by Jon Lackman | 8 June 2007 | Renaissance
We read that art historian James Beck died recently, at the age of 77. In a festschrift devoted to Beck published last year by Mark Zucker and Lynn Catterson, titled Watching Art, they argued that “Beck should be remembered first and foremost as a great teacher,” in the larger sense of the word. They note that his many books have been translated into Italian, German, Spanish, French, Polish, Hungarian, and Korean. They discuss “his well-known articles casting doubt on attributions to Raphael (the Portrait of Pope Julius II in London) and Michelangelo (the London Entombment and the notorious ‘Fifth Avenue Cupid’)” as well as a then-forthcoming de-attribution of “the so-called Madonna of the Pinks, acquired as a Raphael by the London National Gallery for what is probably the highest price ever paid for a painting when calculated by the square inch.” The festschrift’s articles mostly cover Italian Renaissance topics; its contributors include Wayne Andersen, Hans Belting, David Rosand, and Craig Hugh Smyth. Laurie Schneider writes on “Restoration: Image, Text, Barthes, Freud and the Death of the Artist”; Donald Martin Reynolds contributes “A Remembrancer for the Victims and the Tragedy of 9/11/01.”
See also CultureGrrl, Art History Today, and the The New York Times: “James Beck, a Columbia University art historian who became well known as a critic of what he viewed as the ruinous conservation of world masterpieces, including Michelangelo’s Sistine Chapel ceiling, died on Saturday in Manhattan … An Italian Renaissance specialist, Mr. Beck produced 13 books, including three on Raphael and one about the sculptor Jacopo della Quercia, the subject of his doctoral dissertation … And in 2005, he declared a ‘Madonna and Child’ by the early Renaissance master Duccio, a tiny panel that the Metropolitan Museum of Art had purchased for an estimated $45 million, to be not a Duccio at all … Born in New Rochelle, N.Y., Mr. Beck had early aspirations as a painter and sculptor and studied in Florence. But after working in a factory to support his wife and two children, he turned to art history. He received his Ph.D. in art history from Columbia University in 1963 and taught there for four decades … In 1992 he and the British journalist and artist Michael Daley founded ArtWatch International, a nonprofit advocacy organization to monitor the restoration, attribution and international shipment of works of art.”
