by Jon Lackman | 14 October 2009 | Ancient
In a public announcement, NYU Institute of Fine Arts director Patricia Rubin states:
The Institute of Fine Arts of New York University notes with deep sadness the death yesterday of our valued colleague, Dietrich von Bothmer, Distinguished Research Curator of Greek and Roman Art at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. In addition to his long curatorial career, Dietrich von Bothmer was on the faculty of the Institute between 1965 and 2006.
According to the Dictionary of Art Historians:
Born to an aristocratic Hanover family, Bothmer worked as a youth for the German-Expressionist artist and sculptor Erich Heckel … In Oxford he met J. D. Beazley with whom he would study … [During WWII] Bothmer joined the U. S. army though not a citizen, and was assigned to the south Pacific theatre … In 1959 Bothmer advanced to Curator. The same year he was elected President of the American committee for the Corpus Vasorum Antiquorum, which he held until 1983. In this capacity, he author two fascicules in the CVA, one for the Boston Museum of Fine Arts and another for the Metropolitan … he was awarded honorary doctorates from the universities at Oxford, Trier and Emory, named a Chavalier de la Legion d’Honneur and a member of both the Académie française and the Deutsches Archäologisches Institut (DAI) … Bothmer’s career at the Metropolitan was often controversial … Bothmer was also accused that his eagerness to secure excellent pieces for the Museum resulted in rewarding unscrupulous dealers and thieves.
