New York University Institute of Fine Arts
Encyclopedia
The Institute of Fine Arts is one of the 14 divisions of New York University
(NYU). It offers a Master of Arts
and a Doctor of Philosophy
, the Advanced Certificate in Conservation of Works of Art, and the Certificate in Curatorial Studies (issued jointly with the Metropolitan Museum of Art
). It is the top-ranked graduate program in art history
, according to the National Research Council
's 1994 study.
became the university’s first Professor of Fine Arts. Art history became a field of study at NYU in 1922, when Fiske Kimball
was appointed Professor of the Literature of the Arts of Design. In 1931, NYU’s graduate program moved to the Upper East Side
in order to teach at the collections of the Metropolitan Museum of Art
. The program was renamed NYU Institute of Fine Arts in 1937.
During both World Wars, refugee professors from the German and Austrian institutions strengthened the program, such as Erwin Panofsky
, Walter Friedlaender, Karl Lehmann, Julius Held, and Richard Krautheimer
.
In 1958, Mrs. James B. Duke and Doris Duke
donated the James B. Duke House
at 1 East 78th Street to the Institute. In 1960, the Institute offered the first graduate program in art conservation. The Conservation Center has been housed in the Stephen Chan House since 1983.
The Institute undertakes excavations at Aphrodisias
, Turkey
, at the Sanctuary of the Gods in Samothrace
, at Abydos, Egypt
, and at Selinunte, Italy.
Some of the IFA's more notable graduates include: Robert Rosenblum
, Linda Nochlin
, Donald Posner, Marvin Trachtenberg, Priscilla Soucek, Edward J. Sullivan, Mariët Westermann, Robert Lubar, Thelma Thomas, and Katherine Welch, all of whom taught or are currently teaching at the IFA; Frederick Hartt
; Robert Goldwater
; John Hayes
; Leo Steinberg
; Lucy Lippard; Susan Vogel and Zainab Bahrani
, professors at Columbia; Slobodan Curcic, professor at Princeton; Tim Barringer, professor at Yale; Philippe de Montebello
, former director of the Metropolitan Museum of Art
(currently teaching at the IFA); Charles Little, William Wixom, Ian Wardropper, Barbara Boehm, and Nadine Orenstein, curators at the Metropolitan Museum of Art; Anne Poulet, director of the Frick Collection
; and artist Philip Pearlstein
.
In addition to Rosenblum, Nochlin, and others listed above, a number of important scholars have taught at the IFA, including Erwin Panofsky
, Walter Pach
, Walter Friedlaender, Meyer Schapiro
, John Pope-Hennessy, Kirk Varnedoe
, Henri Focillon
, Robert Goldwater
, Richard Krautheimer
, Horst W. Janson, and Peter von Blanckenhagen
.
Louise Bourgeois
, who was married to Goldwater during the time when he taught at the IFA, donated all six copies of The Institute (2002, silver) to the IFA in 2005. One of the copies now resides in the IFA's entrance hall. The sculpture is a silver-plated scale model of Duke House with removable roof and tiny rooms inside.
New York University
New York University is a private, nonsectarian research university based in New York City. NYU's main campus is situated in the Greenwich Village section of Manhattan...
(NYU). It offers a Master of Arts
Master of Arts (postgraduate)
A Master of Arts from the Latin Magister Artium, is a type of Master's degree awarded by universities in many countries. The M.A. is usually contrasted with the M.S. or M.Sc. degrees...
and a Doctor of Philosophy
Doctor of Philosophy
Doctor of Philosophy, abbreviated as Ph.D., PhD, D.Phil., or DPhil , in English-speaking countries, is a postgraduate academic degree awarded by universities...
, the Advanced Certificate in Conservation of Works of Art, and the Certificate in Curatorial Studies (issued jointly with the Metropolitan Museum of Art
Metropolitan Museum of Art
The Metropolitan Museum of Art is a renowned art museum in New York City. Its permanent collection contains more than two million works, divided into nineteen curatorial departments. The main building, located on the eastern edge of Central Park along Manhattan's Museum Mile, is one of the...
). It is the top-ranked graduate program in art history
Art history
Art history has historically been understood as the academic study of objects of art in their historical development and stylistic contexts, i.e. genre, design, format, and style...
, according to the National Research Council
United States National Research Council
The National Research Council of the USA is the working arm of the United States National Academies, carrying out most of the studies done in their names.The National Academies include:* National Academy of Sciences...
's 1994 study.
