from Forest Lawn,” Speculum 69 (1994): 963-992;
  • Stained Glass Windows. Turnhout, Belgium: Brepols, 1996;
  • Paintings on Glass: Studies in Romanesque and Gothic Monumental Art, Aldershot, Hampshire: Variorum, 1997;
  • “Tacking and Veering Through Three Careers.”Medieval Feminist Forum 6. 2000;
  • Medieval Art in the West and Its Audience. Aldershot, Hampshire: Variorum, 2001;
  • Visualizing Women in the Middle Ages: Sight, Spectacle and Scopic Economy. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2001;
  • “Seeking Modernity Through the Romanesque: G. G. King and E. H. Lowber behind a camera in Spain c. 1910-25.”Journal of Art Historiography. December 14, 2011, https://arthistoriography.files.wordpress.com/2014/12/caviness1.pdf;

Sources

  • Caviness, Madeline H. Interview by Alexa Sue Amore. International Center of Medieval Art. July 17, 2021;
  • —. “Seeking Modernity through the Romanesque: G. G. King and E. H. Lowber Behind a Camera in Spain c. 1910-25.”Journal of Art Historiography. December 14, 2011;
  • —. “Tacking and Veering Through Three Careers.”Medieval Feminist Forum 6 (2000);
  • Howard, Marjorie. “Eclectic Scholar Follows a New Path,” Tufts Journal (2007)
  • Seidel, Linda. “The Early Stained Glass of Canterbury Cathedral, circa 1175-1220. Madeline Harrison Caviness.” ARLIS/NA Newsletter 6 (1978);


Contributors: Siyu Chen


Citation

Siyu Chen. "Caviness, Madeline." Dictionary of Art Historians (website). https://arthistorians.info/cavinessm/.


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Tufts University professor, medievalist scholar, and feminist theorist. Caviness, born Madeline Harrison, was born in London to Eric Vernon Harrison and Gwendoline Rigden (Harrison). Learning to read at a young age, Harrison spoke French at age five

Chase, Judith Wragg

Full Name: Chase, Judith Wragg

Other Names:

  • Judith Dubose Wragg

Gender: female

Date Born: 18 February 1907

Date Died: 1995

Place Born: Augusta, Richmond, GA, USA

Home Country/ies: United States

Subject Area(s): African American and American (North American)

Career(s): educators and museum directors


Overview

Director of the Old Slave Mart Museum and scholar of African American art history. Judith Wragg Chase was born in 1907 in Augusta, Georgia, to Samuel Alston Wragg (1875-1953) and Emma Louise Sparks (Wragg) (1877-1966). She attended William Smith College (now Hobart and William Smith Colleges) from 1923-1924. From 1924-1927, she studied at Cooper Union Art School and later completed her degree at Syracuse University in 1960.

Chase’s career ambitions spanned several different fields. From 1928-1930, she worked as an advertising artist for Barron Collier, a prominent entrepreneur of the time. She also pursued her own freelance work as an illustrator. Outside of her work as an artist, she pursued multiple teaching positions. She was the art director at Fort Benning Children’s School from 1930-1931. She married her husband Richard Chase, who was a military service member, in 1931. A high school art teacher in Charlottesville, Virginia, from 1944-1947, and the art director at Manlius Military School in New York from 1957-1960. In her summers at Manlius Military School, she led student educational experiences in Europe.


Selected Bibliography

  • Chase, Judith Wragg. Afro-American Art and Craft. New York: Van Nostrand Reinhold Co., 1971.



Contributors: Paul Kamer


Citation

Paul Kamer. "Chase, Judith Wragg." Dictionary of Art Historians (website). https://arthistorians.info/chasej/.


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Director of the Old Slave Mart Museum and scholar of African American art history. Judith Wragg Chase was born in 1907 in Augusta, Georgia, to Samuel Alston Wragg (1875-1953) and Emma Louise Sparks (Wragg) (1877-1966). She attended William Smith C

Churcher, Elizabeth Ann

Image Credit: National Portrait Gallery

Full Name: Churcher, Elizabeth Ann

Other Names:

  • Elizabeth Ann Dewar Cameron
  • Blockbuster Betty

Gender: female

Date Born: 31 January 1931

Date Died: 30 March 2015

Place Born: Brisbane, Queensland, Australia

Place Died: Wamboin, New South Wales, Australia

Home Country/ies: Australia

Subject Area(s): Abstract Expressionist, Australian, and Modern (style or period)

Career(s): directors (administrators) and museum directors

Institution(s): National Gallery of Australia and School of Art and Design at the Philip Institute of Technology (Australian National University)


