Sidney Fiske Kimball (1888 – 1955) was an American architect, architectural historian and museum director. A pioneer in the field of architectural preservation in the

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country Continental United States, primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 U.S. state, states, a Washington, D.C., ...

, he played a leading part in the restoration of

Monticello Monticello ( ) was the primary plantation of Founding Father Thomas Jefferson, the third president of the United States, who began designing Monticello after inheriting land from his father at age 26. Located just outside Charlottesville, V ...

and

Stratford Hall Plantation Stratford Hall is a historic house museum near Lerty in Westmoreland County, Virginia. It was the plantation house of four generations of the Lee family of Virginia (with descendants later to expand to Maryland and other states). Stratford Hall ...

Virginia Virginia, officially the Commonwealth of Virginia, is a state in the Mid-Atlantic and Southeastern regions of the United States, between the Atlantic Coast and the Appalachian Mountains. The geography and climate of the Commonwealth are ...

. Over his nearly-30-year tenure as director of the

Philadelphia Museum of Art The Philadelphia Museum of Art (PMoA) is an art museum originally chartered in 1876 for the Centennial Exposition in Philadelphia. The main museum building was completed in 1928 on Fairmount, a hill located at the northwest end of the Benjamin ...

, he moved the museum into its current building and greatly expanded its collections.

Biography

Monticello original front elevation drawing 1771

Kimball was born in

Newton, Massachusetts Newton is a city in Middlesex County, Massachusetts, United States. It is approximately west of downtown Boston. Newton resembles a patchwork of thirteen villages, without a city center. According to the 2020 U.S. Census, the population of ...

on December 8, 1888. He was educated at

Harvard University 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 highe ...

, where he took both his bachelor's and master's degrees in architecture. Kimball was awarded a Sheldon Fellowship for travel to Europe in 1911 and passed his assistantship in the library to his sister Theodora Kimball Hubbard during his absence. This opportunity propelled his sister's career as the first Landscape Architecture Librarian at Harvard University. He then taught at the University of Illinois and the University of Michigan, receiving a Ph.D from the latter institution in 1915. In 1919, Kimball was appointed to head the newly formed department of art and architecture at the

University of Virginia The University of Virginia (UVA) is a public research university in Charlottesville, Virginia. Founded in 1819 by Thomas Jefferson, the university is ranked among the top academic institutions in the United States, with highly selective ad ...

. While at the University of Virginia, he served as the supervising architect for Memorial Gymnasium (built in 1924), and the McIntire Amphitheatre on grounds at the university. He also designed the campus of Woodberry Forest School.Illinois Historic Preservation Agency
/ref> In 1923, Kimball left the University of Virginia to establish the Institute of Fine Arts at

New York University New York University (NYU) is a private research university in New York City. Chartered in 1831 by the New York State Legislature, NYU was founded by a group of New Yorkers led by then- Secretary of the Treasury Albert Gallatin. In 1832, th ...

. In 1925, he was appointed director of the

, where he served until his retirement in January 1955. During his first year in Philadelphia, he lived in and restored the Mount Pleasant mansion. Kimball was a consultant on numerous other restoration projects, including

, Gunston Hall, Stratford Hall, and

Colonial Williamsburg Colonial Williamsburg is a living-history museum and private foundation presenting a part of the historic district in the city of Williamsburg, Virginia, United States. The Colonial Williamsburg Foundation has 7300 employees at this location ...

. Kimball continued to work on projects in Virginia. Kimball designed his own home, '' Shack Mountain'', in

Albemarle County, Virginia Albemarle County is a county located in the Piedmont region of the Commonwealth of Virginia. Its county seat is Charlottesville, which is an independent city and enclave entirely surrounded by the county. Albemarle County is part of the Cha ...

, not from far Monticello. Kimball used Jefferson's architectural principles as the basis of his design of ''Shack Mountain'', short for Shackelford Mountain, the surname of a branch of Jefferson's descendants. Built in 1935–1936, ''Shack Mountain'' is a Jefferson-style pavilion, like Monticello, that is considered Kimball's masterpiece. ''Shack Mountain'' was designated a

National Historic Landmark A National Historic Landmark (NHL) is a building, district, object, site, or structure that is officially recognized by the United States government for its outstanding historical significance. Only some 2,500 (~3%) of over 90,000 places liste ...

in 1992. Fiske Kimball died in

Munich Munich ( ; german: München ; bar, Minga ) is the capital and most populous city of the German state of Bavaria. With a population of 1,558,395 inhabitants as of 31 July 2020, it is the third-largest city in Germany, after Berlin and ...

Germany Germany,, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It is the second most populous country in Europe after Russia, and the most populous member state of the European Union. Germany is situated betwee ...

, on August 14, 1955. He and his wife are buried at Monticello Memorial Gardens on Monticello Mountain, about a mile from Monticello. He is commemorated by the Fiske Kimball Fine Arts Library at the University of Virginia.

Marriage

Kimball married, in June 1913, Marie Christina Goebel (1889–1955), the half Dutch, half German daughter of Julius Goebel, a professor of Germanic languages at the University of Illinois. She eventually was the recipient of two

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 ...

s and served as Monticello's first curator (1944–55). She also wrote a three-volume biography of Jefferson.

Works

*''Thomas Jefferson, architect, Original Designs in the Collection of Thomas Jefferson Coolidge, Junior'', 1916 *''A History of Architecture'', 1918 (with George Harold Edgell ) *''Domestic Architecture of the American Colonies and of the early Republic'', 1922 *''American Architecture'', 1928 *''Mr. Samuel McIntire, Carver : The architect of Salem'', 1940 *''The Creation of the Rococo'', 1943 *''Great Paintings in America: One Hundred and One Masterpieces in Color'', 1948 (with Lionello Venturi)

References

External links

'Fiske Kimball'

Thomas Jefferson Thomas Jefferson (April 13, 1743 – July 4, 1826) was an American statesman, diplomat, lawyer, architect, philosopher, and Founding Fathers of the United States, Founding Father who served as the third president of the United States from 18 ...

, monticello.org
Fiske Kimball Papers

Philadelphia, Pennsylvania Philadelphia, often called Philly, is the largest city in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, the sixth-largest city in the U.S., the second-largest city in both the Northeast megalopolis and Mid-Atlantic regions after New York City. Since ...

'Fiske Kimball: Culmination and Legacy'

{{DEFAULTSORT:Kimball, Fiske 1888 births 1955 deaths Artists from Newton, Massachusetts Architects from Philadelphia Preservationist architects University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign faculty University of Michigan faculty University of Virginia faculty New York University faculty American curators American architectural historians American male non-fiction writers 20th-century American architects 20th-century American historians Members of the American Philosophical Society University of Michigan alumni Harvard Graduate School of Design alumni Directors of the Philadelphia Museum of Art People from Albemarle County, Virginia Historians from Pennsylvania Historians from Massachusetts 20th-century American male writers Historians from Virginia

Biography

Marriage

Works

See also

References

Further reading

External links