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Wight, Frederick Stallknecht Van Buren

Full Name: Wight, Frederick Stallknecht Van Buren

Other Names:

  • "Bill"

Gender: male

Date Born: 1902

Date Died: 1986

Place Born: Brooklyn, Cattaraugus, NY, USA

Place Died: Los Angeles, CA, USA

Home Country/ies: United States

Subject Area(s): Modern (style or period) and museums (institutions)

Career(s): artists (visual artists), authors, directors (administrators), gallerists, and museum directors


Overview

Artist, Professor of Modern art and Director, UCLA Art Galleries. Wight’s parents were Carol Van Buren Wight (b. 1875) a professor of classics at Johns Hopkins University, and Alice Stallknecht (Wight), an artist. He graduated from the University of Virginia in 1923, traveling to France to study painting at the Academie Julien, 1923-1925, as well as elsewhere in Europe. He married Joan Bingham in 1936. Wight began writing novels, South (1935), The Chronicle of Aaron Kane (1936) and Youth in Trust (1937). During World War II, Wight served in the U.S. Naval Reserves, 1942-1945, rising to a lieutenant commander. He participated in the Normandy landing, later transferring to the O.S.S., (Office of Strategic Services, forerunner of the Central Intelligence Agency), stationed in London, Paris, and Wiesbaden. After discharge in 1945, he entered Harvard University for an M.A. in museology, taking the famous “museums course” under Paul J. Sachs and studying with Jakob Rosenberg. He curated the exhibition for the Boston Institute of Contemporary Art, “Milestones of American Painting in Our Century,” wrting the catalog in 1949. Despite the catalog’s introduction written by Lloyd Goodrich, curator of the Whitney and an exponent of modernist art, the show was termed by Life magazine as a salvo against modern art. The article focused in part on the Institute’s name change from “Modern” to “Contemporary Art.” The article met with a firestorm of protest by major art museum directors, denying that Wight’s show was an attempt to revise modernism. Wight was appointed associate director of the Boston Institute of Contemporary Art, under James S. Plaut, in 1950. By 1953 he had been appointed professor of art and director of the UCLA Galleries. As a lecture-professor, he taught the history of modern art. The following year he wrote the volume on Goya form the Abrams (publisher) Great Art of the Age series, one of the few books he wrote not functioning as an exhibition catalog. In 1963 he chaired the Art Department of UCLA (to 1966). While director of the UCLA Galleries, he assembled shows on Lionel Feininger, Arthur Dove, Sheeler, Marin, Graves, Hoffman, Modigliani, Picasso, Lipschitz, Stuart Davis, Matisse, Bingham, Arp, Marcks, Archipenko, Oldenburg, MacDonald-Wright, George Rickey, and June Wayne. As a professor of art, he painted and exhibited his entire life. He retired in 1972 and the art galleries at the University were renamed the Frederick S. Wight Art Galleries in his honor. His book The Potent Image: Art in the Western World from Cave Paintings to the 1970’s was issued in 1976. He died at age 84. Speakers at this memorial service in 1987 included the artists Richard Diebenkorn, William Brice. Wight built university’s art collection into one of national prominence, turning the UCLA Art Galleries into a central player in the development of Southern California as a major region for modern art exhibition and production. In particular, the development of the sculpture garden at UCLA, later named the Franklin D. Murphy Sculpture Garden after the University’s president was largely due to his skills as both a director and cultural leader. Wight had a very peculiar way of lecturing. “His habit of breaking up sentences with a string of ah-ah-ah-ahs would have been annoying except you knew he was building up to aesthetic punch lines that were either startlingly revealing or very funny” (Wilson). He was not a research scholar; his books on art approached their subject from vantage point of an artist.


Selected Bibliography

Milestones of American Painting in Our Century. New York: Chanticleer Press, 1949; Hyman Bloom. Boston: Institute of Contemporary Art, 1954; Goya (Francisco José de Goya y Lucientes). New York: Harry N. Abrams, 1954; Arthur G. Dove. Berkeley:,University of California Press, 1958.


Sources

“Revolt in Boston.” Life February 21, 1949, pp. 84-89; reply “Revolt in Boston.” Life April 25, 1949, p. 22; Wilson, William. “Frederick S. Wight: Painterly Punch Lines.” Los Angeles Times August 3, 1986, p. T91; University of California, Berkeley, “Calisphere: In Memoriam for 1986” [website] http://content.cdlib.org/view?docId=hb767nb3z6&doc.view=frames&chunk.id=div00126&toc.depth=1&toc.id=&brand=calisphere; [obituraries:] Folkart, Burt. A. “Built Prized Campus Collection – UCLA Art Professor Wight Dies.” Los Angeles Times July 29, 1986




Citation

"Wight, Frederick Stallknecht Van Buren." Dictionary of Art Historians (website). https://arthistorians.info/wightf/.