Overview

Director of the National Gallery of Australia, 1990-1997. Elizabeth Ann Dewar Cameron was born to William Dewar Cameron (1893-1962), a Scotish immigrant and Vida Margaret Hutton (Cameron) (1894-1985). From 1938 to 1946, her maternal great-grandmother funded her to attend the private girl’s school, Somerville House. Churcher first became interested in art in 1939 when she went to the Queensland Art Gallery. She won several child-art contests through The Sunday Mail Child Art Contest. In her senior year at Somerville, her father fought to have her education end, believing “education spoiled a girl.” Her headmistress reduced Churcher’s fees with the stipulation she promise to spend a year or two after graduating teaching art classes there.  Pursuing a (studio) art career, she began exhibiting with the Younger Artists Group (YAS) of the Royal Queensland Art Society (RQAS) in 1948. Churcher became the chair of YAS the same year, which ultimately aided in her winning a travel scholarship to London. In London, she studied at the South West Essex Technical School with Stuart Ray and later, from 1953 to 1956, at the Royal College of Art. Churcher won the Princess of Wales Scholarship for the best female portfolio. During this time, Churcher met fellow artist Roy Churcher who was studying at Slade School of Fine Art and was soon married. She continued to win awards for her art.  In 1957, Churcher and her husband returned to Brisbane where they set up a studio and an art class. Yet, by the end of 1959, Churcher claimed she lost interest in painting. In 1971, Churcher began teaching at Kelvin Grove Teachers’ Training College where she remained for seven years. Her art writing began in 1972 as an art critic for the Australian. In 1973, she wrote a school textbook called Understanding Art that later won the London Times award in the category of information books. In 1975, Churcher returned to London with her family of five and completed an MA in Art History at the Courtauld Institute of Art, London University. Her thesis was on how Alfred Barr’s exhibition policy at the Museum of Modern Art in New York City in the 1930s and 1940s influenced the budding Abstract Expressionist movement. Her research brought her in contact with many contemporary artists.

When she returned to Melbourne in 1979, Churcher taught at the School of Art and Design at the Philip Institute of Technology. By 1982, she had become the Dean. In 1983, Churcher served as the Chair of the Visual Arts Board. The following year, she gained the position of the Deputy Chairman of the Art Council. She also published her work Molvig: The Lost Antipodean during this year. In 1987, Churcher was invited by Robert Holmes to apply for the position of Director of the Art Gallery of Western Australian in Canberra, making her the first female director of a state art gallery. In 1989, Churcher received the Australian Institute of Management Award for Women.

Upon the resignation of the Australian National Gallery founding director James Mollison in 1990, Churcher succeeded him again, as the first female director. In her early years as director, the galley struggled financially. Thanks to her efforts guiding exhibitions, profits soon rose. Previously, the gallery had only accepted exhibitions from other institutions, a practice Churcher would work to change. She started work raising funds for building for major temporary exhibitions, like the ones throughout her career as director. Two exhibitions that helped the gallery grow substantially were David Jaffe’s Rubens and The Italian Renaissance (1992) and Michael Lloyd’s Surrealism: Revolution by Night (1993). Her efforts to bring people from all across Australia to the National Gallery soon gave her the nickname “Blockbuster Betty.” She launched innovative exhibitions such as the 1994 titled Don’t Leave me this Way focusing on the HIV epidemic. Additionally, during her time as director, she changed the time of the museum from the Australian National Gallery to the National Gallery of Australia.

After her retirement in 1997, Churcher served as the adjunct professor for the Centre for Cross-Cultural Research National University for the Australian National University. She also worked as the presenter of art television series such as ABC’s “Take Five,”  “Proud Possessors,” “The Art of War,” and “Focus on John Olsen,” among others. In the last few years of her life, Churcher published Treasures of Canberra, and in 2011, she published her journeys to numerous art galleries as Notebooks. Melanoma and macular degeneration did not prevent a final, poignant personal trip to London and Madrid art museums one last time. Australian Notebooks, about the six major state galleries in Australia and a final notebook, The Forgotten Notebook. In 2015, a year after her husband died, Churcher died of lung cancer at age of 84.

From an early age, Churcher was aware of the limitations in being a woman. In an interview, she felt that “just about everything [she] wanted to do, [she] couldn’t do because [she] was a girl.”


