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Möller, Emil

Full Name: Möller, Emil

Gender: male

Date Born: 20 March 1869

Date Died: 1955

Place Born: Hörde, Dortmund, North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany

Home Country/ies: Germany

Subject Area(s): Renaissance

Career(s): art historians and clergy


Overview

Catholic priest and private Leonardo scholar.  Möller grew up in a small town near Dortmund, Germany.  After taking priestly orders in the Catholic church, he worked as a rector of a upper boys’ school.   During his life he held membership in the workers committee for the Dürer Club (Dürersbunde) in Medebach, then in the county of Brilon.  He focused studies on Leonardo da Vinci.

In the 1930’s Möller discovered definitive documentation of the date of Leonardo’s birth. Möller had uncovered a note written by Leonardo’s grandfather, Antonio, which indicated the exact time and date of Leonardo’s birth.  Möller was to present this research on Leonardo at a conference scheduled the day before World War II was declared;  it never took place.   In the early 1950s Möller met and became the mentor of the young amateur Leonardo scholar Carlo Pedretti.  The younger scholar became devoted to Father Möller and dedicated his first book on Leonardo to him.  When Möller died in 1955, he left his library to Pedretti who later became professor of art history and the University of California, Los Angeles.

Though a prominent scholar, Möller’s discover of Leonardo’s birth date obscured by World War II. As late as 1956, the Leonardo scholars Costantino Baroni (1905-1956) and Ignazio Calvi (1908-2002) in their book on Leonardo, denied that any substantiated evidence existed for the time and date of Leonardo’s birth (Mandeville).


Selected Bibliography

  • “Leonardos Bildnis der Cecilia Gallerani in der Galerie des Fürsten Czartoryski in Krakau.”
    Monatshefte für Kunstwissenschaft 9, no. 9 (1916): 313-326;
  • “Zwei Bisher Unerkannte Bildnissde der Mona Lisa.” Monatshefte für Kunstwissenschaft 11, no. 1 (January 1918): 1-14;
  • “Leonardo’s Madonna with the Yarn Winder.” Burlington Magazine 49, no. 281 (August 1926):61-63ff.;
  • “Der geburtstag des Lionardo da Vinci.” Jahrbuch der Preussischen Kunstsammlungen 60 no. 2  (1939):71-75;
  • “Die Madonna mit der Katze.” Pantheon 25 (February 1940): 47-48;

Sources

  • Wer ist’s: Unsere Zeitgenossen. Hermann Degener, ed. 4th ed., 1909, p. 339;
  • Mariani, Pietro. “Carlo Pedretti (1928—2018).”  Burlington Magazine 160, no. 1383: 529-530;


Contributors: Lee Sorensen


Citation

Lee Sorensen. "Möller, Emil." Dictionary of Art Historians (website). https://arthistorians.info/mollere/.


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Leonardo da Vinci scholar; influential teacher

Mitchell, Lucy Wright Myers

Full Name: Mitchell, Lucy Wright Myers

Other Names:

  • Lucy M. Mitchell
  • Lucy Myers Mitchell
  • Mrs. Lucy Wright Myers Mitchell

Gender: female

Date Born: 20 March 1845

Date Died: 10 March 1888

Place Born: Urmia, West Azerbaijan, Iran

Place Died: Lausanne, Vaud, Switzerland

Home Country/ies: United States

Subject Area(s): Classical

Career(s): art dealers and authors

Institution(s): Art Institute of Chicago


Overview

Author of the first American survey of ancient sculpture, archaeologist, and historian of Classical Antiquity. Mitchell, then Myers, was the daughter of Christian missionaries working in Persia. Mitchell is one of two historians of Classical Antiquity in her family. Her brother, Johny Henry Wright studied the language, culture, and art of ancient Greece. From 1859 to 1864 she lived in America where she was educated at Mount Holyoke Seminary in Massachusetts, however, their documentation lists her as a non-graduate. She contributed to the American Journal of Archaeology. Myers either spoke or write in Syriac, German, French, Italian, and Arabic. While living in Tübingen she authored a dictionary of the ancient Syriac language, however, it was never published. In 1865 she served as a missionary for Mount Holyoke in Persia and Syria. She married artist Samuel P. Mitchell (1846-1925) in 1867. She and her husband moved to a variety of locations, one of which was Leipzig. While there she attended a series of lectures on classical archaeology taught by Professor Johannes Overbeck. It was here that her previous casual interest in antiquity became a full-time career. The Mitchells left Leipzig in 1876 and moved to Rome where they would stay until 1878. She spent her time in Rome lecturing to ladies in parlors on the history of classical antiquity, occasionally taking trips to Roman Collections. Her magnum opus, History of Ancient Sculpture, was published in 1883. In 1884 she testified against Luigi di Cesnola, Director of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, in the Feuardent-Cesnola trial of 1883.; archaeologist Gaston L Feuardent(1843-1893) brought forward the accusation that Luigi Cesnola, director of the Metropolitan Museum, had restored the stolen collection inappropriately. (Altered Antiquities) Mitchell was brought on to discuss the state of the restoration specifically. In the same year, she was elected a member of the Imperial Archaeological Institute of Germany, the second woman to receive this honor. In 1886 she fell ill and unfortunately would not recover. She would die two years later.
Mitchell was one of the first women to study archaeology in the U.S. Her book, A History of Ancient Sculpture, was the first American survey of ancient sculpture. This book focused on sculpture from Dynastic Egypt to early Byzantium. This thought process for this book began with her lectures at various galleries in Rome. The book received several glowing reviews, one of the most notable cited being that Mitchell, “[gave] us here so important and valuable a contribution to the history of sculpture that we must regret that we are not able to give more than  a summary of its many excellent features.” Adolf Furtwangler (1853-1907), too, had high praise for the work, stating that, “the unwearied energy of an American lady had at last produced what had been long desired and much needed-a history of ancient art, which should present to the general reader the results of the latest researches and discoveries”.(The Critic) Her next project looked to be a promising one. The goal was to write a book on Greek Vase painting, including photography of various objects. Unfortunately, she became very ill shortly after.
Her Sculptures of the Great Pergamon Altar is short in length but rich in detail. She discusses Carl Humann’s (1839-1896) discovery of the altar’s fragments and how these pieces were very nearly destroyed. The tone used in her work speaks very much to the attitudes of the time, stating, “How much more of surpassing strength and beauty perished at the hands of ignorant natives can never be told.” (pg88) She noted the collaboration of Humann with Alexander Conze (1831-1914) to start excavating the space at Pergamon. The book includes images of the objects found on-site, what roles these various objects played in their lifetimes,  and a discussion on how they ended up in Berlin.
Her manuscript for the dictionary of ancient Syriac is now in possession of the University of Cambridge


