George Alexander Kubler (26 July 1912 - 3 October 1996) was an American art historian and among the foremost scholars on the art of

Pre-Columbian In the history of the Americas, the pre-Columbian era spans from the original settlement of North and South America in the Upper Paleolithic period through European colonization, which began with Christopher Columbus's voyage of 1492. Usually, ...

America and Ibero-American Art.

Biography

Kubler was born in Hollywood,

California California is a state in the Western United States, located along the Pacific Coast. With nearly 39.2million residents across a total area of approximately , it is the most populous U.S. state and the 3rd largest by area. It is also the m ...

, but most of his early education was in Europe. He attended high school at

Western Reserve Academy , motto_translation = Light and Truth , address = 115 College Street , city = Hudson , state = Ohio , zipcode = 44236-2999 , country = United ...

, a private, coeducational boarding school in

Hudson Hudson may refer to: People * Hudson (given name) * Hudson (surname) * Henry Hudson, English explorer * Hudson (footballer, born 1986), Hudson Fernando Tobias de Carvalho, Brazilian football right-back * Hudson (footballer, born 1988), Hudso ...

Ohio Ohio () is a state in the Midwestern region of the United States. Of the fifty U.S. states, it is the 34th-largest by area, and with a population of nearly 11.8 million, is the seventh-most populous and tenth-most densely populated. The sta ...

. He then went to

Yale University Yale University is a Private university, private research university in New Haven, Connecticut. Established in 1701 as the Collegiate School, it is the List of Colonial Colleges, third-oldest institution of higher education in the United Sta ...

, where he earned an

A.B. Bachelor of arts (BA or AB; from the Latin ', ', or ') is a bachelor's degree awarded for an undergraduate program in the arts, or, in some cases, other disciplines. A Bachelor of Arts degree course is generally completed in three or four yea ...

(1934), A.M. (1936) and

Ph.D. A Doctor of Philosophy (PhD, Ph.D., or DPhil; Latin: or ') is the most common degree at the highest academic level awarded following a course of study. PhDs are awarded for programs across the whole breadth of academic fields. Because it is ...

degree (1940), the latter two under guidance of

Henri Focillon Henri Focillon (7 September 1881 – 3 March 1943) was a French art historian. He was the son of the printmaker Victor-Louis Focillon. He was Director of the Musée des Beaux-Arts in Lyon. Professor of Art History at the University of Lyon, at t ...

. From 1938 onwards, Kubler was a member of the Yale University faculty and was the first

Robert Lehman Robert Owen Lehman, Sr. (September 29, 1891 – August 9, 1969) was an American banker, longtime head of the Lehman Brothers investment bank, and a racehorse owner, art collector, and philanthropist. Life and career Lehman was born to a Jewish ...

Professor (1964-1975), Sterling Professor of the History of Art (1975-1983) and after his retirement, a senior resident scholar. He received several awards, including three Guggenheim Fellowships, an American Council of Learned Societies Grant-in-Aid for research in Mexico and the

Order of the Aztec Eagle The Mexican Order of the Aztec Eagle ( es, Orden Mexicana del Águila Azteca) forms part of the Mexican Honours System and is the highest Mexican order awarded to foreigners in the country. History It was created by decree on December 29, 1933 ...

by the Mexican Government. He also was honored with several visiting lectureships and honorary degrees and was appointed the 1985-86 Kress Professor at the Center for Advanced Studies at the National Gallery of Art in

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He was a member of both the

American Academy of Arts and Sciences The American Academy of Arts and Sciences (abbreviation: AAA&S) is one of the oldest learned societies in the United States. It was founded in 1780 during the American Revolution by John Adams, John Hancock, James Bowdoin, Andrew Oliver, a ...

and the

American Philosophical Society The American Philosophical Society (APS), founded in 1743 in Philadelphia, is a scholarly organization that promotes knowledge in the sciences and humanities through research, professional meetings, publications, library resources, and communit ...

. He was awarded the William Clyde DeVane Medal in 1991. Kubler's major theoretical work, The Shape of Time: Remarks on the History of Things was a major influence on

Esther Pasztory Esther Pasztory is a professor emerita of Pre-Columbian art history at Columbia University. From 1997 to her retirement in 2013 she held the Lisa and Bernard Selz Chair in Art History and Archaeology.https://arthistory.columbia.edu/sites/default/f ...

Robert Smithson Robert Smithson (January 2, 1938 – July 20, 1973) was an American artist known for sculpture and land art who often used drawing and photography in relation to the spatial arts. His work has been internationally exhibited in galleries and mu ...

Donald Judd Donald Clarence Judd (June 3, 1928February 12, 1994) was an American artist associated with minimalism (a term he nonetheless stridently disavowed).Tate Modern websit"Tate Modern Past Exhibitions Donald Judd" Retrieved on February 19, 2009. In ...

, Ad Reinhardt, and Robert Morris, among others.Wood, P. (2006). Reality Check. In ''Oxford Art Journal'', 29(2), pp. 291-296. He also had a hand in the definition of "Portuguese plain architecture", naming this architectural period in light of his direct knowledge of a set of plain, simple buildings with almost no ornaments dating from the 16th century.

Works

Books

* ''Mexican architecture of the sixteenth century''. 2 vols. New Haven: Yale University Press 1948. * ''The Tovar Calendar'' (with

Charles Gibson Charles deWolf Gibson (born March 9, 1943) is an American broadcast television anchor, journalist and podcaster. Gibson was a host of ''Good Morning America'' from 1987 to 1998 and again from 1999 to 2006, and the anchor of ''World News with Char ...

. Mem. Connecticut Aca. Arts and Sci., vol. 11. New Haven 1951. * ''The art and architecture of ancient America: the Mexican, Maya, and Andean Peoples''. New York: Penguin 1962. * ''The Shape of Time: Remarks on the History of Things''. New Haven: Yale University Press 1962.

Articles

*"Population movements in Mexico, 1520-1600." ''Hispanic American Historical Review'', vol. 22(1942): 606-43 *"The Cycle of life and death in metropolitan Aztec Culture." ''Gazette des Beaux Arts'', 23(1943): 257-68. *"Chichen-Itza y Tula." Estudios de Cultura Maya, 1:(1961) 47-80. *"The iconography of the art of Teotihuacan: the pre-Columbian collection, Dumbarton Oaks. ''Studies in Pre-Columbiain Art and Archeologyl, no. 4. Washington, D.C. 1967.

References

External links

* George Alexander Kubler papers (MS 843). Manuscripts and Archives, Yale University Library

* Robert Horvitz
"A Talk with George Kubler"
''Artforum Magazine,'' October 1973, pages 32–34 * {{DEFAULTSORT:Kubler, George 1912 births 1996 deaths American art historians American Mesoamericanists Yale University alumni Historians of Mexico Historians of Mesoamerican art 20th-century Mesoamericanists People from Hollywood, Los Angeles 20th-century American historians 20th-century American male writers Western Reserve Academy alumni Yale Sterling Professors Historians from California American male non-fiction writers Members of the American Philosophical Society