Helen Gardner (1878–1946) was an American art historian and educator. HerArt Through the Ages remains a standard text for American art history classes.

Gardner was born inManchester, New Hampshire and attended school in theHyde Park neighborhood of Chicago. In 1901 she graduated with a degree in classics from theUniversity of Chicago.^[1]After an interval as a teacher, she returned to the same university to study art history, and received a master's degree in 1918. In 1920 she began lecturing at the School of theArt Institute of Chicago, where she would spend the rest of her career, with the exception of short appointments atUCLA and the University of Chicago.^[2]

In 1919, she became the head of the photograph and lantern-slides department at the Ryerson Library of the Art Institute of Chicago. The next year she started to teach an art history course at the School of the Art Institute. In 1922, she made the choice to resign her position at the library to spare more time for teaching. From the frustration of not being able to find a comprehensive textbook that had a broad enough coverage in art history, she resolved the problem by writing such a book herself, which resulted in a popular art history textbook used for decades,Art Through the Ages.^[3]

Her major work,Art Through the Ages (1926), was the first single-volume textbook to cover the entire range of art history from a global perspective. Frequently revised, it remains a standard textbook at American schools and universities.^[4] In 1932 she also publishedUnderstanding the Arts, an art appreciation text directed toward educators. For both volumes, the analytical drawings were supplied by artistKathleen Blackshear.^[5] In 1936, she published a second edition ofArt Through the Ages, with its content expanded.^[3]

In 1946, aged 68, she died due to cancer. However, despite her illness before her death, she remained in an advisory capacity at the Art Institute.^[4]

• Art through the Ages: An Introduction to Its History and Significance. New York: Harcourt, Brace. 1926.
• Understanding the Arts. Chicago: Harcourt, Brace. 1932.

• Women in the art history field

• The Ryerson & Burnham Library at the Art institute of Chicago. "Women of the Art Institute" exhibit, July 5 – September 5, 2011.Case 3: Helen Gardner.
• The Dictionary of Art Historians:Helen Gardner.

• 1878 births
• 1946 deaths
• American art historians
• American textbook writers
• American women textbook writers
• Art Institute of Chicago
• University of California, Los Angeles staff
• University of Chicago alumni
• American women art historians

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