Keith Christiansen (born 1947 in

Seattle, Washington Seattle ( ) is a seaport city on the West Coast of the United States. It is the seat of King County, Washington. With a 2020 population of 737,015, it is the largest city in both the state of Washington and the Pacific Northwest region ...

) is an American art historian, curator, and author. He is the chairman of the department of European paintings at

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...

Metropolitan Museum of Art The Metropolitan Museum of Art of New York City, colloquially "the Met", is the largest art museum in the Americas. Its permanent collection contains over two million works, divided among 17 curatorial departments. The main building at 1000 ...

Education

Christiansen did his undergraduate studies at the

University of California Santa Cruz The University of California, Santa Cruz (UC Santa Cruz or UCSC) is a public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in Santa Cruz, California. It is one of the ten campuses in the University of California syste ...

where he received his B.A. in history and French literature in 1969. He remained in California and attended the

University of California Los Angeles The University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) is a public land-grant research university in Los Angeles, California. UCLA's academic roots were established in 1881 as a teachers college then known as the southern branch of the California ...

where he received his Masters of the Arts in 1971. He next received his PhD in

art history Art history is the study of aesthetic objects and visual expression in historical and stylistic context. Traditionally, the discipline of art history emphasized painting, drawing, sculpture, architecture, ceramics and decorative arts; yet today, ...

from

Harvard University Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636 as Harvard College and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of highe ...

Cambridge, Massachusetts Cambridge ( ) is a city in Middlesex County, Massachusetts, United States. As part of the Boston metropolitan area, the cities population of the 2020 U.S. census was 118,403, making it the fourth most populous city in the state, behind Boston, ...

in 1977.

Career

Christiansen has been with the Metropolitan Museum since right after his Graduate Studies finished in 1977 and became the John Pope-Hennessy Chairman of the European paintings department at the museum in 2009. Christiansen has curated and or coordinated many exhibitions at the museum including: The Age of

Caravaggio Michelangelo Merisi (Michele Angelo Merigi or Amerighi) da Caravaggio, known as simply Caravaggio (, , ; 29 September 1571 – 18 July 1610), was an Italian painter active in Rome for most of his artistic life. During the final four years of h ...

(1985), The Age of

Correggio Antonio Allegri da Correggio (August 1489 – 5 March 1534), usually known as just Correggio (, also , , ), was the foremost painter of the Parma school of the High Italian Renaissance, who was responsible for some of the most vigorous and sens ...

and

the Carracci The Carracci ( , , ) were a Bolognese family of artists that played an instrumental role in bringing forth the Baroque style in painting. Brothers Annibale (1560–1609) and Agostino (1557–1602) along with their cousin Ludovico (1555–161 ...

(1986–87), Caravaggio's Cardsharps Rediscovered (1987),

Andrea Mantegna Andrea Mantegna (, , ; September 13, 1506) was an Italian painter, a student of Roman archeology, and son-in-law of Jacopo Bellini. Like other artists of the time, Mantegna experimented with perspective, e.g. by lowering the horizon in orde ...

's Descent into Limbo (1988), Painting in Renaissance

Siena Siena ( , ; lat, Sena Iulia) is a city in Tuscany, Italy. It is the capital of the province of Siena. The city is historically linked to commercial and banking activities, having been a major banking center until the 13th and 14th centur ...

: 1420–1500 (1988–89), A Caravaggio Rediscovered:

The Lute Player The Lute Player, The Tsaritsa Harpist or The Tsaritsa who Played the Gusli (russian: Царица-гусляр), is a Russian fairy tale. It was published by Alexander Afanasyev in his collection ''Russian Fairy Tales'', as number 338. Andrew La ...

(1990), Andrea Mantegna (1992),

Jusepe de Ribera Jusepe de Ribera (1591 – 1652) was a painter and printmaker, who along with Francisco de Zurbarán, Bartolomé Esteban Murillo, and the singular Diego Velázquez, are regarded as the major artists of Spanish Baroque painting. Referrin ...

(1992),

Giambattista Tiepolo Giovanni Battista Tiepolo ( , ; March 5, 1696 – March 27, 1770), also known as Giambattista (or Gianbattista) Tiepolo, was an Italian painter and printmaker from the Republic of Venice who painted in the Rococo style, considered an import ...

(1996–97), From

Van Eyck Van Eyck or Van Eijk () is a Dutch toponymic surname. ''Eijck'', ''Eyck'', ''Eyk'' and ''Eijk'' are all archaic spellings of modern Dutch ("oak") and the surname literally translates as "from/of oak". However, in most cases, the family name refers ...

to Bruegel: Early Netherlandish Painting at The Metropolitan Museum of Art (1998–99),

Donato Creti Donato Creti (24 February 1671 – 31 January 1749) was an Italian painter of the Rococo period, active mostly in Bologna. Born in Cremona, he moved to Bologna, where he was a pupil of Lorenzo Pasinelli. He is described by Wittkower as the "Bo ...

: Melancholy and Perfection (1998),

Orazio Orazio is a male given name of Italian origin, derived from the Latin name ( ''nomen'') Horatius, from the Roman gens (clan) Horatia. People so named include: *Orazio Alfani (c. 1510–1583), Italian painter * Orazio Antinori (1811–1882), Ita ...

and

Artemisia Gentileschi Artemisia Lomi or Artemisia Gentileschi (, ; 8 July 1593) was an Italian Baroque painter. Gentileschi is considered among the most accomplished seventeenth-century artists, initially working in the style of Caravaggio. She was producing profess ...

