Historian of Nigerian art and director, Institute of African Studies, University of Ibadan. Adepegba attended graduate school at Indiana University, receiving his Ph.D. in 1976 in art history under the supervision of Roy Sieber. He pursued an active research agenda writing on a range of Nigerian art topics. His over 40 works include a paper on Nok terracottas, the Yoruba concept of art, and contemporary Nigerian art.

Museum department director, print specialist and editor of the Gazette des Beaux-Arts (1956-1987); established a genre of art-historical research exploring the importance of classical culture to that of the Middle Ages. Adhémar was descended from a distinguished legal family of the French Midi (southern France). His father, a lawyer of the Cour de cassation (French Supreme Court), allowed his son to follow scholarship rather than study law.

Founder, Museum of Modern Art, New York. Barr was the son of a Presbyterian minister, Alfred Hamilton Barr, Sr., and a homemaker Annie Elizabeth Wilson (Barr). The family moved to Baltimore where Barr was raised. His childhood friends included Edward Stauffer King, later director of the Walters Art Gallery. Barr graduated at age 16 (valedictorian) from high school and entered Princeton University in 1918. At that the same year he read Henry Adam's Mont Saint Michel and Chartres influencing him toward art history.

Assistant-director of the Print Room of the Amsterdam Rijksmuseum (1913-1920); specialist in early Dutch graphic art and painting; art seller. Beets was born in Batavia, Indonesia which is present-day Jakarta. He was the only child of Dirk Beets and Clara Johanna van de Poll, and the grandson of the Dutch writer and poet Nicolaas Beets (1814-1903). He was raised in Batavia, then the capital of the Netherlands Indies. At the age of eight, he was sent to his mother's family in The Netherlands, in Driebergen.

Professor of Egyptian art at New York University and Egyptian Department chairman at the Brooklyn Museum. Bothmer studied Egyptology at the universities of Berlin and Bonn. In 1932 he joined the Egyptian Department of the state museums in Berlin where he remained until 1938. The Anschluss forced Bothmer to leave Nazi Germany because of his beliefs. In the United States, Bothmer initially worked for the War Department in its Office of War Information early in World War II, moving to Army Intelligence in Europe until 1946.

Director, National Gallery of Art, London, and artist. Burton was the son of Samuel Frederic Burton (b. 1786), a wealthy landowner in County Limerick an amateur artist, and Hannah Mallet (Burton). The Burtons moved to Dublin in 1826 where Burton entered the Dublin Society's drawing schools, studying under Henry Brocas (1766-1838) the elder and Robert Lucius West (1774-1850). He additionally studied miniatures with Samuel Lover (1797-1868). In 1837, Burton was elected an associate member of the Royal Hibernian Academy and a full member in 1839.

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.

Museum director; Metropolitan Museum of art curator and specialist in Roman baroque painting. He was raised in a Quaker household. Clark's boyhood fascination with birds led him to consider a career in ornithology. However, he graduated from Harvard in 1945 with a degree in fine arts. The following ten years he spent as a working artist. After World War II, Clark painted in New York, joining the American Abstract Artists' Association. Beginning in 1948, he toured Europe.

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.

Museum director, exponent of German Expressionism, especially  August Macke. Cohen was born in 1880 to Helene and Friedrich Cohen. His father was a book publisher in Bonn, Germany. Cohen graduated from the Städtisches Progymnasium mit Oberrealschule in 1898, and the following year began the study of ancient languages.

Director, Victoria and Albert Museum, London 1955-1967. Cox was the son of William Pallett Cox, a lawyer, and Marion Beverley (Cox). He graduated from Eton and attended King's College, Cambridge, where he took a first-class degree in the Modern Languages Tripos. Cecil Harcourt-Smith, the Director of the Victoria and Albert Museum and a family friend, encouraged Cox in museum studies. At Cambridge, Sydney Cockerell Director of the Fitzwilliam Museum, likewise inspired.

Director, National Portrait Gallery, London, 1895-1909, and co-editor of the Burlington Magazine, 1909-1919. Cust's father was the barrister Sir Reginald John Cust (1828-1913) and mother Lady Elizabeth Caroline Bligh (Cust) (1830-1914). After graduating from Eton College he attended Trinity College, Cambridge (1877-1881) completing a degree in Classics. Initially assigned to the War Office between 1882 he made a civil-service transfer to the Department of Prints and Drawings at the British Museum under Sidney Colvin in 1884.

Visionary modernist art museum director, Newark Museum, 1909-1929, and librarian theorist. Dana was born to Charles Dana, Jr. a general store manager, and Charitie Scott Loomis (Dana). In 1874, Dana entered Dartmouth College. He gained an A. B. in 1878 intent on becoming a lawyer, but a diagnosis of tuberculosis forced him to the drier climate of Colorado. Dana worked as a surveyor, part of the team who discovered the ruins of the Mesa River cliff dwellers in 1881.

Metropolitan Museum of Art director, 1977-2008. Montebello was born to Count André Roger Lannes de Montebello (1908-1986) and Germaine Wiener de Croisset (de Montebello) (1913-1975). His family traced its roots back to Jean Lannes, Duc de Montebello, (1769-1809), a Marshall of France under Napoleon. Other relatives are thought to have been models for characters in Proust’s À la recherche du temps perdu, for example the Duchesse de Guermantes and the playwright Bloch. As a boy, his aunt, the Surrealism patron Marie-Laures Noailles (1902-1970) introduced him to Picasso.