Selected Bibliography

  • Understanding Art. Oxford: Rigby Publishing, 1973;
  • Molvig: The Lost Antipodean. Bristol: Allen Lane Penguin Books, 1984;
  • The Art of War. Melbourne: Melbourne University Publishing, 2005;
  • Notebooks. Melbourne: Miegunyah Press, 2011;
  • Treasures of Canberra. Ultimo: Halstead Press, 2013;
  • Australian Notebook. Melbourne: Miegunyah Press, 2014;
  • The Forgotten Notebook. Melbourne: Miegunyah Press, 2015.

Sources



Contributors: Kerry Rork


Citation

Kerry Rork. "Churcher, Elizabeth Ann." Dictionary of Art Historians (website). https://arthistorians.info/churchere/.


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Director of the National Gallery of Australia, 1990-1997. Elizabeth Ann Dewar Cameron was born to William Dewar Cameron (1893-1962), a Scotish immigrant and Vida Margaret Hutton (Cameron) (1894-1985). From 1938 to 1946, her maternal great-grandmother

Caturla, Maria Luisa

Full Name: Caturla, Maria Luisa

Gender: female

Date Born: 1888

Date Died: 1984

Place Born: Barcelona, Catalonia, Spain

Place Died: Villaviciosa de Odón, Madrid, Comunidad de Madrid, Spain

Home Country/ies: Spain

Subject Area(s): Baroque, Gothic (Medieval), Modern (style or period), Spanish (culture or style), and twentieth century (dates CE)

Institution(s): Museo del Padro and Universidad de Alamarca


Overview

Spanish Art Historian, writer, art critic, and member of the Royal Board of Trustees of the Prado Museum. Maria Luisa Caturla was born in Barcelona, Spain, but lived most of her life in Madrid. Although she never attended a university, she early on developed an interest in art, especially ceramics and fabrics. She began to study art history using the books of Heinrich Wölfflin during her first trip to Italy which became a formative experience for her eventual field of work.

Her passion for intellectual engagement led to her becoming part of various renowned European intellectual groups that would influence her later career in art history. Her friendship with the philosopher José Ortega y Gasset (1883-1955) especially pushed her to pursue her career in art history. Other close friends in her circle like historian José María de Cossío (1892-1977) and Spanish artist Ignacio Zuloaga (1870-1945) enriched her intellectual passions and curiosities.

She began teaching art history between 1928 and 1930 to undergraduate college students. She published one of her most notable early works Arte de épocas inciertas in 1944: a work that remarkably compares modern art with the gothic flamboyant art style. She continued publishing works during and immediately after World War II, she published a spate of booklet art primers on various art subjects, including Zurbaran and El Greco. Her publisher was the dormant magazine founded by Gasset, Revista de occidente, which was forced to suspend publishing during the Spanish civil war. Caturla published primers on non-controversial subjects to avoid the disapproval of the Franco government. She began to conduct extensive research on Zurbaran during the 1940’s where she published works like Zurbaran at the ‘Hall of Realms’ at Buen Retiro. and Bodas y Obras Juveniles De Zurbarán. As her investigation on Zuburan progressed in the 1950’s with works such as  Zurbarán: Estudio y Catalogo De La Exposicion Celebrada De Granada En Junio De 1953.

In 1954, she was invited by the art institute of Columbia University to give a talk about the life of Zurbaran and her research on the artist. In 1960, she became an official member of the Royal Patronage of the Museo Nacional del Prado. Her work in the field of art history was recognized and received commemoration by the Lady of the Order of Isabel la Católica and the Great Cross of Alfonso X el Sabio, declaring her work distinguished and in benefit of society in 1975. In 1979, she was admitted to the Royal Academy of Fine Arts of San Fernando and was later named by the academy an honorary academic, at the nomination of Luis Moya, Álvaro Delgado, and the Count of Yebes. She was later named an honorary academic of the “Real Academia Extremadura de las Letras y las Artes de Trujillo” in 1982.