Selected Bibliography


Sources


Archives


Contributors: Caitlin Childers


Citation

Caitlin Childers. "Mitchell, Lucy Wright Myers." Dictionary of Art Historians (website). https://arthistorians.info/mitchelll/.


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Author of the first American survey of ancient sculpture, archaeologist, and historian of Classical Antiquity. Mitchell, then Myers, was the daughter of Christian missionaries working in Persia. Mitchell is one of two historians of Classical Antiquit

Murray, Margaret Alice

Full Name: Murray, Margaret Alice

Other Names:

  • M. A. Murray
  • Margaret A. Murray

Gender: female

Date Born: 13 July 1863

Date Died: 13 November 1963

Place Born: Calcutta, West Bengal, India

Place Died: Welwyn, Hertfordshire, UK

Subject Area(s): Egyptian (ancient) and folklore (culture-related concept)

Career(s): art historians

Institution(s): University College London


Overview

Archaeologist and historian of Egyptian Art. Murray took great interest in both the art of ancient Egypt, and the folklore and religious practices in witchcraft. Murray’s childhood involved a considerable amount of relocating; including locations in England, India, and Germany. She would learn much from her time in these countries, either from the influence of family or instructors. The most notable moment of this exposure included a love of archaeology from her Uncle John and the mastery of the German language. Murray initially wanted to be a nurse, however, her plans changed due to a rejection from Calcutta General Hospital.(Uphill) She instead began her education at University College London in 1894. Her first published article came about because of her professor, Flinders Petrie (1853-1942). She was employed by Petrie to create illustrative reproductions of reliefs he had unearthed in Egypt. Seeing her talent, Petrie suggested she additionally trace the property ownership in the Old Kingdom. This research was published in Publications of the Society of Biblical Literature between 1894-1895. After this, she was responsible for teaching University College London’s hieroglyphics class while Petrie was excavating in Egypt. Upon proving herself as a reliable lecturer she was employed as a junior lecturer in 1898 (Cohen). A year later she was brought on as a lecturer on salary (Cohen). Murray accompanied Petrie to Egypt in 1902, excavating Abydos. She took time to copy inscriptions found in the temples onsite. These included hieratic, demotic, and Coptic graffiti. In 1914 any overseas excavations were put on hold due to World War I. She attempted to work as a nurse at the time but was unfortunately unable to do so because of her health. She instead spent her time tending to her health and researching connections between ancient Egypt and the Holy Grail. She also consistently submitted articles to Petrie’s journal, Ancient Egypt.(Cohen) This work would continue until 1919. In 1922 Murray became a Fellow of University College. Throughout her life Murray was involved in a number of excavations including; Malta from 1921-1923, Minorca from 1930-1931, and Petra in 1937. On her return home from these excavations she moved to Cambridge where she would remain for the entirety of World War II. Afterward, she returned to London to continue her original work. She assisted Petrie at an excavation in Palestine in 1938. Murray was president of the Folklore Association in London. [The years of this presidency vary depending on the source, however, it is known it was between 1952 to 1955.] In 1963 she published what would be her final book, My First Hundred Years. She died at the age of 100 shortly after. (Cohen)

Her book, Egyptian Sculpture, was written as a guide for students of Egyptology. The true value of this book lies in the inclusion of the object illustrations. However, as noted in some reviews, not every illustration has a coordinating description available. The notes section also has tremendous use value but likewise has sections of missing information. A startling discovery noted in this book is several examples of the use of chiaroscuro by Egyptians prior to its use by ancient Greeks.(G. D. H.)