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Artist, Professor of Modern art and Director, UCLA Art Galleries. Wight’s parents were Carol Van Buren Wight (b. 1875) a professor of classics at Johns Hopkins University, and Alice Stallknecht (Wight), an artist. He graduated from the University

Wilde, Eduard Leon Louis, de

Full Name: Wilde, Eduard Leon Louis, de

Other Names:

  • Eduard de Wilde

Gender: male

Date Born: 1919

Date Died: 2005

Place Born: Nijmegen, Gelderland, Netherlands

Place Died: Amsterdam, North Holland, Netherlands

Home Country/ies: Netherlands


Overview

Director Van Abbemuseum Eindhoven, 1946-1963; director Stedelijk museum Amsterdam (1963-1985). De Wilde attended high school at the Nijmegen Canisiuscolllege. After graduation he studied Law at Nijmegen University. He also trained to become a painter at the Amsterdam Rijksakademie. In September 1945 he joined the Stichting Nederlands Kunstbezit, which was assigned the task of recovering artworks stolen by the Nazis during World War II and returning them to their rightful owners. In 1946 De Wilde was appointed director of the Municipal Van Abbemuseum in Eindhoven. His exhibition program focused on international modern art. In the years of post-war reconstruction, De Wilde was also able to begin building up the museum collection with works of Dutch expressionism and De Stijl. From 1951 onwards he acquired paintings by Kokoschka, Kandinsky, Chagall, Picasso, Léger, Braque, and others. The controversial purchase, in 1954, of Picasso’s very expensive “Femme en vert,” from 1909, led to fierce public resistance. De Wilde also collected contemporary works by French painters, including Dubuffet. Another favorite was the Dutch epressionist Karel Appel. In 1963 De Wilde was appointed director of the Stedelijk Museum of Amsterdam, where he succeeded Willem Jacob Henri Berend Sandberg. Unlike Sandberg, De Wilde’s acquisition policy focused on contemporary painting from the 1960s onward. Besides an impressive exhibition program of international contemporary art, De Wilde acquired works of European artists, such as Appel, Baselitz, Dubuffet, Van Elk, Fontana, Kiefer, Klein, Long and Manzoni. An exceptional acquisition was the 1952 collage, “La perruche et la sirène”, by Matisse. American contemporary artworks by Kelly, De Kooning, Mangold, Nauman, Newman, Serra, and Tuttle became another substantial part of the collection. Willem de Kooning, whose 1963 “Rosy-fingered Dawn at Louse Point” was purchased in 1964, was De Wilde’s personal friend. In 1968 a major retrospective of De Kooning was held at the Stedelijk Museum. De Wilde regularly visited the artist in his studio in Springs, Long Island. De Kooning donated thirteen bronze sculptures to the Stedelijk. His painting “Morning, The Springs” was added to the collection in 1983, on the occasion of another solo exhibition, “Willem de Kooning. The North Atlantic Light 1960-1983”. During De Wilde’s tenure the museum went through a period of reorganization. In 1970 a research and documentation department was created. The van Gogh collection left the museum in 1973 to be housed in the new Van Gogh Museum. Wilde’s farewell exhibition, “La Grande Parade”, presented a panoramic view of painting from 1940 to the 1980s. Works of 40 prominent painters of that era were displayed in confrontation with each other. “La Grande Parade” gained national and international acclaim, but De Wilde’s selective choice of art works, as well as his subjective vision on painting, was criticized in the press. After his retirement, de Wilde remained active in the art scene. He organized a traveling Karel Appel exhibition in Japan, and, as a board member, he was involved in the creation of the Tilburg De Pont museum of contemporary art. In 1999 The Van Abbemuseum showed the artworks acquired by De Wilde between 1946 and 1963. De Wilde died in 2005. Two years later, the De Pont museum remembered him with an exhibition on Willem de Kooning. De Wilde’s authoritative judgments and subjective vision as a connoisseur have been criticized, but he was one of the most important directors of the Amsterdam Stedelijk Museum (Van Adrichem).


Selected Bibliography

[exhibition catalog Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam] and Van Grevenstein, Alexander and Schampers, Karel. La Grande Parade. Hoogtepunten van de schilderkunst na 1940/Highlights in Painting after 1940. Amsterdam: Stedelijk Museum, 1984.


Sources

Wesseling, J. Art News 83 (November 1984): 153-154; Shone, Richard Burlington Magazine 127 (May 1985): 321-322; Mercillon, Henri. “Edy de Wilde. Interrogations et réflexions sur la gestion des musées d’art contemporain” Connaissance des Arts 400 (June 1985): 60-65; [obituaries:] Van Adrichem, Jan. “Edy de Wilde. Oud-musemdirecteur overleden” Stedelijk Museum Bulletin 6 (2005); Blotkamp, C. H. “In memoriam Edy de Wilde, 1919-2005” Bulletin Vereniging Rembrandt 16 (2006): 31-32; New York Times (November 25, 2005); Van Ouwerkerk, Jacqueline “Spraakmakende museumdirecteur. In Memoriam Edy de Wilde (1919-2005)” 8Weekly (December 5, 2005); Pingen, R. Jong Holland 22 (1, 2006): 42-44.



