William Pettigrew Gibson

Last updated

William Pettigrew Gibson (3 January 1902 - 22 April 1960) was a Scottish-born art historian and art gallery curator. [1] He worked as Assistant Keeper of the Wallace Collection, London, from 1927, was Reader in the History of Art at the University of London and Deputy Director of the Courtauld Institute of Art from 1936, and Keeper of the National Gallery from 1939 to 1960. [2]

Contents

Early life and education

His father was Edwin Arthur Gibson (1870-1946), a physician, and his mother was Ellen Shaw Gibson (née Pettigrew, 1869-1945). He had an elder sister, Margaret Ellen Gibson (1900-1964) and a younger brother, James Arthur Walker Gibson (1903-1968). [3] He was educated at Westminster School, London, then studied natural sciences and physiology at Christ Church, Oxford, graduating with a BSc in 1924. [1]

Professional work

Although Gibson had originally planned to go into medicine like his father, he became interested in art history through an Oxford friend, the archaeologist Humfry Payne, who later directed the British School at Athens. He was appointed Assistant Keeper and lecturer at the Wallace Collection in 1927. In 1936 he became a Reader in the History of Art at the University of London, and in the same year was appointed Deputy Director of the Courtauld Institute of Art. He became acquainted with Kenneth Clark, Director of the National Gallery, who appointed him Keeper of the National Gallery in 1939. Gibson specialised in 18th century French art. [4] During the Second World War he spent long periods on firewatch duty, day and night, at the National Gallery, although the art collection itself had been moved away from London for safekeeping.

Publications

Books

Articles

Family

Gibson married Christina Pamela Ogilvy in 1940. [4] In the late 1940s they moved to Wyddial Hall, [5] a 16th century country house in East Hertfordshire, which became a Grade II* listed building in October 1951. They lived a simple life there without a telephone or radio. Gibson died unexpectedly at the age of 58, on 22 April 1960, at University College Hospital, London. His obituary appeared in The Times on 23 April 1960 (p. 8).

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Barbara Hepworth</span> English artist and sculptor (1903–1975)

Dame Jocelyn Barbara Hepworth was an English artist and sculptor. Her work exemplifies Modernism and in particular modern sculpture. Along with artists such as Ben Nicholson and Naum Gabo, Hepworth was a leading figure in the colony of artists who resided in St Ives during the Second World War.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Roger Fry</span> English painter and critic (1866–1934)

Roger Eliot Fry was an English painter and critic, and a member of the Bloomsbury Group. Establishing his reputation as a scholar of the Old Masters, he became an advocate of more recent developments in French painting, to which he gave the name Post-Impressionism. He was the first figure to raise public awareness of modern art in Britain, and emphasised the formal properties of paintings over the "associated ideas" conjured in the viewer by their representational content. He was described by the art historian Kenneth Clark as "incomparably the greatest influence on taste since Ruskin ... In so far as taste can be changed by one man, it was changed by Roger Fry". The taste Fry influenced was primarily that of the Anglophone world, and his success lay largely in alerting an educated public to a compelling version of recent artistic developments of the Parisian avant-garde.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Herbert Read</span> English anarchist and writer (1893–1968)

Sir Herbert Edward Read, was an English art historian, poet, literary critic and philosopher, best known for numerous books on art, which included influential volumes on the role of art in education. Read was co-founder of the Institute of Contemporary Arts. As well as being a prominent English anarchist, he was one of the earliest English writers to take notice of existentialism. He was co-editor with Michael Fordham and Gerhard Adler of the British edition in English of The Collected Works of C. G. Jung.

William Gibson is an American-Canadian science fiction author.

Sir Philip Anstiss Hendy was a British art curator who worked both in Britain and overseas, notably the United States.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Winifred Nicholson</span> British painter (1893–1981)

Winifred Nicholson was a British painter. She was a colourist who developed a personal impressionistic style, concentrating on domestic still life objects and landscapes. She often combined the two subjects as seen in her painting From Bedroom Window, Bankshead showing a landscape viewed through a window, with flowers in a vase in the foreground.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Alan Bowness</span> British art historian (1928–2021)

Sir Alan Bowness CBE was a British art historian, art critic, and museum director. He was the director of the Tate Gallery between 1980 and 1988.