(2001–2002),

El Greco Domḗnikos Theotokópoulos ( el, Δομήνικος Θεοτοκόπουλος ; 1 October 1541 7 April 1614), most widely known as El Greco ("The Greek"), was a Greek painter, sculptor and architect of the Spanish Renaissance. "El ...

(2003–2004), From

Filippo Lippi Filippo Lippi ( – 8 October 1469), also known as Lippo Lippi, was an Italian painter of the Quattrocento (15th century) and a Carmelite Priest. Biography Lippi was born in Florence in 1406 to Tommaso, a butcher, and his wife. He was o ...

to Piero della Francesca:

Fra Carnevale Fra Carnevale OP ( 1420–25 – 1484) was an Italian painter of the Quattrocento, active mainly in Urbino. Widely regarded as one of the most enigmatic artists, there are only nine works that can be definitively attributed to Carnevale know ...

and the Making of a Renaissance Master (2005),

Raphael Raffaello Sanzio da Urbino, better known as Raphael (; or ; March 28 or April 6, 1483April 6, 1520), was an Italian painter and architect of the High Renaissance. His work is admired for its clarity of form, ease of composition, and visual ...

at the Metropolitan: The Colonna Altarpiece (2006),

Poussin Nicolas Poussin (, , ; June 1594 – 19 November 1665) was the leading painter of the classical French Baroque style, although he spent most of his working life in Rome. Most of his works were on religious and mythological subjects painted for ...

and Nature (2008), and

Michelangelo Michelangelo di Lodovico Buonarroti Simoni (; 6 March 1475 – 18 February 1564), known as Michelangelo (), was an Italian sculptor, painter, architect, and poet of the High Renaissance. Born in the Republic of Florence, his work was ins ...

's First Painting (2009).

2020 controversy

In June 2020 Christiansen ignited a bit of a firestorm including within the ranks of Metropolitan Museum's own staff when he published an

Instagram Instagram is a photo and video sharing social networking service owned by American company Meta Platforms. The app allows users to upload media that can be edited with filters and organized by hashtags and geographical tagging. Posts can ...

post decrying the destruction of monuments by "zombies". The post was published on

Juneteenth Juneteenth is a federal holiday in the United States commemorating the emancipation of enslaved African Americans. Deriving its name from combining "June" and "nineteenth", it is celebrated on the anniversary of General Order No. 3, i ...

and considered by some to be a commentary on certain "

Black Lives Matter Black Lives Matter (abbreviated BLM) is a decentralized political and social movement that seeks to highlight racism, discrimination, and racial inequality experienced by black people. Its primary concerns are incidents of police bruta ...

" protestors. Therein a letter was sent to the museum's leadership by staff members asking for recognition of "what we see as the expression of a deeply rooted logic of white supremacy and culture of systemic racism at our institution.” A day before the staff letter was sent Christiansen apologized to the European paintings department calling his Instagram post "not only not appropriate and misguided in its judgment but simply wrong.” Christiansen had uploaded a picture of a

pen and ink A pen is a common writing tool, writing instrument that applies ink to a surface, usually paper, for writing or drawing. Early pens such as reed pens, quill pens, dip pens and ruling pens held a small amount of ink on a Nib (pen), nib or in a sm ...

drawing by the

archaeologist Archaeology or archeology is the scientific study of human activity through the recovery and analysis of material culture. The archaeological record consists of artifacts, architecture, biofacts or ecofacts, sites, and cultural landsca ...

Alexandre Lenoir (1769–1831) of his efforts to try to save monuments during the

French Revolution The French Revolution ( ) was a period of radical political and societal change in France that began with the Estates General of 1789 and ended with the formation of the French Consulate in November 1799. Many of its ideas are conside ...

and had the caption "Alexandre Lenoir battling the revolutionary zealots bent on destroying the royal tombs in Saint Denis. How many great works of art have been lost to the desire to rid ourselves of a past of which we don’t approve"...

Publications

Christiansen is the co-author with Judith Makn of ''

and

'' (2001) from the Met Publications. Christiansen edited ''From Filippo Lippi to Piero della Francesca: Fra Carnevale and the Making of a Renaissance Master'' (Met publications 2005) as well as contributing an essay to the volume. He is the co-curator with Carlo Falciani of the 2021 exhibition ''The Medici Portraits and Politics, 1512–1570'' af the Metropoitan Museum as well as th co-editor (again with Falciani) of the corresponding book from

Yale University Press Yale University Press is the university press of Yale University. It was founded in 1908 by George Parmly Day, and became an official department of Yale University in 1961, but it remains financially and operationally autonomous. , Yale Univers ...

. He was the co-editor with Maryan W. Ainsworth of ''From Van Eyck to Bruegel: Early Netherlandish Painting in The Metropolitan Museum of Art''.

References

External links

Metropolitan Medici portrait exhibition curatorial walk-through
{{DEFAULTSORT:Christiansen, Keith 1947 births American art curators Living people American writers American art historians University of California, Santa Cruz alumni University of California, Los Angeles alumni Harvard Graduate School of Arts and Sciences alumni People from Seattle Metropolitan Museum of Art Historians from Washington (state)