Contributors: Monique Daniels


Citation

Monique Daniels. "Wilde, Eduard Leon Louis, de." Dictionary of Art Historians (website). https://arthistorians.info/wildee/.


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Director Van Abbemuseum Eindhoven, 1946-1963; director Stedelijk museum Amsterdam (1963-1985). De Wilde attended high school at the Nijmegen Canisiuscolllege. After graduation he studied Law at Nijmegen University. He also trained to become a pain

Wettstein, Janine

Full Name: Wettstein, Janine

Gender: female

Date Born: unknown

Date Died: unknown

Subject Area(s): European, Medieval (European), painting (visual works), and Romanesque


Overview

Medievalist; comparative study of European Romanesque painting.


Selected Bibliography

La fresque romane: Italie, France, Espagne; études comparatives. Geneva: Droz, 1971.


Sources

Bazin 269




Citation

"Wettstein, Janine." Dictionary of Art Historians (website). https://arthistorians.info/wettsteinj/.


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Medievalist; comparative study of European Romanesque painting.

Weyerman, Jacob Campo

Full Name: Weyerman, Jacob Campo

Other Names:

  • Jacob Campo Weyerman

Gender: male

Date Born: 09 August 1677

Date Died: 1747

Place Born: Charleroi, Southern Netherlands

Place Died: The Hague, South Holland, Netherlands

Home Country/ies: Netherlands

Subject Area(s): biography (general genre)

Career(s): art critics, art historians, biographers, journalists, painters (artists), playwrights, and translators


Overview

Writer of painters’ biographies; painter; playwright; translator; journalist. Weyerman’s parents, Hendrick Weyermans (d. 1695) and Elisabeth Sommerel (d. 1723), both served in the military, when their son Jacob was born. They moved to Den Bosch before settling in Breda in 1680. Weyerman spent his first 18 years in Breda, where he visited the so-called “Latin School” and trained as a painter. Among his masters was Ferdinand van Kessel (1648-1702). In 1695 he received his classical and literary education from the reformed minister Petrus Santvoort (1658-1703) in the little village at Woudt near Delft. In this city the painter Thomas van der Wilt (1659-1733) trained him in painting and drawing. Weyerman subsequently studied at Utrecht University, although according to his own information he did not attend classes. For a short time he served in the military as cadet in the regiment of Colonel George Lauder. In Antwerp he trained with the flower painter Simon Hardimé (1672?-1737). Around 1702-1703 Weyerman traveled to England, where he entered the studio of the leading portrait painter Godfrey Kneller. Weyerman specialized in painting flowers and fruit. Some of his flower paintings are preserved. He also lived from his pen, as a playwright and translator. He spent three weeks in Italy. In 1714 and 1715 he was formally enrolled at Leiden University in the faculty of Medicine, probably only for the benefit attached to the status of student. Around that time he lived in Breda. In 1718 he stayed in London in the house of John Woodward, professor of physics (1665-1728). In September 1920 Weyerman’s first weekly journal, De Rotterdamsche Hermes (The Rotterdam Hermes), appeared. It consisted of witty, satirical and often slanderous comments on the behavior of his contemporaries. Pursuing his literary activities he kept publishing journals with titles such as Den Ontleeder der Gebreeken (The Dissector of Deficiencies, 1723), and Den Echo des Weerelds (The Echo of the World, 1725). He also wrote essays, including De History des Pausdoms (The history of Papacy), which appeared between 1725 and 1728. Weyerman married in 1727 with Johanna Ernst. By that time the couple had two sons, Jacobus and Henricus. In 1729 Weyerman’s magnum opus, a three-volume biography of painters appeared in The Hague, De Levens-beschryvingen der Nederlandsche Konst-schilders en Konst-schilderessen, met een uytbreyding over de schilder-konst der Ouden (The lives of Netherlandish Painters and Paintresses, with an overview of the art of the ancient painters). The fourth volume was published posthumously in 1769 in Dordrecht. The overview of ancient painting is mainly drawn from Pliny the Elder‘s Naturalis Historiae (book 35). Weyerman’s original manuscript is preserved in Department of Manuscripts of the Brussels Royal Library (inv. nr. II-1608). The Levens-beschryvingen covers more than seven hundred lives of painters in the Low Countries and England. It is written in the tradition of artists’ biographers, such as Karel Van Mander, Cornelis de Bie, Joachim von Sandrart, and Arnold Houbraken. Although Weyerman did not hold Houbraken in high esteem, he modeled his compilation for a great part on the latter’s De Groote Schouwburgh der Nederlantsche konstschilders en schilderessen (The great Theater of Netherlandish Painters and Paintresses). Weyerman’s unpublished treatise, Vertoogh over de apocrijfe schilders (Treatise on apocryphal painters), is preserved as part of the Brussels manuscript. It is dated 1730. It contains valuable information on the contemporary art market in the Low Countries, including character sketches of mostly unreliable art dealers. Weyerman, who occasionally acted himself as an art dealer, exposes in this manuscript the malpractices of the eighteenth-century art market. By that time Weyerman lived in Amsterdam, but due to his bad reputation he had to leave the city. In 1739 he was arrested in Vianen. The Hof van Holland accused him of extortion and slander. Insults at the address of members of the East India Company probably contributed to his life long sentence. He was imprisoned in The Hague, where he died after eight years of confinement. He kept writing and painting to earn money for his family. Part of the fourth volume of his Levens-beschryvingen is written in jail. Here he also translated Cervantes’ Don Quixote, De voornaamste Gevallen van den Wonderlyken Don Quichot (The main events of the amazing Don Quixote, 1746). Three years after Weyerman’s death, Johan Van Gool in his Nieuwe Schouwburg der Nederlantsche kunstschilders en schilderessen (New Theater of Netherlandish Painters and Paintresses) described Weyerman’s Levens-beschryvingen as unreliable and slanderous, and accused its author of plagiarism. Later biographers of artists mostly took over this negative evaluation. Art historians rarely disputed Weyerman’s bad reputation. More recent research, however, including contributions of the Stichting Jacob Campo Weyerman established in 1977, has led to a re-evaluation of Weyerman’s work. Broos (1990) came to the conclusion that Weyerman’s commentaries in the Levens-beschryvingen were more accurate and original than previously thought. Weyerman himself indicated that he did not want his remarks full of wit and merriment to be seen as diminishing the credibility of the information he provided on the lives of painters. (Broos 1990)