History
The history of the Institute of Fine Arts dates back to the founding of New York University. In 1831, Samuel F. B. MorseSamuel F. B. Morse
Samuel Finley Breese Morse was an American contributor to the invention of a single-wire telegraph system based on European telegraphs, co-inventor of the Morse code, and an accomplished painter.-Birth and education:...
became the university’s first Professor of Fine Arts. Art history became a field of study at NYU in 1922, when Fiske Kimball
Fiske Kimball
Fiske Kimball was an American architect, architectural historian and museum director.-Biography:Kimball was born in Newton, Massachusetts on December 8, 1888....
was appointed Professor of the Literature of the Arts of Design. In 1931, NYU’s graduate program moved to the Upper East Side
Upper East Side
The Upper East Side is a neighborhood in the borough of Manhattan in New York City, between Central Park and the East River. The Upper East Side lies within an area bounded by 59th Street to 96th Street, and the East River to Fifth Avenue-Central Park...
in order to teach at the collections of the Metropolitan Museum of Art
Metropolitan Museum of Art
The Metropolitan Museum of Art is a renowned art museum in New York City. Its permanent collection contains more than two million works, divided into nineteen curatorial departments. The main building, located on the eastern edge of Central Park along Manhattan's Museum Mile, is one of the...
. The program was renamed NYU Institute of Fine Arts in 1937.
During both World Wars, refugee professors from the German and Austrian institutions strengthened the program, such as Erwin Panofsky
Erwin Panofsky
Erwin Panofsky was a German art historian, whose academic career was pursued mostly in the U.S. after the rise of the Nazi regime. Panofsky's work remains highly influential in the modern academic study of iconography...
, Walter Friedlaender, Karl Lehmann, Julius Held, and Richard Krautheimer
Richard Krautheimer
Richard Krautheimer was a 20th century art historian, architectural historian, Baroque scholar, and Byzantinist....
.
In 1958, Mrs. James B. Duke and Doris Duke
Doris Duke
Doris Duke was an American heiress, horticulturalist, art collector, and philanthropist.-Family and early life:...
donated the James B. Duke House
James B. Duke House
The James B. Duke House located at the northeast corner of Fifth Avenue and 1 East 78th Street in New York City. The house is one of the great extant mansions from "Millionaire's Row." James Buchanan Duke was one of the founding partners of American Tobacco Company and the owner of Duke Power.-...
at 1 East 78th Street to the Institute. In 1960, the Institute offered the first graduate program in art conservation. The Conservation Center has been housed in the Stephen Chan House since 1983.
The Institute undertakes excavations at Aphrodisias
Aphrodisias
Aphrodisias was a small city in Caria, on the southwest coast of Asia Minor. Its site is located near the modern village of Geyre, Turkey, about 230 km from İzmir....
, Turkey
Turkey
Turkey , known officially as the Republic of Turkey , is a Eurasian country located in Western Asia and in East Thrace in Southeastern Europe...
, at the Sanctuary of the Gods in Samothrace
Samothrace
Samothrace is a Greek island in the northern Aegean Sea. It is a self-governing municipality within the Evros peripheral unit of Thrace. The island is long and is in size and has a population of 2,723 . Its main industries are fishing and tourism. Resources on the island includes granite and...
, at Abydos, Egypt
Abydos, Egypt
Abydos is one of the most ancient cities of Upper Egypt, and also of the eight Upper Nome, of which it was the capital city. It is located about 11 kilometres west of the Nile at latitude 26° 10' N, near the modern Egyptian towns of el-'Araba el Madfuna and al-Balyana...
, and at Selinunte, Italy.
Some of the IFA's more notable graduates include: Robert Rosenblum
Robert Rosenblum
Robert Rosenblum was an American art historian and curator known for his influential and often irreverent scholarship on European and American art of the mid-eighteenth to 20th century....
, Linda Nochlin
Linda Nochlin
Linda Nochlin is an American art historian, university professor and writer. She is considered to be a leader in feminist art history studies. She is best known as a proponent of the question "Why Have There Been No Great Women Artists?"...
, Donald Posner, Marvin Trachtenberg, Priscilla Soucek, Edward J. Sullivan, Mariët Westermann, Robert Lubar, Thelma Thomas, and Katherine Welch, all of whom taught or are currently teaching at the IFA; Frederick Hartt
Frederick Hartt
Frederick Hartt was an American professor of History of Art at the University of Virginia. His books include Art: A History of Painting, Sculpture, and Architecture and Italian Renaissance Art, Michelangelo , The Sistine Chapel and The Renaissance in Italy and Spain .Born in Boston,...
; Robert Goldwater
Robert Goldwater
Robert Goldwater was an art historian, African arts scholar and the first director of the Museum of Primitive Art, New York, from 1957 to 1973. He was married to the late French-born American artist and sculptor Louise Bourgeois.Born in New York City, Goldwater received his BA in 1929 from...
; John Hayes
John Hayes (art historian)
John Trevor Hayes CBE FRSA was a British art historian and museum director. He was an authority on the paintings of Thomas Gainsborough.-Life and career:...
