Meyer Schapiro | |
|---|---|
 Meyer Schapiro in 1981 | |
| Born | (1904-09-23)September 23, 1904 Šiauliai,Russian Empire (present-day Lithuania) |
| Died | March 3, 1996(1996-03-03) (aged 91) New York City, U.S. |
| Other names | M. Morrison (pen name)[1] |
| Education | Columbia University |
| Occupation(s) | Philosopher, professor, writer |
| Years active | 1928–1973 |
| Movement | Trotskyism |
| Spouse | Lillian Milgram Schapiro |
| Children | 2 |
| Relatives | Morris Schapiro (brother),Jacob Collins (grand-nephew) |
| Awards | Alexander Hamilton Medal, National Institute of Arts and Letters (member) |
Meyer Schapiro (23 September 1904 – 3 March 1996) was a Lithuanian-born American art historian who developed new art historical methodologies that incorporated an interdisciplinary approach to the study of works. An expert on earlyChristian,Medieval andmodern art, he explored periods and movements with an eye toward their works' social, political and material constructions.
Credited with fundamentally changing the course of the art historical discipline, Schapiro's scholarly approach was dynamic and it engaged other scholars, philosophers and artists. An active professor, lecturer, student, writer and humanist, he maintained a long professional association withColumbia University in New York.
Meir Schapiro was born inŠiauliai, Lithuania (thenGovernorate of Kaunas of theRussian Empire) on September 23, 1904. His ancestors wereTalmudic scholars. His parents, Nathan Menachem Schapiro and Fanny Adelman Schapiro, were Lithuanian Jews.[2][3]
In 1906, his father came to New York City and found a job as a Hebrew teacher at the Yitzcak Elchanan Yeshiva on the Lower East Side. Once secure, he sent for his family, who emigrated in 1907. The son's first name changed from "Meir" to "Meyer". He grew up in theBrownsville section ofBrooklyn, where he was first exposed to art in evening classes taught byJohn Sloan at theHebrew Educational Society.[2][4]
He attended Public School 84 and thenBoys High School in Brooklyn. He attended lectures on anthropology and economics at theYoung People's Socialist League. During summers, he worked as aWestern Union delivery boy, a warehouse packer, an electrical-supply assembler and an adjustment clerk atMacy's.[2]
In 1920, Schapiro enteredColumbia University as a 16-year-old Pulitzer and Regents scholar. His professors includedMark Van Doren andFranz Boas. Undergraduate classmates includedWhittaker Chambers,Clifton Fadiman,Herbert Solow,Lionel Trilling,Henry Zolinsky andLouis Zukofsky, with many of whom he contributed toThe Morningside literary magazine. In 1923, he traveled to Europe with Chambers and Zolinsky.[5] During his undergraduate days, he became known for his "Schapiric victory", by allegedly reducing an instructor to tears by means of dialectic logic.[6] In 1924, he received his bachelor's degree with honors in art history and philosophy.Princeton University denied him admission for his doctorate, so he continued at Columbia and earned his doctoral degree in art history in 1929.[7] His professors at that time includedErnest DeWald. His dissertation, five years in the making, examined the cloister and portal ofMoissac Abbey, built about A.D. 1100:
Dr. Schapiro's research went far beyond the implications of Moissac itself. Medieval church history, liturgy, theology, social history, illuminated manuscripts, folklore, epigraphy, the analysis of ornament and national characteristics (real or imagined) all were pressed into service and synthesized. As a result, what had been thought of as antiquarian artifacts were seen to have a completely different character. "A new sphere of artistic creation," Dr. Schapiro called it, "without religious content and imbued with values of spontaneity, individual fantasy, delight in color and movement, and the expression of feelings that anticipate modern art. This new art, on the margins of religious work, was accompanied by a conscious taste of the spectators for the beauty of workmanship, materials and artistic devices, apart from religious meanings."[2]
(In 1975, he received his third degree from Columbia, an honorary doctor of letters.[7])
Schapiro spent his entire working career at Columbia. In 1928, he began teaching as a lecturer, before completing his dissertation. In 1936, he became assistant professor. In 1946, he became associate professor. In 1952, he became a full professor. In 1965, he was named University Professor. He became University Professor Emeritus in 1973. His final, weekly class at Columbia was "Theory and Methods of Investigation in Art."[2]
He lectured at New York University (1932-1936), theNew School for Social Research (1936-1952),Harvard University as the Charles Norton Lecturer (1966-1967) andOxford University as Slade Professor of Art (1968). He was a visiting lecturer at theCollege de France in Paris in May 1974.[2]
Schapiro partook in the FirstAmerican Artists' Congress Against War and Fascism in 1935, which produced a petition signed by more than 300 artists including co-foundersStuart Davis,Adolph Dehn,William Gropper,Hugo Gellert,Saul Schary andMoses Soyer, as well as fellow artistsMilton Avery,Ilya Bolotowsky,Alexander Calder,Adolph Gottlieb,Jack Kufeld,Yasuo Kuniyoshi,J. B. Neumann,Isamu Noguchi,Ben Shahn,Raphael Soyer,James Johnson Sweeney,Max Weber,George Biddle,Paul Cadmus,Philip Evergood,Lorser Feitelson andLewis Mumford. Schapiro and Gottlieb publicly resigned within the month when the congress did not condemn the Soviet invasion of Finland.[8] Schapiro and other dissenters, includingMark Rothko, Gottlieb, Harris and Bolotowsky, condemned dictatorships in Germany, Russia, Italy, Spain and Japan and founded a Cultural Committee which became theFederation of Modern Painters and Sculptors.[9]
Schapiro was a proponent ofmodern art, on which he published essays alongside books onVan Gogh andCézanne. He was a founder ofDissent, along withIrving Howe andMichael Harrington. From 1966–1967 Schapiro was the Norton professor atHarvard University.