Selected Bibliography

[complete bibliography] Broos, Ton J. Tussen Zwart en Ultramarijn, pp. 258-263; De Levens-beschryvingen der Nederlandsche Konst-schilders en Konst-schilderessen, met een uytbreyding over de schilder-konst der Ouden, door Jacob Campo Weyerman, Konst-schilder. Verrykt met de Konterfeytsels der Voornaamste Konst-Schilders en Konst-Schilderessen, cierlyk in koper gesneden door J. Houbraken. 3 vols. The Hague: Wed E. Boucquet, H. Scheurleer, F. Boucquet, en J. de Jong, 1729, vol. 4. De Levens-beschryvingen der Nederlandsche Konst-schilders en Konst-schilderessen, met voorafgaande aanmerkingen over het betamelyke en het wanvoeglyke van de schilderkonst, benevens een korte levensschets der konstschilders van de schilder-akademie in as Hage. Door Jakob Campo Weyerman, Konst-schilder. Verrykt met nieuwe vignetten. Dordrecht: bij A. Blussé, 1769.


Sources

“Weyerman, Jacob Campo, called Campovivo” Benezit Dictionary of Artists; Broos, Ton J. “Weyerman, Jacob Campo” Dictionary of Art; Broos, Ton J. [dissertation Nijmegen, 1990:] Tussen Zwart en Ultramarijn. De levens van schilders beschreven door Jacob Campo Weyerman (1677-1747). Amsterdam – Atlanta GA: Editions Rodopy B.V., 1990, reviewed by De Vries, Lyckle in Oud Holland 105 (1991): 152-155; Altena, Peter, Hendrikx, Willem, and others. Het verlokkend ooft: Proeven over Jacob Campo Weyerman. Amsterdam: Huis aan de Drie Grachten, 1985; Jonckheere, Koenraad and Vermeylen, Filip. “A World of Deception and Deceit? Jacob Campo Weyerman and the Eighteenth-century Art Market” Simiolus 35 (2011): 100-113.



Contributors: Monique Daniels


Citation

Monique Daniels. "Weyerman, Jacob Campo." Dictionary of Art Historians (website). https://arthistorians.info/weyermanj/.


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Writer of painters’ biographies; painter; playwright; translator; journalist. Weyerman’s parents, Hendrick Weyermans (d. 1695) and Elisabeth Sommerel (d. 1723), both served in the military, when their son Jacob was born. They moved to Den Bosch be