Legends of Ancient Egypt is one of many examples of Murray’s interest in folklore. Her book is a collection of short stories focusing on various ancient Egyptian gods. Included alongside the short stories are brief introductions to each of the gods. This book, like Egyptian Sculpture, was written with the average student or layperson in mind.

Murray’s best-selling book, The Splendour that was Egypt, details various aspects of ancient Egyptian life. These aspects include art, language, and science. and of course the religious practices of Egypt. Her stance on these various religions is one that is debated by reviewers of her book. Reviewer Thomas Brady claims her assertions on Egyptian religion to be “[bold] generalizations.” Despite this controversy, the book has a strong reputation because of its well-managed translations and illustrations of various works.


Selected Bibliography

  • “12. Evidence for the Custom of Killing the King in Ancient Egypt.” Man 14 (1914): 17–23;
  • “Egyptian Finger-Counting Rhymes.” Folklore 36, no. 2 (1925): 186–187;
  • “269. The Horned God.” Man 32 (1932): 237–38;
  • “Female Fertility Figures.” The Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland 64 (1934): 93–100;
  • “The Divine King in Northumbria.” Folklore 53, no. 4 (1942): 214–15;
  • “94. Cowries Representing Eyes.” Man 42 (1942): 144–144;
  • “Wax or Clay Images.” Folklore 57, no. 2 (1946): 93–93;
  • “The Serpent Hieroglyph.” The Journal of Egyptian Archaeology 34 (1948): 117–18;
  • “Folklore in History.” Folklore 66, no. 2 (1955): 257–66;
  • “Ancient and Modern Ritual Dances in the near East.” Folklore 66, no. 4 (1955): 401–409;
  • “Mediaeval Stone Mould and Leaden Clamp.” Folklore 66, no. 4 (1955): 412–13;
  • “Burial Customs and Beliefs in the Hereafter in Predynastic Egypt.” The Journal of Egyptian Archaeology 42 (1956): 86–96;
  • “12. Egypt and Africa.” Man 61 (1961): 25–26;
  • My First Hundred Years. United Kingdom: W. Kimber, 1963.

Sources

  • G. D. H. Review of 117, by Margaret Alice Murray. Man 30 (1930): 146–47;
  • Brady, Thomas A. The Splendour that was Egypt: A General Survey of Egyptian Culture and Civilisation. By Margaret A. Murray, Fellow of University College, London. (New York: Philosophical Library. 1949. Pp. xxiii, 354. $10.00.), The American Historical Review, Volume 55, Issue 4, July 1950, Pages 878–879;
  • Uphill, Eric Parrington., Dawson, Warren Royal. Who was who in Egyptology …. Kiribati: Egypt Exploration Society, 1972.;
  • O’Brien, Alexandra A. Journal of Near Eastern Studies 62, no. 3 (2003): 214–15.;
  • Cohen, Getzel M., and Joukowsky, Martha Sharp, eds. 2006. Breaking Ground : Pioneering Women Archaeologists. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press. Accessed January 27, 2023. ProQuest Ebook Central.;

Archives

  • Petrie Museum London, England (Cohen)

Contributors: Caitlin Childers


Citation

Caitlin Childers. "Murray, Margaret Alice." Dictionary of Art Historians (website). https://arthistorians.info/murraym/.


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Archaeologist and historian of Egyptian Art. Murray took great interest in both the art of ancient Egypt, and the folklore and religious practices in witchcraft. Murray’s childhood involved a considerable amount of relocating; including locations in

Meynell, Alice

Full Name: Meynell, Alice Christiana Gertrude

Other Names:

  • Alice Christiana Gertrude Thompson
  • A.C. Thompson

Gender: female

Date Born: 11 October 1847

Date Died: 27 November 1922

Place Died: London, Greater London, England, UK

Home Country/ies: United Kingdom

Subject Area(s): art criticism; aesthetics, Impressionist (style), and Pre-Raphaelite

Career(s): art historians

Institution(s): Homeschooled


Overview

Late-Victorian poet, journalist, and art critic. Meynell, then Thompson, was born into an affluent and well-educated family with a pianist- and amateur painter mother, Christiana Jane Weller (1825–1910), and an independently wealthy Jewish father, Thomas James Thompson (1809–1881). Thompson and her elder sister Elizabeth Thompson (1846-1933), later known as Lady Butler and one of the most acclaimed British painters in the 1870s, were homeschooled by their father. The Thompson family’s connection with many prominent writers at the time, including Charles Dickens, grew Alice Thompson’s literature interests at an early age. She frequently moved between England and Italy beginning at age four, enabling her to speak both English and Italian. She published her first poetry collection, Preludes, in 1875, quickly following the sudden success of her sister’s paintings. Among the admirers of Preludes were the English art critic John Ruskin as well as journalist Wilfrid Meynell (1852-1948), who married Alice in 1877. Their subsequent family grew quickly with eight children, seven of whom survived to adulthood. Despite having a family to attend to, Meynell was equally committed to her journalist career, regularly contributing literary criticism to the Pall Mall Gazette, the National Observer, The Spectator, the Saturday Review, The World, and The Tablet, among other periodicals.