Selected Bibliography

  • Arte De Épocas Inciertas. Madrid: Revista de Occidente, 1944;
  • La Veronica: Vida De Un Tema y Su transfiguración Por El Greco. Madrid: Revista de occidente, 1944;
  • Los Retratos Del Salón Dorado En El Antiguo Alcázar De Madrid . Madrid: Archivo Español de Arte, 1947;
  • Pinturas, Frondas y Fiestas Del Buen Retiro.   Madrid: Revista de Occidente, 1947;
  • “Zurbaran at the ‘Hall of Realms’ at Buen Retiro.” Burlington Magazine for Connoisseurs, 1947;
  • Bodas y Obras Juveniles De Zurbarán. Granada: Universidad de Granada, 1948;
  • [and J. Sánchez Cantón F. ]. Un Pintor Gallego En La Corte De Felipe IV, Antonio Puga. Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas, Instituto Padre Sarmiento de Estudios Gallegos: Santiago de Compostela, 1952;
  • Zurbarán: Estudio y Catalogo De La Exposicion Celebrada De Granada En Junio De 1953.  Madrid, 1953;
  • Cartas De Pago De Los Cuadros De Batallas Del Salón De Reinos . 33. Vol. 33. Madrid: Archivo Español de Arte, 1960;
  • Zurbarán: El Conjunto De Las Cuevas. Granada: Albaicín, 1968.
  • Antonio De Puga: Pintor Gallego.  La Coruña: Atlántico, 1982;
  • [and Odile Delenda.] Francisco De Zurbarán Caturla .. Paris: Wildenstein etc., 1994.

Sources



Contributors: Sofia Silvosa


Citation

Sofia Silvosa. "Caturla, Maria Luisa." Dictionary of Art Historians (website). https://arthistorians.info/caturlam/.


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Spanish Art Historian, writer, art critic, and member of the Royal Board of Trustees of the Prado Museum. Maria Luisa Caturla was born in Barcelona, Spain, but lived most of her life in Madrid. Although she never attended a university, she early o

Clarke, Louis C. G.

Image Credit: Wikipedia

Full Name: Louis Colville Gray Clarke

Other Names:

  • Louis Clarke

Gender: male

Date Born: 1881

Date Died: 1960

Place Born: Croydon, Greater London, England, UK

Place Died: Cambridge, Cambridgeshire, England, UK

Home Country/ies: United Kingdom

Subject Area(s): connoisseurship

Career(s): directors (administrators)

Institution(s): Fitzwilliam Museum


Overview

Art connoisseur and director, Fitzwilliam Museum, 1937-1946. Clarke succeeded Sydney Cockerell as Director in 1937. For most of his tenure, Britain was at war. Clarke oversaw the move and collections to safekeeping (museums were possible targets of German bombing). Still, he organized temporary exhibitions in the Museum for the public. Astutely, he used museum funds to buy important work at when the war had depressed the market. An art collector, he donated 2,700 items in his lifetime. These included a portrait by Peter Lely (identified today as Mary Parsons) for £4 (!), and the 18th century woodblocks prints by Utamaro. He retired from the Museum in 1946, remaining as an honorary keeper of the museum. Carl Winter was his successor.

Clarke lacked formal training in art history. His connection with the art world, included collectors and the sale rooms, made him desirable to head the museum.



Sources

Jaffé, A. M. “Clarke, Louis Colville Gray (1881–1960)” Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. https://doi.org/10.1093/ref:odnb/32430; “A Century of Giving.” section 2. Fitzwilliam Museum https://www.fitzmuseum.cam.ac.uk/gallery/friends/section2.html



Contributors: Lee Sorensen


Citation

Lee Sorensen. "Clarke, Louis C. G.." Dictionary of Art Historians (website). https://arthistorians.info/clarkel/.


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Art connoisseur and director, Fitzwilliam Museum, 1937-1946. Clarke succeeded Sydney Cockerell as Director in 1937. For most of his tenure, Britain was at war. Clarke oversaw the move and collections to safekeeping (

Conant, Howard S.

Image Credit: Legacy

Full Name: Conant, Howard S.

Other Names:

  • Howard Conant

Gender: male

Date Born: 1921

Date Died: 2011

Place Born: Beloit, Rock, WI, USA

Place Died: Tucson, Pima, AZ, USA

Home Country/ies: United States

Career(s): educators

Institution(s): New York University


Overview

New York University and University of Arizona professor in art and art education. Conant served as First Lieutenant in the US Army Air Forces. His students included Jack Flam.

Conant was named Chair of the Art Department and Art Collection at New York University. He moved to the University of Arizona to become Head of the Department of Art. He received the prestigious 25th Anniversary Medal for Distinguished Service to Education in Art, bestowed upon him by Lady Bird Johnson at the White House. He pioneered one of the first children’s television programs, “Fun to Learn about Art” on WBEN Buffalo.


Selected Bibliography

[dissertation:]  Aspects of the Administration of Art Education in a Teachers College.  State University of New York, Buffalo, 1950.


Sources

[obituaries:] Arizona Daily Star Feb. 22, 2011.


Archives


Contributors: Emily Crockett and Lee Sorensen


Citation

Emily Crockett and Lee Sorensen. "Conant, Howard S.." Dictionary of Art Historians (website). https://arthistorians.info/conanth/.


