Edward Robinson (November 1, 1858,

Boston Boston (), officially the City of Boston, is the capital city, state capital and List of municipalities in Massachusetts, most populous city of the Commonwealth (U.S. state), Commonwealth of Massachusetts, as well as the cultural and financ ...

– April 18, 1931,

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the most densely populated major city in the U ...

) was an American writer and authority on art.

Biography

He graduated from Harvard in 1879, and spent the following five years in study, especially in

Greece Greece,, or , romanized: ', officially the Hellenic Republic, is a country in Southeast Europe. It is situated on the southern tip of the Balkans, and is located at the crossroads of Europe, Asia, and Africa. Greece shares land borders wit ...

(15 months) and in

Berlin Berlin is Capital of Germany, the capital and largest city of Germany, both by area and List of cities in Germany by population, by population. Its more than 3.85 million inhabitants make it the European Union's List of cities in the European U ...

(3 semesters), devoting his attention chiefly to

archaeology Archaeology or archeology is the scientific study of human activity through the recovery and analysis of material culture. The archaeological record consists of Artifact (archaeology), artifacts, architecture, biofact (archaeology), biofacts ...

. From 1895 to 1902, he was curator of classical antiquities in the

Boston Museum of Fine Arts The Museum of Fine Arts (often abbreviated as MFA Boston or MFA) is an art museum in Boston, Massachusetts. It is the 20th-largest art museum in the world, measured by public gallery area. It contains 8,161 paintings and more than 450,000 works ...

, and beginning in 1902 was director of the museum for three years. He became assistant director of the

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 100 ...

in New York in 1906, and succeeded Sir

Caspar Purdon Clarke Sir Caspar Purdon Clarke (21 December 1846 – 29 March 1911) was an English architect and museum director. Early years Born in 1846, Clarke was the second son of Edward Marmaduke Clarke and Mary Agnes Close. He was educated at Gaultier's Sch ...

in 1910, becoming the third director of "the Met", a position he held for 21 years. He lectured on archaeology at Harvard in 1893-94 and in 1898-1902, and was secretary of the Art commission of Boston in 1890-98. He prepared catalogues and contributed many articles on art and archaeological subjects for magazines. He was a member of many learned societies.

References

* * 1858 births 1931 deaths American archaeologists American art curators Harvard College alumni Writers from Boston Directors of museums in the United States {{US-archaeologist-stub