Kirk Varnedoe

John Kirk Train Varnedoe ( born January 18, 1946 in Savannah (Georgia ); † August 14, 2003 in New York) was an American art historian.

Life

Kirk Varnedoe was the youngest of four children of the stockbroker Samuel Lamartine Varnedoe and his wife Lilla Varnedoe Train in Savannah the world. His grandfather Gordon Saussy was mayor of Savannah. The family lived in a wealthy family. After his schooling, he studied at Williams College in Massachusetts art history and graduated in 1967 with a Bachelor of Arts (BA). He then moved to the California Stanford University, where he in 1970 the degree of Master of Arts ( MA) in 1972 and the doctoral degree Ph.D. obtained. In his dissertation Varnedoe dedicated the drawings by Auguste Rodin and this worked for a time at the Musée Rodin. Through his research was Rodin J. Carter Brown, director of the National Gallery of Art in Washington, DC, attention to Varnedoe and invited him in 1971 to curate together with Albert Elsen, the exhibition Rodin Drawings True and False.

Varnedoe taught as assistant professor 1973-1974 Art History at Stanford University, followed by a teaching post at New York's Columbia University in the years 1974-1980. During this period he curated in 1976 at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, the first major retrospective of works by Gustave Caillebotte in the United States. This retrospective was instrumental in the international rediscovery and re-evaluation of the painter. The Institute of Fine Arts, New York University appointed him in 1980 as an associate professor. In 1982, he headed the traveling exhibition Northern Light: Realism and Symbolism in Scandinavian Painting, 1880-1910. This at the Brooklyn Museum, the Corcoran Gallery of Art and the Minneapolis Institute of Arts exhibition shown gave an overview of the art of early modernism in Scandinavia.

1984 Varnedoe professor of art history at New York University. In the 1990s, followed by presentations at the University of Oxford and the National Gallery of Art in Washington DC At the Museum of Modern Art in 1984 he presented with William Rubin, Museum Curator of Painting and Sculpture, the acclaimed exhibition Primitivism in 20th Century Art together. In this exhibition they showed mainly the influence of African art on the development of 20th century art in Europe and America. The following year was Varnedoe Rubins assistant at the Museum of Modern Art and in 1989 his successor. He headed the Department of Painting and Sculpture to 2011. During his time at the Museum of Modern Art organized Varnedoe some very successful and highly acclaimed exhibitions. This included 1986 Vienna in 1900, the developments of Austrian modernism in the visual arts, design and architecture presented together. Leading the way was by him along with Adam Gopnik 1990 exhibition conceived high & low. The much-discussed exhibition showed the interaction between modern art and pop culture. To Varnedoes main areas of interest, the painting was from 1945. Way he organized retrospectives of Cy Twombly, Jasper Johns and Jackson Pollock. For the museum, he was also able to make key acquisitions. This included beside the painting Portrait Joseph Roulin by Vincent van Gogh, a sketch for Les Demoiselles d' Avignon by Pablo Picasso, Campbell 's Soup Cans by Andy Warhol and works by James Rosenquist, Richard Serra, Robert Rauschenberg, James Turrell, and Cy Twombly. After his time at the Museum of Modern Art in 2002 he accepted a professorship at the Institute for Advanced Study at Princeton.

Kirk Varnedoe was married since 1983 with the sculptor Elyn Zimmerman. He died in 2003 in New York City. His private art collection with works on paper by 20th-century artists such as Jasper Johns, Chuck Close, Roy Lichtenstein, Jeff Koons, Robert Rauschenberg, Frank Stella and Richard Avedon he inherited the Telfair Museum of Art in his hometown of Savannah.

Publications (selection)

  • Chronology and Authenticity in the Drawings of Auguste Rodin ( dissertation). Stanford University, 1972.
  • The Drawings of Rodin. Praeger Publishers, New York, 1971 ( together with Albert Elsen ).
  • Gustave Caillebotte, a retrospective exhibition, 1976-1977. Museum of Fine Arts, Houston 1976.
  • Northern light, realism and symbolism in Scandinavian painting, 1880-1910. Brooklyn Museum, New York 1982, ISBN 0-87273-094-8.
  • Vienna in 1900, art architecture & design. Museum of Modern Art, New York, 1986, ISBN 0-87070-618-7.
  • Gustave Caillebotte. Yale University Press, New Haven, 1987, ISBN 0-300-08279-7.
  • A fine disregard, what makes modern art modern. Abrams, New York, 1990, ISBN 0-8109-2574-5.
  • Cy Twombly: a Retrospective. Abrams, New York 1994, ISBN 0-8109-6129-6.
  • Jasper Johns: A Retrospective. Museum of Modern Art, New York 1996, ISBN 0-87070-389-7.
  • Rodin, a magnificent obsession. Merrell and Iris and B. Gerald Cantor Foundation, London 2001, ISBN 1-8589-4388-4.
Savannah (Georgia) Princeton (New Jersey) Integrated Authority File Savannah (disambiguation)
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