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.

Gérôme and 19th-century French art scholar. Ackerman graduated from the University of California, Berkeley in 1952 with a B.A. He moved to Munich where he studied at the Maximillien University under Hans Sedlmayr between 1956-1958 before returning to the United States where he began teaching as an art history lecturer at Bryn Mawr. He received his MFA at Princeton University in 1960, continuing for his Ph.D. in 1964 with a thesis, written under Erwin Panofsky and Rensselaer W.

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.

Museum department director, print specialist and editor of the Gazette des Beaux-Arts (1956-1987); established a genre of art-historical research exploring the importance of classical culture to that of the Middle Ages. Adhémar was descended from a distinguished legal family of the French Midi (southern France). His father, a lawyer of the Cour de cassation (French Supreme Court), allowed his son to follow scholarship rather than study law.

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.

Photo-documentarian, early participant of the Fratelli Alinari photoarchive together with his brothers. The son of an engraver, Alinari grew up in a Florentine art family. His older brother, Leopoldo Alinari studied with engraver Luigi Bardi and learned the emerging art of photography.

Photo-documentarian, founder of the Fratelli Alinari together with his brothers. The son of an engraver, Alinari grew up in a Florentine art family. Leopoldo studied with engraver Luigi Bardi and learned the emerging art of photography while training in the 1840s. In 1852 he established a studio in the Via Nazionale in Florence.

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.

Historian and critic of Spanish colonial art and culture. Angulo Iñiguez received his undergraduate at the University in Seville in History in 1920. In 1922 he was awarded his Ph.D. from the Universidad Central de Madrid for a thesis on the Renaissance goldsmiths of Seville. He began his career in Seville, where he studied the archives of the Indies. In 1930 he published his dissertation on Andalusian sculpture and established the Laboratorio de Arte Americano (Laboratory of American Art).

Marxist/social-history art historian. Antal was born to a wealthy Jewish family. His father, Alajos Antal, was a medical doctor and his mother was Sofia Gerstl. The younger Antal completed a law degree in Budapest and then continued there as well as Freiburg and Paris to study art history. In studied in Berlin under Heinrich Wölfflin and then in Vienna under Max Dvořák. He received his doctorate in art history in 1914 writing his thesis under Dvořák on neoclassical and Romantic French painting.

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.

Private art scholar and dealer of ancient Greek sculpture and portraits. Son of an affluent merchant in Mecklenburg, Arndt studied classical art with Johannes Overbeck in Leipzig and Enrico Brunn in Munich. His dissertation, written under Brunn, focused on Greek vase types. He never attempted a habilitationschrift. Brunn took Arndt for his assistant. Because of his financial independence, Arndt could afford to remain a private scholar.

Philosopher of perception and art; used Gestalt psychology for his art-historical studies. Arnheim was the son of Georg Arnheim (1867-1944), a piano factory owner, and Betty Gutherz (Arnheim) (1879-1966). He was raised in Berlin, attending the Herdergymnasium (Abitur 1923). His parents intended him to assume the family business, but beginning in 1923 Arnheim, studied art and music history, philosophy and psychology at the University of Berlin with Gestalt-based scholars Wolfgang Köhler (1887-1967) and Kurt Lewin (1890-1947). His Ph.D.

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.