(Bernard) Paul Crossley, (19 July 1945 – 11 December 2019) was

professor Professor (commonly abbreviated as Prof.) is an academic rank at universities and other post-secondary education and research institutions in most countries. Literally, ''professor'' derives from Latin as a "person who professes". Professors ...

of the

history of art The history of art focuses on objects made by humans for any number of spiritual, narrative, philosophical, symbolic, conceptual, documentary, decorative, and even functional and other purposes, but with a primary emphasis on its aesthetic visu ...

at the

Courtauld Institute of Art The Courtauld Institute of Art (), commonly referred to as The Courtauld, is a self-governing college of the University of London specialising in the study of the history of art and conservation. It is among the most prestigious specialist coll ...

, University of London.Paul Crossley FSA.
University of Cambridge. Retrieved 28 June 2017. He was elected a fellow of the

British Academy The British Academy is the United Kingdom's national academy for the humanities and the social sciences. It was established in 1902 and received its royal charter in the same year. It is now a fellowship of more than 1,000 leading scholars spa ...

in 2016. He was a specialist in the architecture of medieval central Europe. He died on 11 December 2019 at the age of 74.

Academic education

Crossley was educated at

Downside School Downside School is a co-educational Catholic independent boarding and day school in the English public school tradition for pupils aged 11 to 18. It is located between Bath, Frome, Wells and Bruton, and is attached to Downside Abbey. Original ...

and

Trinity College, Cambridge Trinity College is a constituent college of the University of Cambridge. Founded in 1546 by King Henry VIII, Trinity is one of the largest Cambridge colleges, with the largest financial endowment of any college at either Cambridge or Oxford. ...

, where he was elected President of the

Cambridge Union The Cambridge Union Society, also known as the Cambridge Union, is a debating and free speech society in Cambridge, England, and the largest society in the University of Cambridge. Founded in 1815, it is the oldest continuously running debati ...

. He studied law between 1963 and 1965 before switching to History of Art, graduating in 1967.

Career

Before joining the Courtauld Institute he was Reader in the History of Art at

Manchester University , mottoeng = Knowledge, Wisdom, Humanity , established = 2004 – University of Manchester Predecessor institutions: 1956 – UMIST (as university college; university 1994) 1904 – Victoria University of Manchester 1880 – Victoria Univer ...

from 1971 to 1990. He was Slade Professor of Art at Cambridge between 2011 and 2012. During his career he was Vice President of the British Archaeological Association, Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries and Fellow of the Polish Academy of Arts and Sciences. Photographs taken by Crossley are held in the Conway Library at The Courtauld, and are currently being digitised.

Scholarship

Matthew Reeve suggests that "from its beginning, Paul Crossley's scholarship offered a wholly catholic vision of late medieval art". Crossley's PhD thesis focused on the architectural patronage of Kasimir the Great (1320–80), "research that, to a large extent, introduced the architecture of Poland to British scholarship". Zoë Opačić and Achim Timmermann edited two collections in honour of Crossley: ''Architecture, Liturgy and Identity: Liber Amicorum Paul Crossley'' (Studies in Gothic Art 1), and ''Image, Memory and Devotion: Liber Amicorum Paul Crossley'' (Studies in Gothic Art 2).

Personal life

He was married to Joany and had two children, Nick and Kate.

Bibliography

Gothic Architecture in the reign of Kasimir the Great: Church Architecture in Lesser Poland, 1320-1380
', 1985, Kraków, Ministerstwo Kultury i Sztuki Zarza̜d Muzeów i Ochrony Zabytków
Seventy-fifth anniversary of the Courtauld institute of Art
', 2008, Warburg Inst
Medieval Architecture and sculpture in the North West
', 1978, Whitworth Art Gallery, University of Manchester
The man from inner space: architecture and meditation in the choir of St. Laurence in Nuremberg.
', 1988, University of Manchester Press Revised ed. of Paul Frankl's
Gothic Architecture
', 2000 Yale

Books written about Paul Crossley

Image, memory and devotion: liber amicorum Paul Crossley
', 2011, Brepols
Architecture, liturgy and identity: liber amicorum Paul Crossley
', 2011, Brepols

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Crossley, Paul 1945 births 2019 deaths Fellows of the British Academy Academics of the Courtauld Institute of Art British art historians Alumni of Trinity College, Cambridge Slade Professors of Fine Art (University of Cambridge)