Wharton, Edith

Full Name: Wharton, Edith

Gender: female

Date Born: 1862

Date Died: 1937

Place Born: New York, NY, USA

Place Died: Pavillon Colombe, Saint-Brice-sous-Forêt, Paris

Home Country/ies: United States

Career(s): authors and novelists


Overview

Writer whose early work focused art topics. Edith Newbold Jones was born to a prominent New York family, George Frederic Jones and Lucretia Rhinelander. Her private education included travel to Europe. In 1885 she married Edward “Teddy” Robbins Wharton of Brookline, Massachusetts. The socialite Teddy and intellectual Edith were mismatched from the start. Edith continued her trips to Europe–escaping the social scene of New York–where she met authors and art historians, including Violet Paget (“Vernon Lee”) and Bernard Berenson. After commissioning the architect Ogden Codman, Jr. (1863-1951) remodel her Newport, RI, home, Wharton co-wrote her first book in 1898, The Decoration of Houses. The architectural and home-decoration guide was influential among decorators and designers. Wharton demonstrated her technique by commissioning a house designed upon these principals in Lenox, MA, called “the Mount,” in 1901, though she and Codman disagreed so much on the home that she dismissed him for Francis Laurens Vinton Hoppin (1866-1941). Wharton wrote Italian Villas and their Gardens in 1904, her second art history, a survey of Italian Renaissance gardens and their villas. The work was inspired by an 1897 work by Paget/Lee, to whom she dedicated it. The book contained original illustrations by Maxfield Parrish (1870-1966), which unfortunately in keeping with Parrish’s style, are too fairly-tale-like to complement the accuracy of her text. The following year, her book Italian Backgrounds appeared. This work, with drawings by E. C. Peixotto (1869-1940), takes the imaginative approach that Italy, much like its art, must be studied both through its formal foreground (known through its guidebooks) as well as its background, the province of what she termed “the dreamer” and student. In a style popular with fin-de-siécle travel literature, village and architectural description is interspersed with speculative rambling on dating, provenance and attribution of art. Though Wharton left art writing after this to concentrate on literature, she remained exceedingly close to the art-historical community in Europe and the United States. A portrait of the art historian John C. Van Dyke as “Ned Van Alstyne” appears in her House of Mirth. She settled permanently in France in 1907. It was Wharton who secured Berenson work during World War I in Italy as a negotiator and translator. Wharton divorced Teddy in 1928, after an affair with the journalist, Morton Fullerton (1865-1952), the events of which are contained in her most famous novel, Ethan Frome, 1911. She lived between two homes she renovated in France, the Pavillon Colombe in Saint-Brice-Sous-Fôret and the Chateau Sainte-Claire in Hyères, on the French Riviera. She died after several strokes in her Saint-Brice-Sous-Fôret home and is buried at the Cimetière des Gonards in Versailles. Wharton’s art-historical writing consists of documenting period styles and gleaning their principles to a wider audience. The Decoration of Houses was written to promote standards home decoration by emphasizing architectural principals of architectural proportion and the eschewing needless ornament. Italian Villas again emphasized the harmony of design of the Italian garden and its relationship to the villa and native landscape. She died in the vicinity of Pavillon Colombe, Saint-Brice-Sous-Fôret, Paris.


Selected Bibliography

and Codman, Ogden. The Decoration of Houses. New York: C. Scribner’s Sons, 1898; Italian Villas and their Gardens. New York: Century Co., 1904; Italian Backgrounds. New York: C. Scribner’s Sons, 1905.


Sources

Burness, Edwina. “Wharton, Edith.” Dictionary of Art; Wharton, Edith. A Backward Glance. New York: D. Appleton-Century Co., 1934; Lewis, Richard Warrington Baldwin. Edith Wharton: A Biography. New York: Harper & Row, 1975; Auchincloss, Louis. Edith Wharton: a Woman in her Time. New York: Viking Press 1971; Benstock, Shari. No Gifts from Chance: a Biography of Edith Wharton. New York: C. Scribner’s Sons, 1994; Fryer, Judith. Felicitous Space: the Imaginative Structures of Edith Wharton and Willa Cather. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1986, pp. 53-199; Griffith, Grace Kellogg. The Two Lives of Edith Wharton: the Woman and her Work. New York: Appleton-Century 1965.




Citation

"Wharton, Edith." Dictionary of Art Historians (website). https://arthistorians.info/whartone/.


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Writer whose early work focused art topics. Edith Newbold Jones was born to a prominent New York family, George Frederic Jones and Lucretia Rhinelander. Her private education included travel to Europe. In 1885 she married Edward “Teddy” Robbins Wh

Wheeler, Robert Eric Mortimer, Sir

Full Name: Wheeler, Robert Eric Mortimer, Sir

Other Names:

