Howard Burns

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Howard Burns is a British architectural historian who is professor emeritus of architectural history at the Scuola Normale Superiore, Pisa. He has also lectured at the Courtauld Institute of Art and was Slade Professor of Fine Art at the University of Cambridge 1977-78. [1] He is a specialist in the architecture of Andrea Palladio and is a member of the Accademia Olimpica and the Accademia di San Luca. [2]

Contents

Biography

Burns was born in 1939 in Aberdeen, Scotland. [3]

Education

He attended Westminster School in London and moved on to study history at King’s College, Cambridge, where he was awarded a B.A. At Cambridge he co-edited Delta magazine with Simon Gray, the now famous playwright. Two influences during Burns’s undergraduate years were the lecturer John Saltmarsh, whose specialism was in medieval economic and social history, and the scholar, Robert Ralph Bolgar, author of The Classical Heritage. [4]

Burns focused on Renaissance architects and their study of the antique for his postgraduate studies at the Courtauld Institute of Art, London. He was supervised by Peter Murray who, at the time, was Librarian at the Conway Library.

Academic life

By the late 1960s Burns was teaching History of Art at Cambridge University using his own colour images of Italian architecture in his lectures. Anthony Blunt, Director of the Courtauld Institute, came to hear of Burns’s talent and encouraged him to teach at the Courtauld. By 1969 he was a lecturer there and this brought him into contact with a number of eminent art historians. such as John Shearman, Michael Hirst and Jennifer Fletcher. In 1986 Burns moved to a professorship at Harvard University in the Graduate School of Design. Italy, long his passion, became Burns's next destination taking a professorial position at the University of Ferrara in 1994. A year later he went over to the University of Venice. In 1993 Burns was appointed “Presidente of the Consiglio Scientifico of CISAAP, the Palladio Centre in Vicenza. Burns’s most recent post has been to a chair in architectural history at the Scuola Normale Superiore di Pisa. [3]

Burns is still active. [5] He gave a lecture entitled ‘Unforced Elegance’ held the Art History Institute, Florence on 25 November 2019 [6] and was due to appear at the 33rd International Seminar on the History of Architecture, Naples and the Renaissance, at CISAAP, Andrea Palladio, Vicenza, between 18 and 20 May 2020. A short video clip of Burns discussing Palladio's relevance today gives some insight into Burns's expertise on the great architect. [7]

Legacy

Burns has another connection to the Conway Library at the Courtauld Institute, London. As part of a wider project, 'Courtauld Connects', the Library’s collection of over a million photographic prints, glass and film negatives are currently being digitised. Photographs attributed to Burns are to be found amongst them. [8]

Curated exhibitions

Selected publications

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References

  1. ↑ Howard Burns. Department of History of Art, University of Cambridge. Retrieved 1 July 2017.
  2. ↑ Howard Burns, Scuola Normale Superiore, Pisa - emeritus. Palladio Museum. Retrieved 1 July 2017.
  3. 1 2 Elam, Caroline (2010). "Precision and Fantasia: Howard Burns, scholar and teacher". In Beltramini, Maria; Elam, Caroline (eds.). Some degrees of Happiness: Studi di storia dell'architettura in onore di Howard Burns (PDF). Pisa, Italy: Scuola Normale. pp. xiv–xxii. ISBN   978-88-7642-372-7. OCLC   632165214.
  4. ↑ Bolgar, Robert Ralph (1964). The Classical Heritage and its Beneficiaries: From the Carolingian Age to the End of the Renaissance. Harper and Row.
  5. ↑ "Ricerca contenuti". Palladio Museum. Retrieved 12 November 2020.
  6. ↑ ""Unforced elegance". Una lezione di Howard Burns". Kunsthistorisches Institut in lorenz – Max-Planck-Institut (in German). Retrieved 12 November 2020.
  7. ↑ "Andrea Palladio, the Revolutionary".
  8. ↑ "Who made the Conway Library?". Digital Media. 30 June 2020. Retrieved 12 November 2020.
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