Paula Hays Harper ( Fish; November 17, 1930 – June 3, 2012) was an American art historian, credited as "one of the first art historians to bring a feminist perspective to the study of painting and sculpture". She co-authored a biography on the French impressionist

Camille Pissarro Jacob Abraham Camille Pissarro ( ; ; 10 July 1830 – 13 November 1903) was a Danish-French Impressionist and Neo-Impressionist painter born on the island of St Thomas (now in the US Virgin Islands, but then in the Danish West Indies). ...

and was a well-known contemporary art critic.

Life and work

Paula Fish was born in Scituate,

Massachusetts Massachusetts ( ; ), officially the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, is a U.S. state, state in the New England region of the Northeastern United States. It borders the Atlantic Ocean and the Gulf of Maine to its east, Connecticut and Rhode ...

, an only child, and raised in Philadelphia. In her 20s she moved to New York City, where she was a dancer with the modern dance company Munt–Brooks Dance Studios (later known as " The Changing Scene"). After a dance-related injury she decided to study art history at

Hunter College Hunter College is a public university in New York City, United States. It is one of the constituent colleges of the City University of New York and offers studies in more than one hundred undergraduate and postgraduate fields across five schools ...

in New York and earned her bachelor's and master's degree. In 1976 she earned her PhD in art history from

Stanford University Leland Stanford Junior University, commonly referred to as Stanford University, is a Private university, private research university in Stanford, California, United States. It was founded in 1885 by railroad magnate Leland Stanford (the eighth ...

, being one of the first graduate students of

Linda Nochlin Linda Nochlin (''née'' Weinberg; January 30, 1931 – October 29, 2017) was an American art historian, Lila Acheson Wallace Professor Emerita of Modern Art at New York University Institute of Fine Arts, and writer. As a prominent feminist art hi ...

. Harper was married twice and never had children; she preferred using her two married names "Hays Harper" because of a dislike of her maiden name. Harper was "instrumental" in the establishment of the Feminist Art Program at the

California Institute of the Arts The California Institute of the Arts (CalArts) is a Private university, private art school in Santa Clarita, California. It was incorporated in 1961 as the first degree-granting institution of higher learning in the US created specifically for ...

in the early 1970s. Harper is credited with conceiving

Womanhouse ''Womanhouse'' (January 30 – February 28, 1972) was a feminist art installation and performance space organized by Judy Chicago and Miriam Schapiro, co-founders of the California Institute of the Arts (CalArts) Feminist Art Program, and was the ...

, a 1972 art installation and "one of the biggest and most celebrated exhibitions of art by and about women ever assembled". In 1981, she collaborated with Ralph E. Shikes on a comprehensive biography of the 19th-century French Impressionist Camille Pissarro. She taught at the

University of Miami The University of Miami (UM, UMiami, Miami, U of M, and The U) is a private university, private research university in Coral Gables, Florida, United States. , the university enrolled 19,852 students in two colleges and ten schools across over ...

from 1983 until her retirement in 2011. She helped shape the Miami art scene and was a regular contributor and art critic in Art in America magazine and

The Miami News ''The Miami News'' was an evening newspaper in Miami, Florida. It was the media market competitor to the morning edition of the ''Miami Herald'' for most of the 20th century. The paper started publishing in May 1896 as a weekly called ''The Miami ...

. Harper died at age 81 in

Miami Miami is a East Coast of the United States, coastal city in the U.S. state of Florida and the county seat of Miami-Dade County, Florida, Miami-Dade County in South Florida. It is the core of the Miami metropolitan area, which, with a populat ...

Florida Florida ( ; ) is a U.S. state, state in the Southeastern United States, Southeastern region of the United States. It borders the Gulf of Mexico to the west, Alabama to the northwest, Georgia (U.S. state), Georgia to the north, the Atlantic ...

from complications of a rare skin cancer.

Publications

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References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Harper, Paula 1930 births 2012 deaths American art historians California Institute of the Arts faculty Hunter College alumni Stanford University alumni University of Miami faculty American women art historians Feminist historians Historians from Florida 21st-century American women