Schapiro's discourse onstyle is often considered his greatest contribution to the study of art history. He said style refers to theformal qualities and visual characteristics of a piece of art, and demonstrated it could be used as an identifier of a particularperiod and as a diagnostic tool. Style is indicative of the artist and the culture at large. It reflects the economic and social circumstances in which an artist works and breathes and reveals underlying cultural assumptions and normative values.[citation needed]
Schapiro's brother was financierMorris Schapiro.[2] His grand-nephew is artistJacob Collins.
In 1931, Schapiro married pediatricianLillian Milgram. They had two children, Miriam Schapiro Grosof and Ernest Schapiro.[2][7]
He died in 1996 in New York at the age of 91 in the Greenwich Village house where he had lived since 1933.[2]
In the 1940s, when theMuseum of Modern Art looked at purchasingJackson Pollock'sThe She-Wolf (1943), Schapiro, as an acquisitions committee member, supported its acquisition.[10]
In the 1950s, Schapiro urgedWillem de Kooning to finish paintingWoman I (1950-1952).[10]
Schapiro was, at points in his career, criticized for his approach to style because of its politically radical connotations. He wrote scholarly articles for a variety of socialist publications and endeavored to apply a novelMarxist method to the study of art history. In his most famous essay onMedievalSpanish art, "FromMozarabic toRomanesque inSilos",[11] Schapiro demonstrated how the concurrent existence of two historical styles in one monastery was indicative of economic upheaval andclass conflict.
Schapiro's students include:
Alice Neel painted his portrait in 1947[12] and 1983.[13] (Schapiro portrayed himself many times, including this young image.[14])
Schapiro was a fellow of theAmerican Academy of Arts and Sciences, theNational Institute of Arts and Letters and theAmerican Philosophical Society.[7]
In 1973, Schapiro received an award by theArt Dealers Association of America.[2]
In 1974, for Schapiro's 70th birthday, a dozen leading artists made original lithographs, etchings and silk-screens, sold in an edition of 100, whose proceeds endowed the Meyer Schapiro Professorship of Art History in art history and archeology at Columbia. The contributors were:Jasper Johns,Ellsworth Kelly,Alexander Liberman,Stanley William Hayter,Roy Lichtenstein,André Masson,Robert Motherwell,Claes Oldenburg,Robert Rauschenberg,Saul Steinberg,Frank Stella andAndy Warhol.[2][15] The artworks were exhibited at the Metropolitan Museum of Art.[7]In 1975, Schapiro received the Alexander Hamilton Medal for distinguished service and accomplishment by the alumni of Columbia University.[10] The same year, he received an honorary doctor of letters degree from the university.[7]
In 1976, he was elected a member of the National Institute of Arts and Letters.[10]
In 1987, he was named aMacArthur Foundation fellow.[7]In 1995, his brother Morris donated $1 million to establish the Meyer Schapiro Professorship of Modern Art and Theory.[15]
In 1995, Schapiro received a special award for lifetime achievement from theCollege Art Association at its 83rd annual conference in San Antonio, Texas. He had been a member since 1926 and was cited for seven decades of scholarship and teaching in the field of art history: "Meyer Schapiro, we honor you for 70 years of unique scholarship and perception, for showing us the way in which art history enhances our understanding of human accomplishment."[15][16]
 |
During the 1930s, Schapiro contributed to leftist publications includingThe Marxist Quarterly,TheNew Masses,ThePartisan Review andThe Nation.[10]
Schapiro wrote some articles under assumed names.[17]
In 1987, Schapiro exhibited 65 drawings and paintings from 1919 to 1979 in the Wallach Art Gallery in Schermerhorn Hall at Columbia. Subjects ranged from portraiture, landscapes, family, war horrors and abstraction. Included were a self-portrait at age 16 and two portraits of friend Whittaker Chambers.[2][7]
Subjects and objects Schapiro wrote about at length include:
Columbia classmates include:
C. Oliver O'Donnell: Meyer Schapiro's Critical Debates. Art Through a Modern American Mind, The Pennsylvania State University Press, University Park, Pennsylvania, 2019,ISBN 9780271084640
{{cite book}}:ISBN / Date incompatibility (help){{cite journal}}:Cite journal requires|journal= (help)| International | |
|---|---|
| National | |
| Academics | |
| Artists | |
| People | |
| Other | |