Beginning in 1880, Meynell wrote as an accomplished art critic publishing essays continually in the Magazine of Art. She wrote about artists, including Alexandre Cabanel, Lawrence Alma-Tadema, Léon Bonnat, Henri Regnault, William Quiller Orchardson, Ernest Meissonier, and Alphonse de Neuville, in the “Our Living Artists” column of the magazine. Meynell contributed reviews of art exhibitions and collections and collaborated on many other articles in the Magazine of Art that were credited solely to her husband. During the same period, the friendly rival of The Magazine of Art, The Art Journal, was another periodical where Meynell published her essays on artists, paintings, and architecture. Her essay The Point of Honour, was collected along with her other works from periodicals into her first volume of essays published in 1893, The Rhythm of Life. In that essay she characterized Diego Velázquez as “the first Impressionist.” The year 1892 began Meynell’s friendship with English poet and literary critic Coventry Patmore (1823-1896), who made evident his devotion to Meynell by giving her the manuscript of his most famous work The Angel in the House. Patmore invited John Singer Sargent to draw the portrait of Meynell in 1894, prompting Sargent’s admiration for Meynell’s work and consequential request for Meynell to write the introduction for The Work of John S. Sargent, R.A., a book of Sargent’s pictures’ reproductions in 1903. Meynell published her book on Ruskin, a praiser of Meynell’s earliest literary works, for Blackwood’s Modern English Writers series in 1900. Titled John Ruskin, the book was intended to be “principally a hand-book of Ruskin” (8) as Meynell offered exhaustive analyses of over twenty writings by Ruskin.  After a number of illnesses, migraines and depression among them, Meynell died in 1922, age 75.


Selected Bibliography

  • Preludes. London: H.S. King, 1875;
  • The Rhythm of Life, and Other Essays. London: E. Mathews and J. Lane, 1893;
  • (with Frederic Farrar) William Holman Hunt, His Life and Work. London: Art Journal Office, 1893;
  • John Ruskin. London: W. Blackwood and Sons, 1900;
  • Children of the Old Masters (Italian School). London: Duckworth & Co, 1903;
  • (introduction) The Work of John S. Sargent, R.A. London: W. Heinemann; New York: S. Scribner’s Sons, 1903;

Sources

  • Badeni, June. “Meynell [née Thompson], Alice Christiana Gertrude (1847–1922), poet and journalist.” Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. 23 Sep. 2004;
  • —. The Slender Tree: A Life of Alice Meynell. Cornwall: Tabb House, 1981;
  • Meynell, Viola. Alice Meynell, a Memoir. London: J. Cape, 1929;
  • Fraser, Hilary. Women Writing Art History in the Nineteenth Century: Looking like a Woman. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2014.

Archives


Contributors: Siyu Chen


Citation

Siyu Chen. "Meynell, Alice." Dictionary of Art Historians (website). https://arthistorians.info/meynella/.


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Late-Victorian poet, journalist, and art critic. Meynell, then Thompson, was born into an affluent and well-educated family with a pianist- and amateur painter mother, Christiana Jane Weller (1825–1910), and an independently wealthy Jewish father, Th

Murray, Freeman Henry Morris

Full Name: Murray, Freeman Henry Morris

Other Names:

  • F. H. M. Murray
  • Freeman Murray

Gender: male

Date Born: 22 September 1859

Date Died: 20 February 1950

Place Born: Cleveland, Cuyahoga, OH, USA

Place Died: Alexandria, VA, USA

Home Country/ies: United States

Subject Area(s): African American, American (North American), and sculpture (visual works)

Career(s): activists, art historians, authors, educators, and publishers

Institution(s): Howard University, Mount Pleasant Academy, and Niagara Movement


Overview

African-American author, lecturer, and civil rights activist; first author to publish a book on African-American art. Freeman Henry Morris Murray was born in 1859 in Cleveland, Ohio to John M. Murray (d. 1862), a tailor, and Martha [Mary] Bentley (Murray). Murray’s ethnic background was diverse; his father was a white man of Scottish descent and his mother had Irish, Native American, and African roots. By age two, Murray had lost both of his parents – his abolitionist father was killed fighting for the Union Army at Bull Run Ridge and his mother died of influenza – so he and his older brother were raised by their maternal grandparents. Murray completed his primary education in Cincinnati and attended Mount Pleasant Academy as one of only three African-American students. After graduating in 1875 with a teaching degree, Murray became a teacher in Covington, Kentucky at a school for impoverished African-American children. He also became an apprentice journalist for the Cincinnati Enquirer. Through his early work as a journalist, he learned the value of the news industry as a means to disseminate social and political messages.

In 1883, Murray married Laura Hamilton. By the following year, he passed a civil service examination, moved to Alexandria, Virginia, and started his tenure as a clerk for the War Department. At this point in his life, Murray devoted himself to civil rights activism. According to journals, Murray converted his Alexandria residence into a “safe house” where he provided refuge for fugitives from Southern lynchings (Hills). He also joined forces with prominent civil rights activist W.E.B. Du Bois to combat Booker T. Washington’s accommodationist ideology. In 1905, he and Du Bois founded the Niagara Movement in New York, which became the United States’s first civil rights organization, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP). Murray edited the organization’s journal, the Horizon: A Journal of the Color Line.

