Full Name: Stubblebine, James H.
Other Names:
- James Stubblebine
Gender: male
Date Born: 28 December 1920
Date Died: 03 February 1987
Place Born: New York, NY, USA
Place Died: New York, NY, USA
Home Country/ies: United States
Subject Area(s): Early Renaissance, Italian (culture or style), Italian Renaissance-Baroque styles, painting (visual works), and Renaissance
Career(s): educators
Overview
Rutgers University professor of art history and early Italian Renaissance-era scholar and Giotto specialist. Stubblebine’s parents were Albert Day Stubblebine and Ruth Harvey (Stubblebine). He attended Harvard University, graduating in 1942. World War II declared, he joined U.S. Navy, serving 1943-1946 and rising to the rank of lieutenant. After discharge he entered New York University as a graduate student, studying under Richard Offner. Having secured a Fulbright fellowship, 1953-1954, he completed his Ph.D. in 1954 with a dissertation on Guido da Siena. Other scholars who assisted his research included Rensselaer W. Lee and Millard Meiss. He taught as an instructor at Wellesley College, Wellesley, MA before his appointment at New Jersey’s state university, Rutgers, in 1957. Stubblebine headed the department of art between 1961 and 1969. As chair, he strengthen undergraduate studies and was a founding member of the graduate program in art history at Rutgers. Stubblebine issued a revised version of his dissertation by Princeton University Press as Guido da Siena in 1964. He taught as a visiting lecturer at University of Pennsylvania for the academic year1965-1966. He received a Kress fellowship for the1969-1970 year. He published collected essays by scholars with his own introduction in the ‘Norton Critical Studies in Art History’ series as Giotto: the Arena Chapel Frescoes. Stubblebine was a National Endowment for the Humanities fellow, 1975-1976. In 1977 he was appointed Distinguished Professor II at Rutgers, the University’s highest rank. He published the catalogue raissone on Duccio, Duccio di Buoninsegna and his School in 1979. His annotated bibliography, Dugento Painting, was intended to launch a larger project on that topic. However, Stubblebine suffered a sudden heart attack at age 66 and died in a Manhattan hosptial. Stubblebine’s Duccio di Buoninsegna and his School is seen has his major contribution to the discipline. His final work, Assisi and the Rise of Vernacular asserted controversially that the St. Francis cycle in the Arena Chapel is a later work, not by Giotto but a follower.
Selected Bibliography
- [dissertation:] An Altarpiece by Guido da Siena and his Narrative Style. New York University, 1958, revised and published as Guido da Siena. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1964;
- Giotto: the Arena Chapel Frescoes. Norton critical studies in art history. New York: Norton, 1969;
- Duccio di Buoninsegna and his School. 2 vols. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1979; Dugento Painting: an Annotated Bibliography. Boston: G.K. Hall, 1983;
- Assisi and the Rise of Vernacular Art. Cambridge, MA: Harper & Row, 1985.
Sources
- [obituaries:] “James Stubblebine.” New York Times February 5, 1987, p. B6; McHam, Sarah Blake. “James Stubblebine.” Burlington Magazine 129 (December 1987): 808;
- Stubblebine, James. “Preface and Acknowledgement.” Guido da Siena. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1964, pp. vii-viii;
Archives
- James Stubblebine Papers, National Gallery of Art. https://library.nga.gov/permalink/01NGA_INST/1p5jkvq/alma994225427704896