Maryan Ainsworth, who often publishes as Maryan Wynn Ainsworth, is an American

art historian Art history is the study of artistic works made throughout human history. Among other topics, it studies art’s formal qualities, its impact on societies and cultures, and how artistic styles have changed throughout history. Traditionally, the ...

, author and

curator A curator (from , meaning 'to take care') is a manager or overseer. When working with cultural organizations, a curator is typically a "collections curator" or an "exhibitions curator", and has multifaceted tasks dependent on the particular ins ...

specializing in 14th, 15th and 16th century Northern European painting, particularly in

Early Netherlandish painting Early Netherlandish painting is the body of work by artists active in the Burgundian Netherlands, Burgundian and Habsburg Netherlands during the 15th- and 16th-century Northern Renaissance period, once known as the Flemish Primitives. It flour ...

. She received her B.A. and M.A. degrees at

Oberlin College Oberlin College is a Private university, private Liberal arts colleges in the United States, liberal arts college and conservatory of music in Oberlin, Ohio, United States. Founded in 1833, it is the oldest Mixed-sex education, coeducational lib ...

and her Ph.D. at

Yale University Yale University is a Private university, private Ivy League research university in New Haven, Connecticut, United States. Founded in 1701, Yale is the List of Colonial Colleges, third-oldest institution of higher education in the United Stat ...

. She has spent her entire forty-year career at The

Metropolitan Museum of Art The Metropolitan Museum of Art, colloquially referred to as the Met, is an Encyclopedic museum, encyclopedic art museum in New York City. By floor area, it is the List of largest museums, third-largest museum in the world and the List of larg ...

, where since 2002 she has served as the Curator of Early Netherlandish, French, and German Painting in the European Paintings Department. In this position, and previously as Senior Research Fellow in the Sherman Fairchild Paintings Conservation Department, she has specialized in an interdisciplinary approach to the investigation of

Northern Renaissance The Northern Renaissance was the Renaissance that occurred in Europe north of the Alps, developing later than the Italian Renaissance, and in most respects only beginning in the last years of the 15th century. It took different forms in the vari ...

paintings, uniting technical investigations with art historical inquiries.

Career

She has published numerous articles and lectured widely on her work. Maryan is the editor of several books on art history methodology, and the principal author or chief collaborator on a number of exhibition catalogues, among them Petrus Christus Renaissance Master of Bruges (1994, Finalist Alfred H. Barr, Jr. Award); From Van Eyck to Bruegel, Early Netherlandish Painting in The Metropolitan Museum of Art (1998);

Gerard David Gerard David ( – 13 August 1523) was an Early Netherlandish painter and manuscript illuminator known for his brilliant use of color. Only a bare outline of his life survives, although some facts are known. He may have been the Meester ghera ...

, Purity of Vision in an Age of Transition (1998, CINOA Prize and Apollo Books of the Year); Man, Myth, and Sensual Pleasures: Jan Gossart’s Renaissance, the Complete Works (2010, Alfred H. Barr Jr. Award), and with Elizabeth Cleland, Grand Design: Pieter Coecke van Aelst and Renaissance Tapestry (2014, AAMC Award for Excellence). German Paintings in The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1350–1600, co-authored with Joshua Waterman, received the AAMC Award for Excellence (2013). Ainsworth has trained twenty-five graduate art history students in technical art history through The Met’s Slifka Fellowship. In addition, she has served as Adjunct Professor of the History of Art at Barnard College and Columbia University, where since 1986 she has taught a course, taking place at The Met, on paintings connoisseurship and technical art history. In the fall of 2017, Ainsworth was the Robert Janson-La Palme Visiting Professor at Princeton University. In 2018-19, she served as the Kress-Beinecke Professor at the Center for Advanced Study in the Visual Arts (CASVA) at the

National Gallery of Art The National Gallery of Art is an art museum in Washington, D.C., United States, located on the National Mall, between 3rd and 9th Streets, at Constitution Avenue NW. Open to the public and free of charge, the museum was privately established in ...

in Washington, where she worked on a book on The Met’s

s. Maryan’s interdisciplinary studies in technical art history were acknowledged in 1994 with the College Art Association/National Institute for Conservation Joint Award for Distinction in Scholarship and Conservation. For her contributions to the culture and art history of Belgium, she was awarded the Knight of the Order of the Crown in 2001, and the Knight of the Order of Léopold, bestowed by King Albert II of Belgium, in 2011. A participant in many professional organizations, Ainsworth also serves on the board of directors of the Belgian-American Educational Foundation (since 1999), and the King Baudouin Foundation (since 2017). She is a member of the international advisory committees for the research and restoration of notable works by

Hieronymus Bosch Hieronymus Bosch (; ; born Jheronimus van Aken ; – 9 August 1516) was a Dutch people, Dutch painter from Duchy of Brabant, Brabant. He is one of the most notable representatives of the Early Netherlandish painting school. His work, gene ...

Rogier van der Weyden Rogier van der Weyden (; 1399 or 140018 June 1464), initially known as Roger de le Pasture (), was an Early Netherlandish painting, early Netherlandish painter whose surviving works consist mainly of religious triptychs, altarpieces, and commis ...

Bernard van Orley Bernard van Orley (between 1487 and 1491 – 6 January 1541), also called Barend or Barent van Orley, Bernaert van Orley or Barend van Brussel, was a versatile Flemish artist and representative of Dutch and Flemish Renaissance painting, who w ...

Maarten van Heemskerck Maarten van Heemskerck (born Maerten Jacobsz van Veen; 1 June 1498 – 1 October 1574), also known as Marten Jacobsz Heemskerk van Veen, was a Dutch portrait and religious painter, who spent most of his career in Haarlem. He was a pupil of Jan ...

, and Jan and

Hubert Hubert is a Germanic masculine given name, from ''hug'' "mind" and '' beraht'' "bright". It also occurs as a surname. Saint Hubert of Liège (or Hubertus) (c. 656 – 30 May 727) is the patron saint of hunters, mathematicians, opticians, and m ...

van Eyck’s ''

Ghent Altarpiece The ''Ghent Altarpiece'', also called the ''Adoration of the Mystic Lamb'' (), is a very large and complex 15th-century polyptych altarpiece in St Bavo's Cathedral, Ghent, Belgium. It was begun around the mid-1420s and completed by 1432, and it ...

''.

Selected publications

* ''German Paintings in The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1350—1600''. Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2013 * * ''Tapestry in the Renaissance: art and magnificence''. Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2002 * ''Early Netherlandish painting at the crossroads: a critical look at current methodologies''. Yale University Press, 2001 *

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Ainsworth, Maryan American art historians Living people American women art historians 21st-century American historians 21st-century American women writers Year of birth missing (living people) American women curators American curators Scholars of Netherlandish art