As early as 1904, he started an independent study called “Black Folk in Art,” which he delivered as a series of lectures at the Chautauqua National Religious Training School (now North Carolina Central University). The lectures had an intense focus on the representation of African-American people in Western art. He scrutinized painters such as John Trumbull (1756-1843), Emanuel Leutze (1816-1868), Winslow Homer (1836-1910), William Sidney Mount (1807-1868), and sculptors such as Augustus Saint Gaudens (1848-1907) during parts of the lecture series for their portrayal of African-American art subjects.

In 1916, Murray published Emancipation and the Freed in American Sculpture: A Study in Interpretation, the first book on the treatment of African-American art history. Murray’s primary motivation for publishing the book came in response to a volume issued by the American Academy of Political and Social Science (Hills). The volume, The Negro’s Progress in Fifty Years, by W.E.B. Dubois honored the Jubilee Year of Abraham Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation. Disappointed in the volume’s coverage of African-American contributions to the field of art history in “The Negro in Literature and Art,” Murray pursued a more robust study of the subject that he estimated would span several monographs (Hills). Once he published Emancipation and the Freed in American Sculpture: A Study in Interpretation, he traveled around the United States lecturing to small churches and community gatherings, both white and African-American audiences, about what he had found in his research.

Emancipation and the Freed in American Sculpture: A Study in Interpretation asks pointed questions to the reader, emphasizing the cultural significance of the artistic representations of African-Americans and encouraging the reader to critically reflect on imagery and the corresponding impressions it makes on the viewer (Powell). Throughout the book, Murray critiqued a wide range of sculptures with African-American art subjects and challenged the writings of several early American art scholars, including Henry Theodore Tuckerman, James Jackson Jarves, Lorado Taft, and Charles H. Caffin. An overarching theme of the book is “sculpture’s capacity to communicate the social consciousness and political status of its black subjects” through the specific form the piece takes (Powell). The book was the first example in art history of a specific focus on racial representation (Hills). It was “surprisingly ahead of its time and even visionary in terms of articulating what decades later would be… critical analyses of the probative function and social impact of art” (Powell). The art historian Albert Boime referred to Murray’s book as “‘one of the most remarkable and idiosyncratic texts of art criticism in the modern epoch’” and described him as a progressive “‘Foucauldian critical theorist’” (Powell).

Murray refused to separate art and the socio-political context in which it was created (Smalls). Whereas other art historians of the time placed great emphasis on a piece’s adherence to formal conventions, Murray evaluated the “interpretive malleability” of the work (Smalls). The best application of this “interpretive malleability” concept came in his critique of Thomas Ball’s (1819-1911) statue Emancipation Group. He argued the monument ignored the role that African-Americans played in their own emancipation and glorified the concept of white benevolence and bestowal (Smalls). Murray’s discontent with Ball’s statue was yet another example of his continuous artistic battle with the idea of the representation African-American art subjects.

Murray was not only concerned with what was present in the depictions of African-Americans, but strongly believed “what is elided, covered up, dismissed, or degraded is quite often conscious and insidious disparagement in the service of race and class hegemony” (Hills). His critique of demeaning representations and celebration of accurate depictions of the African-American experience were his contributions to the field of African-American art history (Hills). His willingness to “write an art history that was directed to black audiences” and publication of Emancipation and the Freed in American Sculpture: A Study in Interpretation has earned him the status of “a pioneering American art scholar – the first African-American to hold this distinction” (Powell). Murray’s legacy is also shaped by what he did as a civil rights activist, both his work in the Niagara Movement and the brave actions he took to protect African-Americans from lynchings (Hackley-Lambert).


Selected Bibliography

  • Murray, Freeman Henry Morris. Emancipation and the Freed in American Sculpture: A Study in Interpretation. Washington, D.C.: Murray Brothers, 1916.

    Sources

    • Hackley-Lambert, Anita. F. H.M. Murray: First Biography of a Forgotten Pioneer for Civil Justice. Fort Washington, MD: HLE Pub., 1997;
    • Jones, Angela. African American Civil Rights: Early Activism and the Niagara Movement. Westport: ABC-CLIO, LLC, 2011;
    • Powell, Richard. “Emancipation and the Freed in American Sculpture by Freeman Henry Morris Murray” (Book Review) The Art Bulletin 2013, vol. 95, no. 4, pp. 646-649;
    • Hills, Patricia. “‘History Must Restore What Slavery Took Away.’” in Ed. Chambers, Eddie. The Routledge Companion to African American Art History. New York, NY : Routledge, 2020;
    • Smalls, James. “Freeman Murray and the Art of Social Justice.” in Parfait, Claire and Le Dantec-Lowry, Hélène and Bourhis-Mariotti, Claire, eds. Writing history from the margins : African Americans and the Quest for Freedom. New York, NY : Routledge, 2017;
    • Ater, Renée, “Slavery and Its Memory in Public Monuments.” American Art Vol. 24, No. 1 (Spring 2010), pp. 20-23 https://www-journals-uchicago-edu.proxy.lib.duke.edu/doi/pdf/10.1086/652738
    • Powell, Richard J. Black Art: A Cultural History. London: Thames & Hudson, Ltd., 2002.