; Leo Steinberg
Leo Steinberg
Leo Steinberg was an American art critic and art historian and a naturalized citizen of the U.S.-Life:Steinberg was born in Moscow, Russia and grew up in Berlin, Germany. He was the son of Isaac Nachman Steinberg. He studied at the Slade School of Fine Art...
; Lucy Lippard; Susan Vogel and Zainab Bahrani
Zainab Bahrani
Zainab Bahrani is an Iraqi professor of Ancient Near Eastern Art and Archaeology at Columbia University.-Career:A native of Baghdad, Iraq, she was educated in Europe and the United States. She received her Master of Arts and doctoral degrees Zainab Bahrani (born 1962) is an Iraqi professor of...
, professors at Columbia; Slobodan Curcic, professor at Princeton; Tim Barringer, professor at Yale; Philippe de Montebello
Philippe de Montebello
Philippe de Montebello served from 1977 to 2008 as the director of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. On his retirement, he was both the longest-serving director in the institution's history, and the longest-serving director of any major art museum in the world...
, former director of the Metropolitan Museum of Art
Metropolitan Museum of Art
The Metropolitan Museum of Art is a renowned art museum in New York City. Its permanent collection contains more than two million works, divided into nineteen curatorial departments. The main building, located on the eastern edge of Central Park along Manhattan's Museum Mile, is one of the...
(currently teaching at the IFA); Charles Little, William Wixom, Ian Wardropper, Barbara Boehm, and Nadine Orenstein, curators at the Metropolitan Museum of Art; Anne Poulet, director of the Frick Collection
Frick Collection
The Frick Collection is an art museum located in Manhattan, New York City, United States.- History :It is housed in the former Henry Clay Frick House, which was designed by Thomas Hastings and constructed in 1913-1914. John Russell Pope altered and enlarged the building in the early 1930s to adapt...
; and artist Philip Pearlstein
Philip Pearlstein
Philip Pearlstein is an American painter, and part of the contemporary Realist school.-Biography:Pearlstein was born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. He studied at the Carnegie Institute of Technology and received his Masters in art history at New York University. He was a friend of Andy Warhol from...
.
In addition to Rosenblum, Nochlin, and others listed above, a number of important scholars have taught at the IFA, including Erwin Panofsky
Erwin Panofsky
Erwin Panofsky was a German art historian, whose academic career was pursued mostly in the U.S. after the rise of the Nazi regime. Panofsky's work remains highly influential in the modern academic study of iconography...
, Walter Pach
Walter Pach
Walter Pach was an artist, critic, lecturer, art adviser, and art historian who wrote extensively about modern art and championed the cause of modern art...
, Walter Friedlaender, Meyer Schapiro
Meyer Schapiro
Meyer Schapiro was a Lithuanian-born American art historian known for forging new art historical methodologies that incorporated an interdisciplinary approach to the study of works of art...
, John Pope-Hennessy, Kirk Varnedoe
Kirk Varnedoe
John Kirk Train Varnedoe was born and raised in Savannah, Georgia and was an American art historian and writer, a Professor of the History of Art at the Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton, and a noted curator of painting and sculpture at the Museum of Modern Art in New York.-Life:He studied...
, Henri Focillon
Henri Focillon
Henri Focillon was a French art historian.Director of the Musée des Beaux-Arts in Lyon. Professor of Art History at the University of Lyon, at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts in Lyon, at the Sorbonne, at the Collège de France and then in the United States, where he went into exile and taught at Yale...
, Robert Goldwater
Robert Goldwater
Robert Goldwater was an art historian, African arts scholar and the first director of the Museum of Primitive Art, New York, from 1957 to 1973. He was married to the late French-born American artist and sculptor Louise Bourgeois.Born in New York City, Goldwater received his BA in 1929 from...
, Richard Krautheimer
Richard Krautheimer
Richard Krautheimer was a 20th century art historian, architectural historian, Baroque scholar, and Byzantinist....
, Horst W. Janson, and Peter von Blanckenhagen
Peter von Blanckenhagen
Peter Heinrich von Blanckenhagen was a scholar of Roman art, and especially ancient wall painting.Born in Latvia, von Blanckenhagen and his family fled to Germany following the Bolshevik Revolution. It was in German universities that he received his training in classical archaeology...
.
Louise Bourgeois
Louise Bourgeois
Louise Joséphine Bourgeois , was a renowned French-American artist and sculptor, best known for her contributions to both modern and contemporary art, and for her spider structures, titled Maman, which resulted in her being nicknamed the Spiderwoman...
, who was married to Goldwater during the time when he taught at the IFA, donated all six copies of The Institute (2002, silver) to the IFA in 2005. One of the copies now resides in the IFA's entrance hall. The sculpture is a silver-plated scale model of Duke House with removable roof and tiny rooms inside.