Winslow Ames
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
- Art historian
- museum director
- academic
Winslow Ames | |
|---|---|
 Ames in 1935. | |
| Born | Edward Winslow Ames Jr. July 3, 1907 |
| Died | October 3, 1990 (aged 83) |
| Education | |
| Occupations |
|
| Employer(s) | University of Rhode Island Springfield Art Museum Gallery of Modern Art Hollins College Brown University Connecticut College Lyman Allyn Art Museum |
| Spouse | Anna Rebecca Ames (née Gerhard) |
| Children | 5 |
| Relatives | Azel Ames (paternal grandfather) |
Edward Winslow Ames Jr. (July 3, 1907 – October 3, 1990) was an American art historian, author, and museum director.[1][2] His academic research focused on Victorian art, but he "also had a deep interest in Modernism and the art of his own period".[3][4]
Ames was born in Maullín, Chile, where his father was a diplomat and later worked for Companier de Maderes del Ato Parana, a lumber company.[2][1][5] His parents were Katherine Millicent (née Johnson) and Edward "Ted" Winslow Ames.[6][5] His grandfather was Azel Ames, a noted physician and author.[7] However, Ames recalled, "The Ames family was not rich. My mother was."[5]
The family went back and forth between the United States and Latin America, but he was primarily raised in Staten Island, New York, and Boston, Massachusetts.[2][1][5] In 1917, his father was the diplomat for Guatemala where Ames witnessed the impact of war and extreme poverty.[5]
He attended Staten Island Academy and went to Phillips-Andover Academy in 1921.[1][5] Although his father wanted him to attend Harvard, Ames wanted to go elsewhere because "there were too many people going to Harvard from Andover".[5] He chose Columbia University, receiving a B.A. in 1929 after 3.5 years.[2] While at Columbia, he took up rowing and joined the social and literary Fraternity of Delta Psi (St. Anthony Hall) which Ames says was crucial to stimulating his interest in the arts.[5] He also attended exhibitions at the Metropolitan Museum of Art.[5]
In 1932, he received an MA in art history from Harvard University where he studied with Paul J. Sachs and Edward W. Forbes.[1][2][5] While at Harvard, he lived in the Delta Psi M.I.T. chapter house.[5]
Career
With the assistance of Paul J. Sachs, Ames secured a position as founding director of the Lyman Allyn Art Museum in New London, Connecticut.[1][8][3] He began work in 1930 while the museum was still under construction and had no items in its collection.[8][5] The New York Times noted, "Winslow Ames, the director, has mapped out an acquisition program that, as it develops, out to make the museum both distinctive and peculiarly valuable."[8] He started collecting drawings and New London County or early furniture, and decided to focus on drawings, prints, and sculptures.[8][5] He also created a library and collection of lantern slides for the museum.[5] He did not collect modern art because the museum's trustees "weren't particularly keen on it."[5] He worked at the Lyman Allyn Art Museum until 1942.[6]
After World War II, he spent a year studying Prince Albert and Victorian art in England and Germany.[5] This eventually led to a book, Prince Albert and Victorian Taste that was published by Viking in 1967.[5][1]
He was the first paid director of the Springfield Art Museum in Springfield Missouri, from 1947 to 1950.[1][9][6] From 1957 to 1961, he was the first director of Huntington Hartford's Gallery of Modern Art at 2 Columbus Circle in Manhattan, working with the collection before the museum opened to the public.[10][1][11][6]
He taught at several colleges and universities, including Connecticut College in the 1930s, Brown University in the 1940s, Hollins College from 1964 to 1965, and University of Rhode Island from 1966 to 1972 and 1973–1975.[10][12][3][5][6] He also did some appraisal work, especially with early furniture and drawings.[5]
Prefab houses