    Contributors: Paul Kamer


Citation

Paul Kamer. "Murray, Freeman Henry Morris." Dictionary of Art Historians (website). https://arthistorians.info/murrayf/.


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African-American author, lecturer, and civil rights activist; first author to publish a book on African-American art. Freeman Henry Morris Murray was born in 1859 in Cleveland, Ohio to John M. Murray (d. 1862), a tailor, and Martha [Mary] Bentley (Mu

Marijnissen, Roger H.

Full Name: Marijnissen, Roger H.

Date Born: 1923

Place Born: Ghent, East Flanders, Flanders, Belgium

Home Country/ies: Belgium

Subject Area(s): conservation (discipline) and conservation (process)

Institution(s): Institut Royal du Patrimoine Artistique


Overview

Art historian and conservation scholar.  Marijnissen was born in Ghent but at an early age lost the sight in his right eye from a serious ulcer.  Despite this, Marijnissen studied art history and in 1948 wrote a dissertation on the Patronage of Philip II under Paul Coremans. However the technical aspects of art, rather than archival research, caught his attention.   Cormans teaching led Marijnissen to join the initiative to restore L’Agneau Mystique (The Lamb of God) and issue a publication on it.

He was appointed to the Institut Royal du Patrimoine Artistique (IRPA, Royal Institute for Cultural Heritage), Brussels, as Assistant Director, overseeing the Conservation Department under his mentor, Coremans. Unfortunately relations between the two men became strained when the actual duties for Marijnissen’s position and their friendship ultimately ceased. After Coremans death in 1965, Marijnissen defended his dissertation the following year. He published his a revised version of his dissertation, Dégradation, conservation, restauration de l’œuvre d’art, (Degradation, Conservation and Restoration of Works of Art) in 1967. 

Marijnissen employed a connoisseurship method in his work. He devoted much of this scholarly energies to determining fakes. His scholarly opinions could be at odds with the mainstream; he chose not to take sides in the debate of when Brueghel’s Fall of Icarus was painted in the artist’s career, a view which John White. chided as a moment when “warning bells should really ring.”



Sources


  • White, John. Pieter Bruegel and the Fall of the Art Historian 56th Charlton Lecture, University of Newcastle upon Tyne, 1980;
  • .
  • “Mélanges en l’honneur de Roger Marijnissen: Portrait de Maître”  CeROArt June, 2015, https://journals.openedition.org/ceroart/4801


Contributors: Lee Sorensen


Citation

Lee Sorensen. "Marijnissen, Roger H.." Dictionary of Art Historians (website). https://arthistorians.info/marijnissenr/.


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Art historian and conservation scholar.  Marijnissen was born in Ghent but at an early age lost the sight in his right eye from a serious ulcer.  Despite this, Marijnissen studied art history and in 1948 wrote a dissertation on the Patronage of Ph

Martínez Caviró, Balbina

Full Name: Martínez Caviró, Balbina

Gender: female

Date Born: 1926

Date Died: 04 June 2019

Place Died: Madrid, Spain

Home Country/ies: Spain

Subject Area(s): ceramics (object genre), crafts (art genres), Mudéjar (architectural and decorative arts style), Mudéjar (culture), and Spanish (culture or style)

Institution(s): Complutense University of Madrid


Overview

Spanish professor, historian, and academic who concentrated in research regarding Mudejar art, ceramics, and the city of Toledo at large (La Virgen del Prado y la cerámica de Talavera de la Reina, La loza dorada). After graduating with a B.A. in History from the Universidad Complutense in Madrid, she achieved a law degree there as well. She achieved her doctorate in history, also at the Complutense University, with a thesis covering Mudejar art from Toledo.

In 1972, Caviró was appointed director of the Museum of the Valencia Institute of Don Juan. She participated in, among other congresses, the I and II Mudejarism Symposiums (held in 1975 and 1981). Caviró was a correspondent of the Royal Academy of Fine Arts and Historical Sciences of Toledo beginning in 1975, and became a member of the International Association of Researchers the same year. The year 1975 also marked a time when she became Corresponding Academician of the Royal Academy of Fine Arts and Historical Sciences of Toledo. These positions complemented Caviró’s teaching career, and specialization in Mudejar crafts fields. Over the course of her career she received many recognitions, including membership in the Hispanic Society of America in 1979. She was a professor for the Complutense University and the Art and Culture Foundation. She has also taught for the San Pablo CEU University, the Association of Spanish University Women, the Bowling Green State University, the Club Maraya, and the Zayas Club. One of Caviró’s most significant publications was Conventos de Toledo: Toledo, castillo interior in 1990, a book that has become essential for the study of the heritage of Toledo monasteries which were threatened with closure.

