Jacques de Caso (born September 28, 1928) is a French-born American historian who specializes in the literature and history of pre-modern art in Europe, principally late eighteenth- and nineteenth-century French and German neo-classicism and Romanticism.

Education

Educated in part by his post-surrealist associations after World War II (he was among the intimates of Hans Bellmer), he studied humanities at Free University of Berlin and then studied art history at the Sorbonne and at Yale, which awarded him a Ph.D. in 1962. He held the Henri Focillon Fellowship in France (1959) and received a

John Simon Guggenheim Fellowship Guggenheim Fellowships are grants that have been awarded annually since by the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation to those "who have demonstrated exceptional capacity for productive scholarship or exceptional creative ability in the art ...

in the United States in 1972. He subsequently held a fellowship at the Centre national de la recherche scientifique, Paris.

Teaching career

De Caso taught the history and the literature of Western art of the 18th and 19th centuries, both in the United States at the University of Chicago Graduate School (1962–1965), as invited professor at

Harvard Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636 as Harvard College and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of higher le ...

(1975-1976 academic year), as professor at the University of California, Berkeley (1965-2000), and in Europe as invited professor at the Collège de France, Paris (1981–1982).

Research

De Caso is best known for his fundamental contributions to the history of European sculpture in most of its aspects from the end of the 18th century to the beginning of the 20th. His work has also involved French neo-classical painting (

Jacques-Louis David Jacques-Louis David (; 30 August 1748 – 29 December 1825) was a French painter in the Neoclassicism, Neoclassical style, considered to be the preeminent painter of the era. In the 1780s, his cerebral brand of history painting marked a change in ...

in particular) and thought and theory concerning art in France 1800-1900. He assisted

Baron Philippe de Rothschild Philippe, Baron de Rothschild (13 April 1902 – 20 January 1988) was a member of the Rothschild banking dynasty who became a Grand Prix motor racing driver, a screenwriter and playwright, a theatrical producer, a film producer, a poet, and one ...

and Baroness de Rothschild during the early stages of their acquisition and study of art objects prior to Baron Philippe's creation of the private Wine Art Museum (musée privé du vin dans l’art), 1962, at Château Mouton-Rothschild, Pauillac, France. He is an authority on the works of David (d'Angers) whose unpublished writings he is editing for publication. With Jean-Luc Marais he has completed a critical edition of Victor Pavie's newly discovered letters to David d'Angers. Together with Patricia Sanders he conducted a re-appraisal of the Rodin collection at the California Palace of the Legion of Honor (San Francisco) and with Sanders produced a newly translated and annotated edition of Rodin's book ''Art''. He was instrumental in the re-discovery of James Pradier(Musée d'Art et d'Histoire, Genève - Musée du Luxembourg, Paris) and discovered the drawings and writings of the previously little-known sculptor Théophile Bra(the Menil Collection, Houston - Musée de la Vie Romantique, Paris). With Sylvain Bellenger, he organized for the Musée Historial de la Vendée and the Musée d'Orsay in Paris the first retrospective exhibition dedicated to Félicie de Fauveau, the sculptor Stendhal discovered and praised. With Petra ten-Doesschate-Chu, he served as editor of the Princeton University Press series in 19th Century Art, ''Culture & Society''. The exhibit "Metamorphoses in Nineteenth Century Sculpture" which he organized with Jane Wasserman at the Fogg Museum, Harvard, pioneered the recognition and study of serial sculpture—industrial production of sculptural works in various scales, materials, etc.-- and all it implied in terms of art, society and economics. He has donated his library and his extensive visual archives to the School of Art and Art History, University of Iowa (https://ovm.art.uiowa.edu/decaso/). De Caso has regularly indulged his interests in other fields as well. These range from translating the writing of Tatjana Gsovsky on ballet in post-World War II Germany to collaborating with

James Norwood Pratt James Norwood Pratt (born March 27, 1942) is an American author, educator, and speaker, on the topics of wine, tea, and tea lore. Known as "America's Tea Sage," he is possibly the world's most widely read authority on tea and tea lore. Early yea ...

on ''The Wine Bibber's Bible'', the first book-length appraisal of California's wines de Caso, Jacques; James Norwood Pratt (1971). ''The Wine Bibber's Bible''. 101 Productions. .

Notes and references

{{DEFAULTSORT:De Caso, Jacques Free University of Berlin alumni University of Paris alumni French emigrants to the United States University of Chicago faculty Harvard University staff Living people Place of birth missing (living people) University of California, Berkeley College of Letters and Science faculty 1928 births