Americanist art historian; first associate director of the Museum of Modern Art in New York. Abbott was born to Arthur Abbott and Flora Parkman (Abbott). After attending Dexter High School, Abbott graduated from Bowdin College with a bachelor's degree in science and attended graduate school at Harvard University in physics. At Harvard he met Alfred H. Barr, Jr., who would become the first director of the Museum of Modern Art. Barr and Abbott spent time in Paris studying art.

Art educator and theorist, applied Marxist and psychological approaches to his interpretations of art. Sponsored by Barnes Foundation to study in France. Taught: Antioch College, 1925-27; Acadia University (Canada), 1928-43; Michigan State University, 1943-56.

Psychiatrist and disciple of Freud; earliest scholar to employ psycho-analytic method to an artist (Giovanni Segantini). Abraham was born into a wealthy, cultured, Jewish family. His father, Nathan Abraham, initially a Hebrew religion teacher, and his mother were first cousins. Karl Abraham rejected religion early in his life. His early interests in philology and linguistics lead to a life-long interest in humanities. After homeschooling, he entered medical school in 1896 at the universities in Würzburg, Berlin and finally Freiburg im Breisgau.

Architect and historian of medieval building, noted for his assertion that Gothic architecture's system of ribbed vaulting was unnecessary for structural reasons. Abraham served as a soldier in World War I. After the war, he worked on the reconstruction of monument destroyed by the war in the north of France. He trained in the architectural studio of Pascal et Recoura at the Ecole des beaux-arts in Paris, graduating in 1920. He further studied at the l'Ecole du Louvre between 1921 and 1924.

Architectural historian and professor of Fine Arts, Harvard University, 1960-1990. Ackerman's father, Lloyd Stuart Ackerman (1882-1968), was a prosperous San Francisco attorney and his mother, Louise Sloss (Ackerman) (1888-1983), was later a librarian at the San Francisco Museum of Art (today the SF Museum of Modern Art). Art as a child, he was exposed to art when his family toured European museums in 1932. At age 15, he read Vision and Design by Roger Fry, which opened him to the formal interpretation of art.

Canadian Architectural historian; wrote most complete study to date on Gothic vaulting systems. Acland was born in Toronto in 1917 and graduated from Syracuse University, New York, in 1942 with a B.A. in Architecture. Immediately afterwards, Acland joined the Canadian army, then fighting World War II. During his military service, which lasted from 1942 to 1945, Acland worked on the design of factories as well as with Canadian Army Photo Intelligence. Following the war he attended Harvard University where he obtained an M.A. in Philosophy in 1952.

Social historian, novelist; author of a book on medieval architecture. Adams' parents were the diplomat and congressman Charles Francis Adams, Sr. (1807-1886) and shipping heiress Abigail Brooks Adams (1808-1889); he was the grandson of President John Quincy Adams and great-grandson of President John Adams. Adams attended Dixwell School before Harvard College--an experience he valued little--graduating in 1858. Among his life-long friends he met at Harvard was the future architect Henry Hobson Richardson.

Early friend and exponent of German Expressionist artists, taught art history at the Bauhaus. He was born in Karlsbad, Bohemia, which is present-day Karlovy Vary, Czech Republic. Adler was born to Therese (née Hirsch) and Mortiz Adler, both of Jewish descent. Adler’s father was a theater critic and socialist. Adler lived in Munich from 1917 onward, where he wrote his dissertation at that university the same year.  His topic was the early development of the woodcut. In Munich he became familiar with the Blauen Reiter artists group and for whom he worked.

Art critic and historian of Italian renaissance. Cartwright was the daughter of Richard Aubrey Cartwright and Mary Fremantle (Cartwright) (d. 1885). She was privately schooled. Her earliest exposure to art may have come from her uncle William Cornwallis Cartwright (d.1915), an art collector, who allowed her early access to his library and gallery at Aynhoe, Northamptonshire. She toured France, Austria, and Italy with her family in 1868.

Earlier British writer, authored a history of art and artists' biography, 1685. Aglionby traveled the continent and recorded his recollections on art, among other topics. In 1685, Aglionby published his Painting Illustrated in Three Dialogues based heavily on the Vite de' pittori, scultori ed architetti moderni by Giovanni Pietro Bellori published in 1672. Aglionby, noted that in the Netherlands, paintings were common everywhere, even in the homes of tradesmen.

Archaeologist and historian of early British medieval iconography. Allen was the son of a landed Welshman, George Baugh Allen (1821-1898), a barrister (known as a "pleader") of the legal association ("Inner Temple") in Narberth, Pembrokeshire, Wales, and his mother, Dorothea Hannah Eaton (Allen) (d. 1868). Allen graduated from King's College School, London, in 1860 and Rugby School in 1863 before attending King's College, London between 1864 and 1866.

Art educator, museum curator and art historian; early exponent of postwar American art to the European public and coiner of the term "pop art." Alloway was the son of a bookseller. As a child he contracted tuberculosis which interrupted his formal education. While a teenager he wrote short "filler" book reviews for the Sunday London Times. He attended classes at the University of London Birbeck night college, but he never received a degree.