Caviró was a profound researcher. In 2016, the Royal Association of Hidalgos of Spain awarded her the VI Hidalgos de España Prize in Genealogy, Heraldry and Nobility for Las “Magníficas Señoras” y Los Linajes Toledanos: VI Premio Hidalgos de España Sobre Heráldica, Genealogía y Nobiliaria (“The magnificent ladies and the lineages of Toledo)” She left an essential legacy of study on the convents of Toledo, the presence of Mudejar craft fields, and the memory of significant women from Toledo. As such, she lifted up women from Toledo, directed the bachelor’s degrees and doctoral theses of many students, and specialized in her own version of growth, a type that was conscious of craft and distinctively hers.


Selected Bibliography

  • Catálogo de cerámica española: Paterna, Aragón, Cataluña, cuerda seca, Talavera de la Reina, Alcora, Manises, Madrid. Instituto Valencia de Don Juan (1968);
  • “El arte mudéjar en el Convento toledano de Santa ta Isabel.” Al-Andalus, 36, Issue 1 (1971);
  • “Azulejos talaveranos del siglo XVI”. Archivo español de arte, 44, Issue 175 (1971);
  • “El arte mudéjar en el Monasterio de Santa Clara la Real de Toledo”. Archivo español de arte, 46, Issue 184 (1973);
  • Porcelanas del Buen Retiro: Escultura (Artes y Artistas). Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas (1973;
  • “El arte mudéjar y los conventos toledanos.” Universidad Complutense de Madrid (1975), published, Mudéjar toledano. Palacios y conventos, Madrid, 1980;
  • Carpintería mudéjar toledana. Cuadernos de la Alhambra, 12 (1976);
  • “El arte mudéjar y el Salón de la Casa de Mesa.” Toletum, 8, 1977;
  • La Virgen del Prado y la cerámica de Talavera de la Reina. Narria, 9, 1978;
  • Mudéjar toledano: Palacios y conventos. Vocal Artes Gráficas (1980);
  • La loza dorada (Artes del tiempo y del espacio). Editora Nacional, 1982;
  • “Informe sobre el Monasterio de la Concepción.” Toletum, 22, 1988;
  • Conventos de Toledo: Toledo, castillo interior. Ediciones El Viso, 1990;
  • Cerámica hispanomusulmana andalusí y mudéjar. Ediciones El Viso, S.A (1991);
  • Cerámica de Talavera, CSIC, 2000;
  • Tres mujeres en la vida de El Greco. Caviró Pérez, 2013;
  • Las “Magníficas Señoras” y Los Linajes Toledanos: VI Premio Hidalgos de España Sobre Heráldica, Genealogía y Nobiliaria. Ediciones Hidalguía, 2018.

Sources



Contributors: Sophia Cetina


Citation

Sophia Cetina. "Martínez Caviró, Balbina." Dictionary of Art Historians (website). https://arthistorians.info/cavirob/.


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Spanish professor, historian, and academic who concentrated in research regarding Mudejar art, ceramics, and the city of Toledo at large (La Virgen del Prado y la cerámica de Talavera de la Reina, La loza dorada). After graduatin

Mitchell, Charles

Full Name: Mitchell, Charles

Gender: male

Date Born: 25 January 1912

Date Died: 23 October 1995

Place Born: London, Greater London, England, UK

Place Died: Oxford, Oxfordshire, England, UK

Home Country/ies: United Kingdom

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

Institution(s): Bryn Mawr College


Overview

Professor of art history, Bryn Mawr College and Warburg scholar, specialist in Italian Renaissance art and particularly the classical influence on the period.






Citation

"Mitchell, Charles." Dictionary of Art Historians (website). https://arthistorians.info/mitchellc/.


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Professor of art history, Bryn Mawr College and Warburg scholar, specialist in Italian Renaissance art and particularly the classical influence on the period.

Marisa, Volpi

Full Name: Volpi Orlandini, Marisa

Gender: female

Date Born: 19 August 1928

Date Died: 12 May 2015

Place Born: Macerata, Marches, Italy

Place Died: Rome, Lazio, Italy

Home Country/ies: Italy

Subject Area(s): avant-garde, Classical, Modern (style or period), and Roman (ancient Italian culture or period)