Minister of Arts under Napoleon, developer and first director of the Louvre Museum; collector and engraver. Denon was born to a provincial noble family. He initially studied law in Paris in 1765, but switched to study painting under Noël Hallé (1711-1781). His first official appointment came as keeper of the collection of gems and medals left to the King by Madame de Pompadour. Beginning in 1772, he worked as an attaché to the French embassies in St. Petersburg, Stockholm, Geneva and Naples, making engravings in addition to his diplomatic work.

Archaeologist, Ashmolean Museum Director; discoverer of Minoan Crete civilization and publisher of Minoan (Knossos) finds. Evans' father, Sir John Evans (1823-1908), ran a paper mill and was distinguished archaeologist and numismatist. His mother was Harriet Ann Dickinson (Evans). Evans attended Harrow School and Brasenose College, Oxford, where he graduated with first class honors in modern history in 1874. He studied a year at Göttingen, traveling to Bosnia (1871), Herzegovina, Finland, and Scandinavia (1873-4).

Frick Collection Director, 1973-1986 and John Pope-Hennessy Chair of the department of European paintings, Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1986-2009. Fahy (pronounced "Fay"), born to Everett Fahy, Sr. and Dorothy Jermaka (Fahy), was raised in Philadelphia, PA. While an undergraduate at the University of Virginia, Fahy met his future chair namesake, John Pope-Hennessy in North Carolina. After graduation in 1962 he traveled to Europe where Pope-Hennessy suggested he study Domenico Ghirlandio.

Director, British Museum, 1936-1950, and scholar of the prehistoric era. Forsdyke was son of Frederick Palmer Forsdyke and Mary Eliza Sainsbury. He was educated at Christ's Hospital and Keble College, Oxford, graduating in 1906. A scholar of classical studies, he joined the British Museum in 1908 as an assistant in the department of Greek and Roman Antiquities. In 1910 he married a forty-two-year-old widow (he was twenty-six) Frances Beatrice Mumford Gifford. Forsdyke worked closely with Arthur J. Evans, contributing to Evans' work the Palace of Minos.

Art museum and library director; Germanist art historian specializing in northern renaissance; patron of Expressionist artist and Asian art authority. Glaser was born of cultured Jewish parentage, S. Glaser and Emma Hase (Glaser). He attended the Wilhelms gymnasium in Berlin, graduating in 1897. Glaser studied medicine at the University of Freiburg and Munich, receiving his M.D. in 1902. However, art had always interested him and he immediately began a second degree in art history during the years Heinrich Wölfflin was in Berlin. He was granted a Ph.D.

Americanist art historian and Whitney Museum of Art curator and Director, 1958-1968. Goodrich was the son of Henry Wickes Goodrich, an attorney and amateur painter, and Madeleine Lloyd (Goodrich). The family friend and neighbor, the artist Reginald Marsh, encouraged Goodrich to paint. Goodrich graduated from high school in 1913 and studied at the Art Students League in New York, arriving early enough to witness the Armory Show, and later studying at the National Academy of Design (also in New York) through 1918.

Director, Essener Kunstmuseum 1909-1922, major exhibitor of German Expressionism. Between 1891 and 1896 Gosebruch studied philology in Munich, Geneva and Berlin. He taught as a private tutor until 1903 when he joined the the Essen museum as an unpaid assistant. During the same time he studied art history in Paris and Berlin, the latter venue under Heinrich Wölfflin. After a second undergraduate degree in art history in 1906, he was appointed in 1909 Director of Essen art museums, a diverse art collection.

Writer, painter, museum director, and historian of Russian art and architecture. Grabar studied at the Academy of Arts at the University of St. Petersburg in 1894, and moved to Munich two years later. As an art student, he was affiliated with the Jugendstil movement, but returned to St. Petersburg in 1901. In 1913, he was appointed professor at the Academy of Arts and Director of the Tret'yakov Gallery in Moscow. Grabar supervised the restoration of Russian architecture and painting, publishing several articles on Russian art.

Frick Collection director, 1964-1972. Grier studied architecture at Pennsylvania State University, graduating in 1935. His experience with art encouraged him to study art history. He continued study at Princeton University, Department of Art and Archeology the same year, taking courses at New York University and working as a field assistant in the Princeton excavation at Antioch (modern Turkey). In 1936 he studied at the Institut d'Art et d'Archeologie, University of Paris.

Pieter Bruegel the Elder authority; Deputy Director, Manchester City Art Gallery, 1961-1966; Professor of Art History, Washington University, Seattle, 1966-1972. Grossmann was the son of Maximilian Grossmann, a Surgeon-General in the Austro-Hungarian Army. He attended the Staatsgymnasium of the third district (III Bezirk) in Vienna. As a student at the Wiener Handelsakademie he met Antoine Seilern who would prove instrumental in his later career.

Museum director; modernist art historian. Grote's father owned a construction firm and his mother was a pianist. He studied art history briefly at the university in Jena in 1912 before switching to architecture in Braunschweig (1912-1919), with time off for military service in the First World War. After the war he studied art history in Munich and then at Halle. He wrote his dissertation at Halle under Paul Frankl on the printmaker Georg Lemberger in 1922.