Dictionary of Art Historians
Lee Sorensen
2017-present | Project Website
The Dictionary of Art Historians became a Wired! project in 2017. This dictionary is a compilation of art historians mentioned in major art historiographies. Biographical and methodological information about art historians can be difficult to find. Tucked away in obscure obituaries or foreign-language Festschriften, the basics of where an art historian trained or who his/her major influence was, or even what methodology the scholarship employs are often impossible to discern. This database is designed to give researchers a beginning point to learning the background of major art historians of western art history.
The Dictionary of Art Historians began in the fall of 1986 by indexing the historians cited in Eugene Kleinbauer’s Research Guide to the History of Western Art (1982) and his Modern Perspectives in Western Art History (1971), neither of which possessed an extensive index. Heinrich Dilly’s Kunstgeschichte als Institution (1979) and some of Kultermann’s Geschichte der Kunstgeschichte (1966), [the latter then only available in German] were added. The project remained dormant for a few years in card file format. In the interim, a myriad of art historiographies appeared or were reprinted. In 1996, the card project was transferred into an electronic form.
Collaborators
Elizabeth Brown
Jessica Orzulak
Erin Rutherford