Institution(s): Sapienza University of Rome


Overview

Writer, art critic, curator, professor. While Volpi was born in Macerata to Dante and Matilde Andreani and spent almost her entire life living in Rome. She attended the Guilio Cesare high school in Rome while taking courses at the Accademia d’Arte drammatica Silvio d’Amico (Silvio d’Amico Academy of Dramatic Arts) where she became interested in the Italian Communist Party. In 1952, she graduated from the Università “La Sapienza” di Roma writing her M.A. in Philosophy entitled Il pensiero politico di Pellegrino Rossi (The political thought of Pellegrino Rossi). Following her graduation, she began working with Roberto Longhi specializing in the art of the Florentine region. In Florence, she befriended the art critic Carla Lonzi (1931-1982). Working with Longhi on Medieval and Modern Art History, she defended her thesis, Il percorso di Corrado Giaquinto in 1956. Throughout the 1950s and 60s, Volpi taught art history and applied arts at the Istituto Statale d’Arte per l’Arredo and the Decorazione della Chiesa. She developed close relationships with Maria Teresa Benedetti (1929-), an art historian, and Giuseppe Uncini (1929-2008), an Italian sculptor. In 1966, she was awarded a Fulbright scholarship and travelled to the United States with her husband Ferdinando Orlandini (1926-1988). Throughout this trip, she met and collaborated with important art historians, critics and artists like De Kooning, Rothko and Rasuchenberg. She published important work including a book on Kandinsky in 1968 and Arte dopo il 1945 in 1969 following her return. Between 1969 and 1972, Volpi taught medieval, modern, and contemporary art at the University of Cagliari where she was colleagues with Corrado Maltese (1921-2001) and Italian art critic Gillo Dorfles (1910-2018). Her courses covered topics from Roman Classicism to American avant-garde and post-war art. Volpi then moved to Rome to teach Sociology of Art at the institute now called Università di Roma Tre until she earned a title as a professor. She was appointed to the chair of Contemporary Art at La Sapienza (Sapienza University of Rome) in 1982. Throughout the 1980s, she published several works on 19th century symbolist artists including Böcklin and De Chirico and works on Manet, Monet, Degas, and Morisot. Towards the end of her career she began writing fiction and short stories influenced by the biographical events and works of Romantic, Symbolist, and Impressionist artists. She was awarded the Premio Viareggio in 1986 and the Premio Vallombrosa in 1988. In 1993, she published an autobiographical novel entitled La casa di via Tolmino. Volpi taught at La Sapienza until 2003 with colleagues including Angiola Maria Romanini (1926-2002) and Maurizio Calvesi (1927-2020). In 2004, she was appointed Emeritus Professor of Contemporary Art History. She died in Rome on May 13, 2015. From her fictional works to her formal art historical publications, Volpi demonstrated her ability to use different temporal views to construct a fluid narrative for her readers (Sbrilli).


Selected Bibliography

  • [complete bibliography:] on http://www.marisavolpi.it
  • L’Espressionismo. Catalogo Mostra Firenze, Palazzo Strozzi, Vallecchi, 1964;
  • Kandinsky, dall’art nouveau alla psicologia della forma, Lerici, Rome, 1968;
  • Arte dopo il 1945: Usa, Cappelli editore, Bologna, 1969;
  • Kandinsky e il Blaue Reiter. Collana Mensili d’arte, 31, Fabbri, Milan, 1970;
  • Nietzsche e De Chirico, in Scritti in onore di Giuliano Briganti, Rome, 1990;

Sources

  • “Biografia Marisa Volpi.” Accessed March 15, 2021.  http://www.marisavolpi.it/site/biografia/;
  • Bottai, Maria Stella. “Per Conoscere Marisa Volpi.” Predella Journal of Visual Arts, 2014, http://www.predella.it/index.php/component/content/article/51-issue-35/276-cornice-3-bottai-volpi.html;
  • Cecchetti, Maurizio. “Marisa Volpi La Ricerca Di Sé Fra Arte e Scrittura.” Avvenire.April 27, 2017;
  • Mattarella, Lea. “La scomparsa di Marisa Volpi Raccontò l’arte.” la Repubblica, May 5, 2015;
  • Scacco, Lorella. “Lo studio di Marisa Volpi. Arte, Critica, Scrittura.” art a part of cult(ure), May 11, 2017;
  • Ursino, Mario. Marisa Volpi, fra scrittura e lezioni istituzionali: un ricordo della grande studiosa nel convegno a due anni dalla scomparsa, 2017.


Contributors: Denise Shkurovich


Citation

Denise Shkurovich. "Marisa, Volpi." Dictionary of Art Historians (website). https://arthistorians.info/marisav/.


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Writer, art critic, curator, professor. While Volpi was born in Macerata to Dante and Matilde Andreani and spent almost her entire life living in Rome. She attended the Guilio Cesare high school in Rome while taking courses at the Accademia d’Arte

Mendell, Elizabeth

Full Name: Mendell, Elizabeth Lawrence

Other Names:

  • Elizabeth Lawrence

Gender: female

Date Born: 1741

Date Died: 1791

Place Born: PA, USA

Home Country/ies: United States

Subject Area(s): architecture (object genre), Medieval (European), Romanesque, and sculpture (visual works)

Institution(s): Yale University


Overview

Scholar of English romanesque sculpture and architecture. Mendell studied medieval art at Yale University under Henri Focillon and Jean Bony. She completed her disseration in 1939 writing on the romanesque church at Saintonge, France. The following year it was published as part of the Yale Historical Publications the following year. She was married Clarena W. Mendell (b. 1885).


Selected Bibliography

[dissertaton:] Romanesque Sculpture in Saintonge. Yale University, 1939, Published, Yale Historical Publications, 1940, New Haven: Yale University Press. 1940.




Contributors: Kerry Rork


Citation

Kerry Rork. "Mendell, Elizabeth." Dictionary of Art Historians (website). https://arthistorians.info/mendelle/.


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Scholar of English romanesque sculpture and architecture. Mendell studied medieval art at Yale University under Henri Focillon and Jean Bony. She completed her disseration in 1939 writing on the romane