  • Sir Mortimer Wheeler

Gender: male

Date Born: 1890

Date Died: 1976

Place Born: Glasgow, Scotland, UK

Place Died: Leatherhead, Surrey, England, UK

Home Country/ies: United Kingdom

Subject Area(s): archaeology


Overview

Archaeologist who wrote several art history books. Wheeler’s father was Robert Mortimer a newspaper editor, and his mother Emily Baynes (Wheeler). The younger Wheeler was educated at the University of London, receiving his B. A., in 1910, and an M.A., in 1912. In 1913 he joined the Monuments Division. He married Tessa Verney (d. 1936) in 1914 and joined the Royal Artillery in World War I. After the War, he completed his Ph.D. (Litt) and was appointed Keeper of the Archaeological Department of the National Museum in Wales and lecturer in archaeology at the University of Wales (University College), all in 1920. He and Tessa did many local archaeological digs. He was made a Fellow of University College, London, in 1922, which he held until his death. in 1924 he was appointed Director of the National Museum, Wales, the same year the first volume of a book on the Roman occupation of Britain appeared. He left the National Museum to head the London Museum at Lancaster House in 1926. In 1934 he was made lecturer (and honorary director) of the London University’s new Institute of Archaeology. During these years he and Tessa led an excavation of Maiden Castle, Dorset. His wife died in 1936. In 1939 he married Mavis Cole and, after World War II was declared, returned to the artillery (Eight Army), rising to Brigadier. In 1944 he was named Lecturer in Archaeology at the University College of Cardiff, and director General of Archaeology in India (it’s last, replacing John Marshall, until 1947). As director General, he invigorated the archaeological initiative which had grown stagnant and trained the first group of south-Asian archaeologists to take over after Indian independence. After a divorce to Cole in 1942, he married the archaeologist Margaret Norfolk in 1945. As Archaeological Advisor to the Pakistani National Museum, he was successful in arranging excavations in the Indus Valley, India and Gujarat. He lead the search for Indian pottery. He became Professor of Roman Archaeology at the University of London’s Institute of Archaeology in 1948, which he and his third wife founded and where he was appointed a professor. He was named secretary of the British Academy in 1949, which he held until 1968. Beginning in 1952, Wheeler used this position to make radio and television appearances (among the earliest to do so), popularizing archaeology to the public. His television shows included the hugely popular “Animal, Vegetable, Mineral?” (running 1952-1960), featured another art historian, Thomas Bodkin. This was followed by “Buried Treasure” (running 1954-1959), and “Chronicle” (1966). He was knighted in 1952. He retired from the University of London in 1955. In 1964 he authored a book on Roman art for Praeger publishers, Roman Art and Architecture. His Roman Art and Architecture was reprinted in 1985. Wheeler used the so-called “grid system archaeological method in his work, one of the first to employ the system developed by Kathleen Kenyon (1906-1978). Wheeler esteemed the work of the archaeologist Augustus Pitt Rivers (1827-1900), modeling his work after Rivers. His scholarship has largely been superseded by modern work. Wheeler loved engaging the female participants of his digs, for which he was nicknamed “Randy Sir Morty.”


Selected Bibliography

Still Digging. New York: Dutton, 1956 [British ed., 1955]; Roman Art and Architecture. New York: F. A. Praeger, 1964; edited. Splendors of the East: Temples, Tombs, Palaces and Fortresses of Asia. New York: Putnam, 1965; and Wheeler, Tessa Verney. The Roman Amphitheatre at Caerleon. Clowes. London: His Majesty’s Staionery Office,1931; The Roman Amphitheatre, Caerleon, Monmouthshire. London: His Majesty’s Staionery Office, 1943; Aspects of the Ascent of a Civilization. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1955.


Sources

[obituaries:] “Sir Mortimer Wheeler Wider horizons and a new public for archaeology.” The Times (London) July 23, 1976, p. 16; “Sir Mortimer Wheeler.” The Times (London) July 28, 1976, p. 16; “Sir Mortimer Wheeler.” The Times (London) August 7, 1976, p. 14.




Citation

"Wheeler, Robert Eric Mortimer, Sir." Dictionary of Art Historians (website). https://arthistorians.info/wheelerm/.


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Archaeologist who wrote several art history books. Wheeler’s father was Robert Mortimer a newspaper editor, and his mother Emily Baynes (Wheeler). The younger Wheeler was educated at the University of London, receiving his B. A., in 1910, and an M

Whewell, William

Full Name: Whewell, William

Gender: male

Date Born: 1794

Date Died: unknown

Home Country/ies: United Kingdom

Subject Area(s): art theory and Gothic (Medieval)


Overview

Master of Trinity College and early theorist of Gothic architecture.



Sources

Pevsner, Nikolaus. “Whewell.” Some Architectural Writers of the Nineteenth Century. New York: Oxford University Press, 1972, pp. 45-51.




Citation

"Whewell, William." Dictionary of Art Historians (website). https://arthistorians.info/whewellw/.


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Master of Trinity College and early theorist of Gothic architecture.

Whinney, Margaret

Full Name: Whinney, Margaret

Other Names:

  • Margaret Dickens Whinney

Gender: female

Date Born: 1894

Date Died: 1974

Place Born: Hammersmith, Hammersmith and Fulham, London, Greater London, England, UK

