by Jon Lackman | 12 March 2010 | Uncategorized
We belatedly take note of another death … From the Philadelphia Inquirer:
John Walker McCoubrey, 86, an emeritus professor in the department of art history at the University of Pennsylvania, died … Dr. McCoubrey became Penn’s first James and Nan Farquhar Professor of the History of Art in 1988, and for several years was the chairman of the department. He retired in 1995 … Dr. McCoubrey wrote widely on American, English, and French art of the 18th through the 20th centuries. His doctoral dissertation was on French still-life painting, and he was an authority on the British landscape painter J.M.W. Turner. He was the editor of American Art 1700-1960 and wrote the influential American Tradition in Painting … When American Tradition in Painting was reissued in 1999, sociologist Richard Sennett wrote, “The reappearance of this book is an event in American studies, the resurrection of a classic” … Dr. McCoubrey served on the boards of the Institute of Contemporary Art and the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts. He was a member of the Philadelphia Museum of Art’s painting and sculpture committee and its committee for 20th-century art.
