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Charles Martin Robertson (11 September 1911 – 26 December 2004) was a British classical scholar and poet. He specialised in the art and archaeology of
Ancient Greece Ancient Greece ( el, Ἑλλάς, Hellás) was a northeastern Mediterranean civilization, existing from the Greek Dark Ages of the 12th–9th centuries BC to the end of classical antiquity ( AD 600), that comprised a loose collection of cult ...
.


Early life

He was the elder son of Donald Struan Robertson and Petica Coursolles, née Jones (1883–1941), who hosted a literary salon. Martin Robertson, as he was always known, attended the Leys School and
Trinity College, Cambridge Trinity College is a constituent college of the University of Cambridge. Founded in 1546 by Henry VIII, King Henry VIII, Trinity is one of the largest Cambridge colleges, with the largest financial endowment of any college at either Cambridge ...
. In 1934 Robertson graduated and moved to
Athens Athens ( ; el, Αθήνα, Athína ; grc, Ἀθῆναι, Athênai (pl.) ) is both the capital and largest city of Greece. With a population close to four million, it is also the seventh largest city in the European Union. Athens dominates ...
as a student of the British School, under the direction of the archaeologist
Humfry Payne Humfry Gilbert Garth Payne (19 February 1902 – 9 May 1936) was an English archaeologist, director of the British School of Archaeology in Athens from 1929 to his death. Personal Born at Wendover, Buckinghamshire, Payne was the only so ...
.


Academic career

Robertson returned to England in 1936 as assistant Keeper in the Greek and Roman department of the
British Museum The British Museum is a public museum dedicated to human history, art and culture located in the Bloomsbury area of London. Its permanent collection of eight million works is among the largest and most comprehensive in existence. It docum ...
, cataloging the pottery from the excavations at Al Mina in Syria led by C. Leonard Woolley. At this time Robertson was implicated in the scandal of the damage during cleaning to the Elgin Marbles; the controversy cost him promotion at the museum. Robertson served in the war from 1940 to 1946, marrying Theodosia Cecil Spring Rice in 1942. After the war Robertson returned to the British Museum. He resigned in 1948 to succeed Bernard Ashmole as Yates Professor of Classical Art and Archaeology at University College London. In 1961 Robertson again succeeded Ashmole, this time as
Lincoln Professor of Classical Archaeology and Art The Lincoln Professor of Classical Archaeology and Art is a chair at the University of Oxford, England. It is associated with Lincoln College, Oxford. Holders of the Chair * William Mitchell Ramsay (1885 to 1886); first incumbent * Percy Gardn ...
at Oxford in which role he served until his retirement in 1978. As a scholar Robertson is best remembered for his work on Greek art, in particular vase painting, of which he was a student, and in many respects heir, of
John Beazley Sir John Davidson Beazley, (; 13 September 1885 – 6 May 1970) was a British classical archaeologist and art historian, known for his classification of Attic vases by artistic style. He was Professor of Classical Archaeology and Art at the Un ...
. When Beazley died in 1970, Robertson and another Beazley student,
Dietrich von Bothmer Dietrich Felix von Bothmer (pronounced ''BOAT-mare''; October 26, 1918 – October 12, 2009) was a German-born American art historian, who spent six decades as a curator at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, where he developed into the world's leading ...
updated and enlarged Beazley's earlier lists of painters, ''Paralipomena: Additions to Attic black-figure Vase-painters and to Attic Red-figure Vase-painters'', published in 1971. His ''A History of Greek Art'', which first appeared in 1975, remains the authoritative text and still used for its breadth of learning and deep understanding of the topic; an overview of the topic written by, at that time, one of the most eminent scholars in the field. 1975, too, saw the publication of ''The Parthenon Frieze''. His first book was ''Greek Painting'' (1959) in which he used vase-paintings and work in other media to try to recreate the lost wall-paintings that were known only through textual references. His work on Athenian red-figure vase-painting finally culminated in ''The Art of Vase-Painting in Classical Athens'' (1992), a book published while he was in his eighties. He was also the recipient of the ''
festschrift In academia, a ''Festschrift'' (; plural, ''Festschriften'' ) is a book honoring a respected person, especially an academic, and presented during their lifetime. It generally takes the form of an edited volume, containing contributions from the h ...
'' "The Eye of Greece" edited by Donna Kurtz and Brian A. Sparkes.


Poetry

As a poet Robertson published various collections, including ''Crooked Connections'' (1970), ''For Rachel'' (1972), ''A Hot Bath at Bedtime'' (1975), and ''The Sleeping Beauty's Prince'' (1977).


Family

He was married to (Theodosia) Cecil, ''née'' Spring Rice.
Thomas Dolby Thomas Morgan Robertson (born 14 October 1958), known by the stage name Thomas Dolby, is an English musician, producer, composer, entrepreneur and teacher. Dolby came to prominence in the 1980s, releasing hit singles including "She Blinded Me ...
is their son.


Selected publications

*The Art of Vase-painting in Classical Athens. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992 *Greek, Etruscan and Roman Vases in the Lady Lever Art Gallery, Port Sunlight. Liverpool: National Museums and Galleries on Merseyside/Liverpool University Press, 1987. *Greek Painting. Geneva: Skira, 1959 *The Parthenon Frieze. New York: Oxford University Press, 1975 *Between Archaeology and Art History. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1963 *Corpus Vasorum Antiquorum. Great Britain. Castle Ashby, Northampton. Oxford: Oxford University Press/British Academy, 1979 *Why Study Greek Art? An Inaugural Lecture Delivered at University College, London. London: H. K. Lewis & Co., 1949.


References


Sources


Article by Ian Jenkins (curator at the British Museum)

Entry in the ''Oxford Dictionary of National Biography''

Biographical obituary



Biographical obituary

Biographical obituary

''Festschrift'' with biographical foreword and a full bibliography
{{DEFAULTSORT:Robertson, Martin Scholars of ancient Greek pottery 1911 births 2004 deaths Alumni of Trinity College, Cambridge Lincoln Professors of Classical Archaeology and Art British male poets 20th-century British poets 20th-century British male writers