While at the Century of Progress world exhibition in Chicago in 1933, Ames saw General House's model home and met Howard T. Fisher, its chief architect.[10] He believed these prefabricated houses were the future with their "stark International-style appearance".[3] He had two of these structures built on the property of Lyman Allyn Art Museum where he was employed as the museum's director.[3]
In November 1933, he commissioned General House to erect the House of Steel, a prefab house.[10][3] He also commissioned American Homes, Inc. and architect Robert W. McLaughlin, Jr. to construct an International style prefabricated "Moto Home" now known as the Winslow Ames House.[3][13][14] The Ames used these houses as rental properties, although they lived in the Moto Home for a short time.[3]
Both houses were sold to Connecticut College in 1949.[3][13][10] The Winslow Ames House underwent extensive restoration in 1994, with funding from the Connecticut Historical Commission, and is on the National Register of Historic Places.[3][14] The House of Steel survives, but was significantly modified.[3]
Works
Ames' papers are held at the Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution.[15] Selected works include:
Books
- The Mastery of Drawing, translated and expanded from Joseph Meder's Die Handzeichnung, Abaris Books,1978.[1][6]
- Prince Albert and Victorian Taste, Viking, 1967[1][6]
- Italian Drawings (Great Master Drawings of All Time, Volume 1). Shorewood Press, 1962[2]
Journals
- "Sebastien Leclerc and Antoine Coypel for the 'Petite Academie,'" Master Drawings, (1983), vol. 21, no. 1, pp. 3–89.[16]
- "Bouchardon and Company." Master Drawings, (1975) vol. 13, no. 4, pp. 379–447.[17]
- :"London 1862: Crystal Palace as Academy," Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians, (October 1971) Vol. 30, No. 3, pp. 247.[18]
- "The Transformation of Château-Sur-Mer." Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians, (1970) vol. 29, no. 4, pp. 291–306.[19]
- "A Bust of a Woman by Bellange." Master Drawings (1966) vol. 4, no. 4, pp. 434–99.[20]
- "New York Brownstone through German Eyes, 1851." Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians (1966) vol. 25, no. 1, pp. 63–64.[21]
- "The Vermont State House." Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians (1964) vol. 23, no. 4, pp. 193–99.[22]
- "The 'Villa Dal Timpano Arcuato' by Francesco Guardi." Master Drawings (1963) vol. 1, no. 3, pp. 37–81.[23]
- "Review of Inside Victorian Walls, by E. A. Entwisle, et al. Victorian Studies (1961), vol. 5, no. 2, pp. 151–62.[24]
- "Spectatorship of F. Ambrose Clark and a Well-Made Book." Connoisseur (December 1959) vol. 144, pp. 200–205.[25]
- "Two Drawings by Palma Giovine: With French Tr." Gazette des Beaux-Arts (1955) March, pp. 171–95.[26]
- "Rembrandt Composition Remodeled." Art Quarterly (1954) vol. 17, no. 1, pp. 60–62.[27]
- "Some Physical Types Favored by Western Artists; with French Translation." Gazette des Beaux-Arts, (1954), September, pp. 91–139.[28]
- "Drawings by Contemporaries and by Old Masters." Magazine of Art (March 1953) vol. 46, pp. 123–30.[29]
- "Some Woodcuts by Hendrick Goltzius and Their Program; with French Tr." Gazette des Beaux-Arts, (1948) June, pp. 425–65.[30]
- "Drawing by Hans Baldung Grün at the Pierpont Morgan Library." Gazette des Beaux-Arts (1944) June, pp. 371–75.[31]
- "Sketches for an Assumption of the Virgin by Fra Bartolommeo." Gazette des Beaux-Arts, (1944) April, pp. 215–20.[32]
- "Drawings in the Fogg", Magazine of Art, American Federation of Arts, (January 1941) vol. 34, no. 1, pp. 34–37, 47–48.[33][5]
- "Contemporary American Artists: Richmond Barthé." Parnassus (1940) vol. 12, no. 3, pp. 10–17.[34]
- "William Blake as Artist." Magazine of Art. (February 1939) vol. 32, pp. 68–73.[35]
- "A Drawing by the Monogrammist C. B." Bulletin of the Fogg Art Museum (1938) vol. 8, no. 1, pp. 36–40.[36]
- "Chiaroscuro Woodcuts." Parnassus (1937) vol. 9, no. 2, pp. 5–8.[37]
- "Portrait of American Industry; City Interior by Charles Sheeler." Worcester Art Museum Annual (January 1937) vol. 2, pp. 96–98[38][5]
- "Gaston Lachaise 1882–1935." Parnassus (1936) vol. 8, no. 3, pp. 5–31.[39][5]
