Alice Van Vechten Brown (born June 7, 1862 in

Hanover, New Hampshire Hanover is a town located along the Connecticut River in Grafton County, New Hampshire, United States. As of the 2020 census, its population was 11,870. The town is home to the Ivy League university Dartmouth College, the U.S. Army Corps of En ...

), was an art educator and historian, notable for the creation of the first courses in museum training (1911) and modern art (1927) in the United States. The modern art course was taught by

Alfred H. Barr, Jr. Alfred Hamilton Barr Jr. (January 28, 1902 – August 15, 1981) was an American art historian and the first director of the Museum of Modern Art in New York City. From that position, he was one of the most influential forces in the development of ...

, who would later claim the departmental headings he developed for the

Museum of Modern Art The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) is an art museum located in Midtown Manhattan, New York City, on 53rd Street between Fifth and Sixth Avenues. It plays a major role in developing and collecting modern art, and is often identified as one of ...

were merely "the subject headings of the Wellesley course". The daughter of a minister on faculty at

Dartmouth College Dartmouth College (; ) is a private research university in Hanover, New Hampshire. Established in 1769 by Eleazar Wheelock, it is one of the nine colonial colleges chartered before the American Revolution. Although founded to educate Native ...

, she initially pursued a career as an artist, studying with the Art Students League of New York, until an illness in the family forced her return home. After her return, she took a job at Wellesley College running the Farnsworth Museum and heading up the art department. Charged with redesigning Wellesley's art history program, she moved the program from a study of photos and textbooks to a more active format involving laboratory methods. In the Wellesley program students learned artistic techniques to better understand the history of art. With William Rankin, she was the author of ''A Short History of Italian Painting'' (1914). She died October 16, 1949, in

Middletown, New Jersey Middletown Township is a township in Monmouth County, New Jersey, United States. As of the 2020 United States Census, the township had a total population of 67,106, making it the most-populous municipality in the county and the state's 16th ...

References

1862 births 1949 deaths American art historians Women art historians Wellesley College faculty People from Hanover, New Hampshire Art Students League of New York alumni Historians from New York (state) American women historians {{US-art-historian-stub