Place Died: London, Greater London, England, UK

Home Country/ies: United Kingdom

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

Career(s): educators


Overview

Courtauld Institute scholar of medieval architecture and sculpture. Whinney was the daughter of the architect Thomas Bostock Whinney and Sydney Margaret Dickens, the -granddaughter of Charles Dickens. She attended private secondary schools before entering the University of London. Her first article, written under her primary mentor at the University, Tancred Borenius, appeared in 1930. She graduated from the University in art history in 1935. The same year she joined the staff of the nascent Courtauld Institute of Art, doing a variety of jobs including managing the slide library. Her intent was to work her way up into a position at the Courtauld, still a difficult task for a woman in pre-war England. At the Courtauld she continued her studies, now under Geoffrey Webb, who instilled a passion for architectural history. In 1937 Anthony Blunt joined the Institute, who, like Webb, was trained as a scholar rather than a connoisseur as many of the previous Courtauld lecturers had been. Whinney became devoted to Blunt professionally and emotionally (Blunt was a homosexual) “taking on the dullest jobs” for him and the Institute (Carter). When England declared war against Germany in 1939, the Courtauld closed for a year. It reopened in 1940 with Whinney, one of the few not working in the war effort, running the Institute. This included teaching and handling most of the administrative responsibilities. The same year, the research she had done on seventeenth-century drawings at Chatsworth, for Whitehall Palace, and Worcester College, Oxford, was accepted for a D. Litt., at the University of London, published the Walpole Society yearbook. After the war Blunt assumed the directorship of the Institute. Whinney was made a Reader at the Courtauld in 1950 and edited with Blunt the same year a guide to public art collections in the United Kingdom. In 1957 she and Oliver Millar wrote the Oxford History of English Art volume on the period 1625-1714, contributing the sections on architecture. Whinney was asked by Nikolaus Bernard Leon Pevsner to author the Pelican History of Art volume on British Sculpture from the Renaissance to the nineteenth century, which appeared in 1964. The volume, perhaps dwarfed in subject by the rest of the Pelican series, demonstrated Whinney’s abilities to evaluate disparate and ignored work art historically rather than the antiquarian treatment it had been previously been given. The same year, she retired from the Institute. She co-authored a catalog on the Flaxman models at University College, London, and a book on early Flemish painting, the latter the substance of her course on the same subject at the Courtauld. In 1971 Whinney wrote an introductory volume on Christopher Wren, which John Newenham Summerson praised for its sensitive selection of plates. Students who were directly affected by her teaching included Kerry Downes, whose book on Wren, appearing the same year as hers, paid tribute to her teaching. Whinney’s dissertation examined drawings which J. Alfred Gotch had reassigned from Inigo Jones to John Webb in 1912. While Whinney agreed that the drawing was not Jones’, she proved, using new evidence, that the Webb sketches had come from original designs by Jones. In her Pelican History of Art volume, Sculpture in Britain, 1530-1830, she showed she could handle marginally important art historical monuments sympathetically by treating her subject, not solely esthetically, as Rupert Gunnis had done, or as an antiquarian Katharine Esdaile, but as a full art history. Her model, according to Summerson, was Ellis K. Waterhouse and his early Pelican volume, Painting in Britain 1530-1790, 1953.


Selected Bibliography

Sculpture in Britain, 1530-1830. Baltimore: Penguin Books 1964, “Flaxman and the Eighteenth Century. A Commemorative Lecture.” Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes 19, no. 3/4 (July 1956): 269-282; Early Flemish Painting. New York: Praeger, 1968; and Gunnis, Rupert. The Collection of Models by John Flaxman, R.A. at University College London. London: Athlone, 1967; and Millar, Oliver. English Art, 1625-1714. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1957; English Sculpture 1720-1830. London: H. M. Stationery Office, 1971; and Blunt, Anthony. The Nation’s Pictures: a Guide to the Chief National and Municipal Picture Galleries of England, Scotland and Wales. London: Chatto and Windus, 1950.


Sources

Carter, Miranda. Anthony Blunt: His Lives. New York: Farrar, Straus, Giroux, 2001, p. 216; [obituary:] Summerson, John. “Margaret Whinney.” Burlington Magazine 117, no. 872 (November 1975): 731-732; Summerson, John. “Margaret Dickens Whinney, 1894-1975.” Proceedings of the British Academy 68 (1982): 637-642; Blunt, Anthony. “Dr Margaret Whinney Service to the Courtauld Institute of Art.” The Times (London) September 5, 1975, p. 16.




Citation

"Whinney, Margaret." Dictionary of Art Historians (website). https://arthistorians.info/whinneym/.


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Courtauld Institute scholar of medieval architecture and sculpture. Whinney was the daughter of the architect Thomas Bostock Whinney and Sydney Margaret Dickens, the -granddaughter of Charles Dickens. She attended private secondary schools before

White, Christopher, Sir

Full Name: White, Christopher, Sir

Other Names:

  • Sir Christopher White

Gender: male

Date Born: 1930

Place Born: London, Greater London, England, UK

Home Country/ies: United Kingdom

Subject Area(s): Baroque, Dutch (culture or style), Dutch Golden Age, and Netherlandish Renaissance-Baroque styles