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New York University and University of Arizona professor in art and art education. Conant served as First Lieutenant in the US Army Air Forces. His students included Jack Flam.

Conant was named Chair of the Art Dep

Corti, Gino

Full Name: Corti, Gino

Gender: male

Date Born: 1915

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


Overview

Scholar of the Italian renaissance; Villa I Tatti researcher.

 

“Every historical or art historical book on Renaissance Florence by an Anglo-American for the past 50 years contains an acknowledgement of critical assistance received from Gino Corti,” (Brucker).






Citation

"Corti, Gino." Dictionary of Art Historians (website). https://arthistorians.info/cortig/.


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Scholar of the Italian renaissance; Villa I Tatti researcher. “Every historical or art historical book on Renaissance Florence by an Anglo-American for the past 50 years contains an acknowledgement of critical assistance received fro

Cuzin, Jean-Pierre

Full Name: Cuzin, Jean-Pierre

Gender: male

Date Born: unknown

Date Died: unknown

Home Country/ies: France


Overview



Sources

Bazin, Germain. Histoire de l’histoire de l’art; de Vasari à nos jours. Paris: Albin Michel, 1986 p. 416




Citation

"Cuzin, Jean-Pierre." Dictionary of Art Historians (website). https://arthistorians.info/cuzinj/.


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Cruttwell, Maud

Image Credit: Interdisciplinary Studies in the Long Nineteenth Century

Full Name: Cruttwell, Maud

Other Names:

  • Maud Alice Wilson Cruttwell

Gender: female

Date Born: 1860

Date Died: 1939

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

Home Country/ies: United Kingdom

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


Overview

Historian of Italian Renaissance artists; close friend of the Berensons. Cruttwell met the Bernard Berenson and Mary Berenson in England. The Berensons rented two villa apartments in San Domenico, near Fiesole, Italy, in 1894 and Cruttwell agreed to be their housekeeper. She worked closely with Bernard and thanks him in her various art histories for his help. Cruttwell was a fairly open lesbian and among other things, endorsed and perhaps encouraged Mary Berenson‘s increasing physical size (Mrs. Berenson was quite fat in later years). Crutwell left the Berensons when she was asked in 1899 by the editor of George Bell Publishers, George Charles Williamson (1858-1942), to write a volume on Luca Signorelli for their Great Masters series. In 1900 she acted as witness to the Berenson’s marriage. In 1904, Cruttwell published her volume on Andrea Verrocchio. Although Wilhelm Bode had brought this teacher of Leonardo into scholarly vogue, Cruttwell rejected many of the over-attributions to which Bode was inclined. She was commissioned by the Bodley Head to write the series of books on Renaissance artists. Her attributions have generally stood the test of time. In her later years she wrote biographies of women, such as her Madame de Maintenon of 1930. She died in Paris at age 79. Cruttwell was a connoisseur-style historian with a particularly sharp eye.


Selected Bibliography

Luca & Andrea della Robbia and their Successors. London: Dent, 1902; Verrocchio. London: Duckworth, 1904; A Guide to the Paintings in the Florentine Galleries; the Uffizi, the Pitti, the Accademia: a Critical Catalogue with Quotations from Vasari. London: J. M. Dent, 1907; Venice and Her Treasures. London: Methuen, 1909; Madame de Maintenon. London: Dent, 1930.


Sources

Berenson, Bernard. The Selected Letters of Bernard Berenson. Edited by A. K McComb. London: Hutchinson, 1963. p. 31 [mentioned]; Samuels, Ernest. Bernard Berenson: the Making of a Connoisseur. Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press, 1979, pp. 189, 260, 352, 354; Dunn, Richard M. Geoffrey Scott and the Berenson Circle: Literary and Aesthetic Life in the Early 20th Century. Lewiston: Edwin Mellen Press, 1998, p. 319, n. 26; [obituaries:] “Miss Maud Cruttwell.” Times (London) August 21, 1939, p 12; addendum, Williamson, G. C. “Miss Maud Cruttwell.” Times (London) August 23, 1939, p. 7.


Archives


Contributors: Emily Crockett and Lee Sorensen


Citation

Emily Crockett and Lee Sorensen. "Cruttwell, Maud." Dictionary of Art Historians (website). https://arthistorians.info/cruttwellm/.


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Historian of Italian Renaissance artists; close friend of the Berensons. Cruttwell met the Bernard Berenson and Mary Berenson in England. The Berensons rented two villa apartments in San Domenico,