Scholar of Dutch baroque art; professor of History of Art, UC Berkeley,1962-1994; exponent of the "new art history." Born Svetlana Leontief, she graduated from Radcliffe College with a B.A. in 1957. She married the following year, assuming her husband's surname of Alpers. She continued graduate work in art history at Harvard University publishing an article on Vasari's verbal descriptions of art (ekphrasis) in 1960 in the Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes, which announced her innovative approach to art history.

Corinthian vase painting scholar; co-founder of the History of Art department at the University of California, Berkeley. Amyx attended Stanford University where he received a B. A. in classics in 1930. His graduate work was done at Berkeley. An M.A. in Latin was granted in 1932 (with a thesis on Juvenal). He was a fellow at the American School in Athens for 1935-36. His Ph.D., in Latin and classical archaeology was awarded in 1937. His dissertation, on Eritrean black-figure painting, was written under H. R. W. Smith.

Marxist art historian, professor at University of Rome 1959-1976; specialist in Italian art. Argan's father, Valerio Argan, was an administrator of a women's mental hospital and his mother, Libera Roncaroli, a primary school teacher. An uncle's subscription to the journal La Critica, founded by Benedetto Croce, introduced the ideas of that art philosopher to Argan at a young age. He attended the Liceo Classico Cavour in Turin where the classes of the young Giusta Nicco Fasola instilled a passion for art.

Director of the Walker Art Center 1951-1961; wrote a popular survey of modern art. Arnason was born to Sveinbjorn and Maria Bjarnadottir (Arnason), Icelandic immigrants to Canada. He attended the University of Manitoba for two years (1925-1927) before immigrating to the United States. There he attended Northwestern University, achieving his B.S. in 1931. In 1936 he married Elizabeth Hickox Yard and taught as an instructor. After gaining his A.M. in 1937, Arnason continued to study art at Princeton University where he was awarded an M.F.A. in 1939. He was made a naturalized citizen in 1940.

Archaeologist and architectural historian of ancient Rome. Ashby attended Winchester where he already secured the nickname "Titus". At 16, his family abandoned a brewing concern to move to Rome because his father wished to explore the Campagna. Through his father, Ashby met the archaeologist Rodolfo Lanciani (1847-1929). He won a scholarship to Christ Church, Oxford University, studying under Sir John L. Myres (1869-1954) and Francis J. Haverfield (1860-1919).

New York Times critic, professor at Cooper Hewitt and scholar of the New York School of art. Aston was the daughter of Ralph Neil Ashton and Sylvia Smith Shapiro (Ashton). Her father was a medical doctor. She obtained a B.A. from the University of Wisconsin, Madison, in 1949, continuing for an M.A. at Harvard University the following year. Ashton began her career as associate editor of the magazine Art Digest, published in New York beginning in 1951. She married Adja Yunkers (d.1983), an artist, in 1953.

Askew's father was the art historian Arthur K. McComb and mother Constance Atwood. She was born while her father was teaching art history at Vassar. Her parents were divorced when she was young and her step father, the art dealer R. Kirk Askew (1903-1974), adopted her. Askew grew up in New York City. As a college student, she majored in English at Vassar College. Her A.M. from the Institute of Fine Arts, New York University was completed in 1951.

Medievalist and educator; director of the Société français d'archéologie; and professor of the l'école de Chartes, l'école du Louvre, l'école des Beaux-Arts. Aubert's father was an architect (d. 1891). Aubert attended the Lycée Condorcet and then the École Nationale des Chartes. At the École a thesis on the Cathedral of Senlis under the Romanesque scholar Robert Charles de Lasteyrie du Saillant in 1907. Aubert joined the Department of Prints of the Bibliothèque nationale in 1909, rising to assistant librarian in the department in 1911.

Painter and art historian.

German specialist in Asian art history, including East Asian, Southeast Asian, and Indian art and sculpture. Bachhofer began his studies in 1916 before a tour of service as a soldier in the First World War. He returned to his studies in 1918 in Munich studying art  history (under Heinrich Wölfflin, archaeology, philosophy and ethnography of Asia under Lucian Scherman (1864-1946). He completed a dissertation on Japanese woodcuts under these men (whom it is unclear).

Professor of law who converted to archaeology in mid-life. Specialized in funerary art and the archaeology of grave sites.

Medievalist, Focillon student. Baltrušaitis was the son of Jurgis Baltrušaitis, senior (1873-1944) a Symbolist poet, translator and man of letters. He was raised in the intensely cultural environment of his parents. His father was deeply pro-Russia, translating many Western works of literature into Russian and acting as the first chairman of the Soviet Writers' Union. The younger Baltrušaitis had the poet Boris Pasternak (1890-1960) as a teacher. Baltrušaitis moved to Paris to further his education in 1923, studying at the Sorbonne.

Founder, Museum of Modern Art, New York. Barr was the son of a Presbyterian minister, Alfred Hamilton Barr, Sr., and a homemaker Annie Elizabeth Wilson (Barr). The family moved to Baltimore where Barr was raised. His childhood friends included Edward Stauffer King, later director of the Walters Art Gallery. Barr graduated at age 16 (valedictorian) from high school and entered Princeton University in 1918. At that the same year he read Henry Adam's Mont Saint Michel and Chartres influencing him toward art history.