John Walker III was an American art curator

Curator

A curator is a manager or overseer. Traditionally, a curator or keeper of a cultural heritage institution is a content specialist responsible for an institution's collections and involved with the interpretation of heritage material...

, and director of the National Gallery of Art

National Gallery of Art

The National Gallery of Art and its Sculpture Garden is a national art museum, located on the National Mall between 3rd and 9th Streets at Constitution Avenue NW, in Washington, DC...

, from 1956 to 1969.

Life

He graduated from Harvard University

Harvard University

Harvard University is a private Ivy League university located in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States, established in 1636 by the Massachusetts legislature. Harvard is the oldest institution of higher learning in the United States and the first corporation chartered in the country...

 in 1930, where he studied with Paul J. Sachs

Paul J. Sachs

Paul Sachs was Harvard associate director of the Fogg Art Museum, a partner in the financial firm Goldman Sachs and the developer of one of the early museum studies courses in the United States.-History:...

.
He formed the Harvard Society for Contemporary Art, with Philip Johnson

Philip Johnson

Philip Cortelyou Johnson was an influential American architect.In 1930, he founded the Department of Architecture and Design at the Museum of Modern Art in New York City, and later , as a trustee, he was awarded an American Institute of Architects Gold Medal and the first Pritzker Architecture...

, Lincoln Kirstein

Lincoln Kirstein

Lincoln Edward Kirstein was an American writer, impresario, art connoisseur, and cultural figure in New York City...

, and Edward M. M. Warburg .

He studied with Bernard Berenson

Bernard Berenson

Bernard Berenson was an American art historian specializing in the Renaissance. He was a major figure in pioneering art attribution and therefore establishing the market for paintings by the "Old Masters".-Personal life:...

, and worked at the American Academy in Rome

American Academy in Rome

The American Academy in Rome is a research and arts institution located on the Gianicolo in Rome.- History :In 1893, a group of American architects, painters and sculptors met regularly while planning the fine arts section of the 1893 World's Columbian Exposition...

.
He worked with David E. Finley

David E. Finley

David E. Finley was a United States Representative from South Carolina. He was born in Trenton, Arkansas. He attended the public schools of Rock Hill, South Carolina and Ebenezer, South Carolina and was graduated from the law department of South Carolina College at Columbia, South Carolina in 1885...

, in the initial installation of the National Gallery of Art.
He was on the building committee.
He was appointed chief curator, in January 1939.
He went to Europe in 1945, to help identify Nazi plunder

Nazi plunder

Nazi plunder refers to art theft and other items stolen as a result of the organized looting of European countries during the time of the Third Reich by agents acting on behalf of the ruling Nazi Party of Germany. Plundering occurred from 1933 until the end of World War II, particularly by military...

.
He was appointed director in 1956.
In 1961, he hired J. Carter Brown

J. Carter Brown

John Carter Brown III , director of the U.S. National Gallery of Art from 1969 to 1992 and a leading figure in American intellectual life. Under Brown's direction, the National Gallery became one of the leading art museums in the United States, if not the world...

, as his assistant.
He retired in 1969, and lived in Florida, Fishers Island, New York, and England.

Works

• Self-Portrait with Donors. Little, Brown, 1974, ISBN 9780316918039
• Portraits: 5,000 Years, Abrams, 1983
• The National Gallery of Art: One Thousand Masterpieces. Abradale Press, 1995, ISBN 9780810981485