Scholar of the late gothic and early renaissance eras; professor of Visual Art at the University of East Anglia, 1965-95. Martindale was the son of the (Church of England) Archdeacon of Bombay, India. He was educated at the choir school of Christ Church, Oxford and at Westminster School. He read history at New College, Oxford, and went on to graduate work at the Courtauld Institute of Art.

Early female and feminist art historian; translator of early and important German art histories into English. Rigby was the daughter of Edward Rigby (1747-1821), gynecologist and amateur classical scholar, and Anne Palgrave (Rigby) (1777-1872). She was privately educated in the arts and sciences as her well-connected and cultured parents determined. Her father died when she was twelve and thereafter she determined her education more personally.