William Ivins by Gertrude Käsebier c1910

William Mills Ivins Jr. (1881–1961) was curator of the department of prints at the

Metropolitan Museum of Art The Metropolitan Museum of Art of New York City, colloquially "the Met", is the largest art museum in the Americas. Its permanent collection contains over two million works, divided among 17 curatorial departments. The main building at 1000 ...

, New York, from its founding in 1916 until 1946, when he was succeeded by

A. Hyatt Mayor Alpheus Hyatt Mayor (1901–1980) was an American art historian and curator at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, a leading figure in the study of prints, both old master prints and popular prints. A. Hyatt Mayor's father was marine biologist Alfre ...

. The son of William Mills Ivins Sr. (1851–1915), a

public utility A public utility company (usually just utility) is an organization that maintains the infrastructure for a public service (often also providing a service using that infrastructure). Public utilities are subject to forms of public control and r ...

lawyer who had been the 1905 Republican candidate for Mayor of New York City, Ivins studied at

Harvard College Harvard College is the undergraduate college of Harvard University, an Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636, Harvard College is the original school of Harvard University, the oldest institution of higher lea ...

and the

University of Munich The Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich (simply University of Munich or LMU; german: Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München) is a public research university in Munich, Germany. It is Germany's sixth-oldest university in continuous operatio ...

before graduating in

law Law is a set of rules that are created and are enforceable by social or governmental institutions to regulate behavior,Robertson, ''Crimes against humanity'', 90. with its precise definition a matter of longstanding debate. It has been vario ...

from

Columbia University Columbia University (also known as Columbia, and officially as Columbia University in the City of New York) is a private research university in New York City. Established in 1754 as King's College on the grounds of Trinity Church in Manhatt ...

in 1907. After nine years' legal practice, he was asked to take on the conservation and interpretation of the Met's print collection. He built up the remarkable collections that can be seen there today, and he wrote many prefaces to exhibition catalogues, as well as other, occasional pieces which were later collected and published. His best-known book is ''Prints and Visual Communication'' (

MIT Press The MIT Press is a university press affiliated with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in Cambridge, Massachusetts (United States). It was established in 1962. History The MIT Press traces its origins back to 1926 when MIT publish ...

, 1969, (first published 1953 by

Harvard University Press Harvard University Press (HUP) is a publishing house established on January 13, 1913, as a division of Harvard University, and focused on academic publishing. It is a member of the Association of American University Presses. After the retir ...

)), and his ''How Prints Look'' (1943, revised edition 1987) remains in print.

References

External links

ObituaryWilliam Mills Ivins papers at the Smithsonian Archives of American Art
* {{DEFAULTSORT:Ivins, William Jr. 1881 births 1961 deaths American art critics American art curators Harvard College alumni Columbia Law School alumni American art historians 20th-century American historians 20th-century American male writers Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich alumni American male non-fiction writers

See also

References

External links