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Edgar Preston Richardson | |
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![]() Richardson in 1968 | |
Born | |
Died | March 27, 1985 82) Philadelphia, US | (aged
Other names | E. P. Richardson |
Education | Williams College (BA, 1925) Philadelphia Academy of Fine Arts |
Occupation |
|
Employer | Detroit Institute of Arts Winterthur Museum |
Board member of | Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, Historical Society of Pennsylvania, Library Company of Philadelphia, National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Arts Commission |
Spouse(s) | Constance Coleman Richardson (married 1931) |
Awards | James Smithson Medal (1968) |
Edgar Preston Richardson (December 2, 1902 – March 27, 1985), also known as E. P. Richardson, was an American art historian, museum director, author, and curator. Richardson served as director of the Detroit Institute of Arts (1945–1962) and Winterthur Museum (1963–1966). He authored seven books, served on the boards of the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts (1966–1977) and other arts organizations, and co-founded the Archives of American Art at the Smithsonian in 1954. [1] [2]
Richardson was born in Glens Falls, New York. He earned his BA with highest honors from Williams College in 1925 and went on to study painting for three years at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts. He joined the Detroit Institute of Arts in 1930 as educational secretary, gained a promotion to assistant director in 1933, and worked as director from 1945 to 1962, growing the museum's American art collection into one of the top five in the country according to the Detroit Free Press . [3] Also while at Detroit, he co-founded the Archives of American Art with Kennedy Galleries director Lawrence Fleischman and became the Archives' first director. He left Detroit to become director of Winterthur Museum, Garden and Library in 1962 before retiring in 1966. [1] [2] He then served as president of the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts from 1968 to 1970. [4]
In 1968, Richardson received the James Smithson Medal, the Smithsonian Institution's self-described "most prestigious and highest award." [5] Other honors included Chevalier of the French Legion of Honour, Chevalier of the Belgian Order of Leopold, and honorary degrees from Union College, Université Laval, the University of Delaware, the University of Pennsylvania, Wayne State University, and Williams College, A Benjamin Franklin Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts, Richardson also belonged to the American Philosophical Society, the Century Association, the Franklin Inn Club of Philadelphia, and Phi Beta Kappa. [4]
For more than a decade, Richardson advised collector and philanthropist John D. Rockefeller III, who bequeathed his vast art collection to the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco. [4] Richardson served on the editorial boards of Art in America , Magazine of Art , and the Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography and edited Art Quarterly from 1938 to 1967. He served on the boards of directors of the Historical Society of Pennsylvania, the Library Company of Philadelphia, the National Portrait Gallery, the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, the Smithsonian Arts Commission, and other arts organizations. [1] [4]
Richardson married painter Constance Coleman Richardson (1905–2002) in 1931. They met while attending the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts during the 1920s. The Richardsons had no children. Edgar Preston Richardson died in Roxborough, Philadelphia, on March 27, 1985, at the age of 82. [2] [4] Detroit Free Press lauded him as "the dean of American art historians throughout the country," a "shy and scholarly director, much more comfortable doing research than at social gatherings." [3]
The E. P. and Constance Richardson Papers are held in the permanent collections of the Archives of American Art. Additional materials are held at the Detroit Institute of Arts and the Winterthur Library. [1]
Winterthur Museum, Garden and Library is an American estate and museum in Winterthur, Delaware. Pronounced “winter-tour," Winterthur houses one of the richest collections of Americana in the United States. The museum and estate were the home of Henry Francis du Pont (1880–1969), Winterthur's founder and a prominent antiques collector and horticulturist.
The Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts (PAFA) is a museum and private art school in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. It was founded in 1805 and is the first and oldest art museum and art school in the United States. The academy's museum is internationally known for its collections of 19th- and 20th-century American paintings, sculptures, and works on paper. Its archives house important materials for the study of American art history, museums, and art training. It offers a Bachelor of Fine Arts, Master of Fine Arts, certificate programs, and continuing education.
Robert Feke was an American portrait painter born in Oyster Bay, Long Island, New York. According to art historian Richard Saunders, "Feke’s impact on the development of Colonial painting was substantial, and his pictures set a new standard by which the work of the next generation of aspiring Colonial artists was judged." In total, about 60 paintings by Feke survive, twelve of which are signed and dated.
Henry Francis du Pont was an American horticulturist, collector of early American furniture and decorative arts, breeder of Holstein Friesian cattle, and scion of the powerful du Pont family. Converted into a museum in 1951, his estate of Winterthur in Delaware is the world's premier museum of American furniture and decorative arts.
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Elizabeth Wentworth Roberts was an American painter who lived and worked in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, Paris, and Concord, Massachusetts. She established the Jennie Sesnan Gold Medal at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, where she had studied and won the Mary Smith Prize. She also studied in Paris at Académie Julian and Florence. In Massachusetts, Roberts founded and funded the Concord Art Association.
Constance Coleman Richardson (1905–2002) was an American painter best known for her American Scene landscapes and interplay of light on figures, evocative of Edward Hopper. She attended Vassar College and Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts and was married to art historian and museum director Edgar Preston Richardson from 1931 until his death in 1985.
The James Smithson Medal, established in 1965, is awarded to those who have made "exceptional contributions to art, science, history, education and technology." It is presented by the Smithsonian Institution which states that it is the organization's "most prestigious and highest award."
Harriet Christina Cany Peale (1799–1869) was an American landscape, portrait, and genre painter of the mid-nineteenth century. Although sometimes described as a copyist, a greater share of her oeuvre has been made public in recent years, allowing Cany Peale to earn recognition for her genre and landscape paintings. She has been located in contemporary scholarship as an artist of the Hudson River School.
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