Theodore Stebbins | |
---|---|
Born | Theodore Ellis Stebbins, Jr. August 11, 1938 |
Occupation(s) | Art historian Curator |
Academic background | |
Education | Yale University Harvard University |
Academic work | |
Influenced | Susan Casteras |
Theodore Ellis Stebbins,Jr. (born August 11,1938) is an American art historian and curator. Stebbins is currently the Consultative Curator of American Art at the Harvard Art Museums.
From 1977 to 1999,Stebbins was the John Moors Cabot Curator of American Paintings at the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston. During his tenure,he organized nineteen exhibitions ranging from John Singleton Copley in the 18th century to The Lane Collection and its important holdings of modern art. As curator,he guided the museum's acquisition of over three hundred paintings,from 17th century limners to Jackson Pollock and Andy Warhol. From 1968 to 1977,he was Curator of American Paintings at Yale University,as well as an associate professor of art history for the university. At Yale,he built the collection of 19th century American landscape and still lifes;his major purchase was Frederic Edwin Church's Mt. Ktaadn (1853). [1] [2]
Complementing his career as a curator and academic,Stebbins served on the board of directors and the Art Advisory Council of the International Foundation for Art Research. [3] He also serves as a trustee for the Heinz Family Foundation,in honor of his high school friend and college roommate,H. John Heinz III. [4] He has served as advisor to the Henry Luce Foundation,the Whitney Museum of American Art,the San Francisco Art Museums,the Cleveland Museum of Art,the James McGlothlin Collection,and many other individuals,museums,and foundations. He was advisor to the Kingdom of Spain when it acquired the Thyssen-Bornemisza Collection of American Art. During the 1980s,he served two terms on the Art Advisory Panel of the Internal Revenue Department.
In 2014 he published American Paintings at Harvard,Volume One:Artists Born Before 1826,completing a two volume scholarly analysis of Harvard's extensive holdings of American Art. Stebbins retired as Curator at Harvard in the same year,but continues to teach at the university. In 2014,he established Theodore E. Stebbins Advisors,which serves as a consultant on issues of American art to museums,foundations,and a small number of private collectors. His most recent publications "Ray Spillenger:Rediscovery of a Black Mountain Painter."
Stebbins attended Phillips Exeter Academy in Exeter,New Hampshire. [5] He later received his B.A. in political science from Yale University in 1960. He also holds a J.D. (1964) from Harvard Law School and a Ph.D (1971) in art history from Harvard University. [6] His article entitled The Problem of Tort Liability for the Art Expert has been reproduced in numerous casebooks and for many years remained a standard reference.
Martin Johnson Heade was an American painter known for his salt marsh landscapes, seascapes, and depictions of tropical birds, as well as lotus blossoms and other still lifes. His painting style and subject matter, while derived from the romanticism of the time, are regarded by art historians as a significant departure from those of his peers.
Frank Weston Benson, frequently referred to as Frank W. Benson, was an American artist from Salem, Massachusetts, known for his Realistic portraits, American Impressionist paintings, watercolors and etchings. He began his career painting portraits of distinguished families and murals for the Library of Congress. Some of his best known paintings depict his daughters outdoors at Benson's summer home, Wooster Farm, on the island of North Haven, Maine. He also produced numerous oil, wash and watercolor paintings and etchings of wildfowl and landscapes.
Arthur Bowen Davies was an avant-garde American artist and influential advocate of modern art in the United States c. 1910–1928.
Sir Richard Saltonstall led a group of English settlers up the Charles River to settle in what is now Watertown, Massachusetts in 1630.
Harold Weston was an American modernist painter, based for many years in the Adirondack Mountains, whose work moved from expressionism to realism to abstraction. He was collected by Duncan Phillips, widely exhibited in the 1920s and 1930s, and painted murals under the Treasury Relief Art Project for the General Services Administration. In later life he was known for his humanitarian food relief work during World War II and his arts advocacy that led to the passage of the National Endowment for the Arts and Humanities Act of 1965. Weston's most recent museum exhibition was at the Shelburne Museum in Vermont, and his most recent gallery exhibition was at Gerald Peters Gallery in New York City.
John Greenwood Sr. was an American painter, engraver and auctioneer.
Edward Chalmers Leavitt (1842–1904), a native of Providence, Rhode Island, was a New England painter said to be the most renowned still life painter of his day in Providence, although today he is largely forgotten.
John William Hill or often J.W. Hill was a British-born American artist working in watercolor, gouache, lithography, and engraving. Hill's work focused primarily upon natural subjects including landscapes, still lifes, and ornithological and zoological subjects. In the 1850s, influenced by John Ruskin and Hill's association with American followers of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, his attention turned from technical illustration toward still life and landscape.
John Currie Wilmerding Jr. was an American professor of art, collector, curator and author of books on American art.
Nancy Mowll Mathews is a Czech-American art historian, curator and author. She was the Eugénie Prendergast Senior Curator of 19th and 20th Century Art at the Williams College Museum of Art from 1988 to 2010. She is currently an independent scholar, curator, professor and host of the television show Art World with Nancy Mathews.
Jet Pilot is a 1962 pop art work done in graphite pencil by Roy Lichtenstein. Like many of Lichtenstein's works from this time period, it was inspired by a comic book image, but he made notable modifications of the source in his work.
Kenworth W. Moffett was an American art curator, museum director and author.
Edward Ludlow Mooney was an American painter.
Lauretta Vinciarelli was an artist, architect, and professor of architecture at the collegiate level.
Clarissa Peters Russell was an American miniaturist. Her name is often given as Mrs. Moses B. Russell.
Ellen "Nelly" Thayer Fisher was an American botanical illustrator. Fisher exhibited her paintings at the National Academy of Design and other exhibitions. She was an active contributor to the exhibitions of the American Watercolor Society, beginning in 1872. In addition to being shown in galleries and exhibitions, her paintings of flora and fauna were widely reproduced as chromolithographs by Boston publisher Louis Prang.
Major-General William Brattle was an American politician, lawyer, cleric, physician and military officer who served as the Attorney General of Massachusetts from 1736 to 1738. Brattle is best known for his actions during the American Revolution, in which he initially aligned himself with the Patriot cause before transferring his allegiances towards the Loyalist camp, which led to the eventual downfall of his fortunes.
Musya S. Sheeler (1908–1981), born Musya Metas Sokolova, was a Russian dancer who, at age 15, fled with her family from the Russian Revolution to the US, where she became a photographer. Her work was exhibited at the Museum of Modern Art three times and featured in magazines including Life and Vogue.
Niagara is an oil painting produced in 1857 by the American artist Frederic Edwin Church. Niagara was his most important work to date, and confirmed his reputation as the premier American landscape painter of the time. In his history of Niagara Falls, Pierre Berton writes, "Of the hundreds of paintings made of Niagara, before Church and after him, this is by common consent the greatest."
Orchid and Hummingbirds near a Mountain Lake is a painting by Martin Johnson Heade, which he completed sometime between 1875 and 1890. Some scholars see the sensual depiction of the orchid and the nearly touching beaks of the birds as conveying romantic or even sexual overtones. Others see Heade's interest in orchids and hummingbirds as an exploration of dominance and survival in nature, perhaps inspired by Charles Darwin's evolutionary theory. The work is now in the collection of the McMullen Museum of Art at Boston College, having been donated as part of the Carolyn A. and Peter S. Lynch collection.