Thomas Sherrer Ross Boase was a British art historian, university teacher, and Vice-Chancellor of Oxford University.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Philippe Mercier</span> Painter (1689–1760)

Philippe Mercier was an artist of French Huguenot descent from the German realm of Brandenburg-Prussia, usually defined to French school. Active in England for most of his working life, Mercier is considered one of the first practitioners of the Rococo style, and is credited with influencing a new generation of 18th-century English artists.

John Reginald Homer Weaver was a British historian, academic and architectural photographer. He was president of Trinity College, Oxford, from 1938 to 1954.

Sir Claude Phillips was a British writer, art historian and critic for The Daily Telegraph, Manchester Guardian and other publications during the late 19th century. He was the first keeper of the Wallace Collection at Hertford House, writing its first catalogue, and held that post from 1900 until his retirement in 1911 whereupon he was knighted for his service. Phillips was considered one of the most eminent critics in Victorian Britain, and his numerous scholarly and art history books were widely read.

Sir James Gow Mann was an eminent figure in the art world in the mid twentieth century, specialising in the study of armour.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Lillian Browse</span> British art dealer

Lillian Gertrude Browse was a British art dealer and art historian. She was a partner in two London galleries, first Roland, Browse and Delbanco and then Browse & Darby. During the Second World War she organised exhibitions at the National Gallery, whose collections had been removed to the country for safety. She wrote a number of monographs on twentieth-century artists, including important works on Walter Sickert and Sir William Nicholson. She was nicknamed "The Duchess of Cork Street", and used that name as the title of her autobiography.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Johannes Wilde</span> Hungarian art historian and teacher (1891–1970)

Johannes Wilde CBE was a Hungarian art historian and teacher of art history. He later became an Austrian, and then a British, citizen. He was a noted expert on the drawings of Michelangelo. Wilde was a pioneer of the use of X-rays as a tool for the study of both the creation and the state of conservation of paintings. From 1948 to 1958 he was deputy director of the Courtauld Institute of Art in London.

<i>Self-Portrait with Bandaged Ear</i> 1889 self-portrait by Vincent van Gogh

Self-Portrait with Bandaged Ear is an 1889 self-portrait by Dutch Post-Impressionist artist Vincent van Gogh. The painting is in the collection of the Courtauld Institute of Art and on display in the Gallery at Somerset House. The painting includes inspiration from Japanese Woodblock printing.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">D. H. Turner</span> English museum curator and art historian

Derek Howard Turner was an English museum curator and art historian who specialised in liturgical studies and illuminated manuscripts. He worked at the British Museum and the British Library from 1956 until his death, focusing on exhibitions, scholarship, and loans.

Allan John Witney Braham was an English art historian, architectural historian, author and art gallery curator. He was Deputy Director at the National Gallery, London.

Dennis Larry Ashwell Farr was a British art historian and curator. Through his writings and the exhibitions he organised in his positions as director of City Museums and Art Gallery in Birmingham (1969–1980) and subsequently as director of the Courtauld Institute Galleries (1980–93), Farr established a reputation as a champion of 20th century British art.

Dillian Rosalind Gordon OBE is a British art historian who worked as a curator at the National Gallery, London from 1978 to 2010, latterly as Curator of Italian Paintings before 1460. She lives in Oxford. She was appointed OBE in 2011 for services to Early Italian Painting. She has authored and co-authored many books, including several National Gallery catalogues.

Wolf Burchard is a British-German art historian and museum curator. He joined the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City in 2019.

References

  1. 1 2 "Gibson, William Pettigrew (1902–1960)" . Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (online ed.). Oxford University Press. 2004. doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/33393. ISBN   978-0-19-861412-8 . Retrieved 14 September 2020.(Subscription or UK public library membership required.)
  2. "William Pettigrew Gibson ([1939-1960]) | Archive | National Gallery, London". www.nationalgallery.org.uk. Retrieved 14 September 2020.
  3. "Pettigrew family history". www.ancestry.co.uk. Retrieved 14 September 2020.
  4. 1 2 Dictionary of Art Historians (21 February 2018). "Gibson, William Pettigrew" . Retrieved 14 September 2020.
  5. "WYDDIAL HALL, Wyddial - 1307579 | Historic England". historicengland.org.uk. Retrieved 14 September 2020.