Overview

Scholar of the Dutch baroque and Director of the Paul Mellon Center, 1973-85. White was the son of Gabriel Edward Ernest Francis White (1902-1988) and Elizabeth Grace Ardizzone (White) (d. 1958). He was educated at the University of London, (BA), an MA at Oxford University, and Ph.D., at the Courtauld Institute, University of London. He joined the Department of Prints and Drawings at the British Museum in 1954 as assistant Keeper. In 1957 he married Rosemary Katharine Desages. White became director of the old masters art sales gallery Colnaghi, London, in 1965, remaining there until 1971. Between 1971-73 he was curator of graphic arts for the National Gallery of Art in Washgington, D. C. He became director of the Paul Mellon Center for British Art in London and associate director of the Yale Center for British Art, both in 1973. White was appointed director of the Burlington Magazine in 1981. In 1985 he left these positions to direct the Ashmolean Museum as a fellow of Worcester College, Oxford. He added the appointment of Professor of Arts of the Netherlands, Oxford in 1992. He retired from the Oxford positions in 1997, accepting appointment as Trustee, Victoria and Albert Museum the same year. He is Vice-Chairman of the British Institute in Florence, a Member of the National Art Collections Fund Committee, and a Trustee of the Mauritshuis in The Hague. He is Director emeritus of the Ashmolean Museum.


Selected Bibliography

[Ashmolean Museum] Catalogue of the Collection of Paintings: Dutch, Flemish, and German Paintings before 1900 (Excluding the Daisy Linda Ward Collection). New York : Oxford University Press, 1999; and Buvelot, Quentin. Rembrandt by Himself. London: National Gallery Publications, 1999; Anthony van Dyck: Thomas Howard, The Earl of Arundel. Malibu, CA: J. Paul Getty Museum, 1995; and Crawley, Charlotte. The Dutch and Flemish Drawings of the Fifteenth to the Early Nineteenth Centuries in the Collection of Her Majesty the Queen at Windsor Castle. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1994; Rembrandt as an Etcher: a Study of the Artist at Work. 2 vols. University Park, PA: Pennsylvania State University Press,1969; The Drawings of Rembrandt. London, Trustees of the British Museum, 1962; The Dutch Pictures in the Collection of Her Majesty the Queen. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1982; Peter Paul Rubens: Man and Artist. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1987; and Alexander, David, and D’Oench, Ellen. Rembrandt in Eighteenth Century England. New Haven, CT: Yale Center for British Art, 1983; and Coldwell, Paul. Edward Ardizzone’s World: the Etchings and Lithographs: an Introduction and Catalogue Raisonné. London: Unicorn Press/Wolseley Fine Arts, 2000.


Sources

People of Today. London: Debrett’s Peerage Limited, 2003, p 2137; CODART “Prof. Christopher White.”




Citation

"White, Christopher, Sir." Dictionary of Art Historians (website). https://arthistorians.info/whitec/.


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Scholar of the Dutch baroque and Director of the Paul Mellon Center, 1973-85. White was the son of Gabriel Edward Ernest Francis White (1902-1988) and Elizabeth Grace Ardizzone (White) (d. 1958). He was educated at the University of London, (BA),

White, John

Full Name: White, John

Other Names:

  • White, John E. C. T.

Gender: male

Date Born: 1924

Home Country/ies: United Kingdom

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


Overview

Italian Renaissance scholar. White attended Trinity College, Oxford University. During World War II he served as a pilot in the Royal Air Force. After the War he studied at the Courtauld Institute of Art. He held a junior fellowship at the Warburg Institute for two years before teaching at the Courtauld, first as a lecturer in 1952 and later as a Reader. In 1958 he published an important article in the Art Bulletin on the Raphael cartoons at Windsor Castle with fellow Courtauld colleague John Kinder Gowran Shearman. In 1959 he became Pilkington Professor of the History of Art at the University of Manchester and concomitantly Director of the Whitworth Art Gallery there. In 1966 he was appointed Professor and Chairman of the Department of the History of Art, Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore,. That same year he published the volume on art and architecture of the early Italian renaissance for the prestigious Pelican History of Art series. He held that position until 1971 when he returned to England to be Durning-Lawrence Professor of the History of Art and Vice Provost of University College, London. He retired in 1990.


Selected Bibliography

The Birth and Rebirth of Pictorial Space. London: Faber and Faber, 1957; Probleme und Methoden der Klassifizierung. Vienna: H. Böhlau, 1985; Art and Architecture in Italy, 1250 to 1400. Pelican History of Art 28. Baltimore: Penguin Books, 1966; Studies in Renaissance Art. London: Pindar Press, 1983;

  • Pieter Bruegel and the Fall of the Art Historian 56th Charlton Lecture, University of Newcastle upon Tyne, 1980;
  • ..

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. 48 mentioned; Bazin, Germain. Histoire de l’histoire de l’art; de Vasari à nos jours. Paris: Albin Michel, 1986, p. 221.




Citation

"White, John." Dictionary of Art Historians (website). https://arthistorians.info/whitej/.


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Search for materials by & about this art historian:

Italian Renaissance scholar. White attended Trinity College, Oxford University. During World War II he served as a pilot in the Royal Air Force. After the War he studied at the Courtauld Institute of Art. He held a junior fellowship at the Warburg