Arnason, H. Harvard

Arnason, H. Harvard (1909–1986). American art historian and administrator. He was born in Winnipeg, Canada, and studied there at the University of Manitoba, and subsequently at Northwestern and Princeton Universities. From 1936 to 1938 he taught at Northwestern University, and from 1938 to 1942 he was a lecturer at the Frick Collection, New York. During the Second World War he worked in Europe for the Office of War Information, 1942–5, and he subsequently served with other government bodies. From 1947 to 1960 he was professor of art history at the University of Minnesota, from 1951 concurrently holding the post of director of the Walker Art Centre, Minneapolis. He was vice-president, art administration, of the Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation, 1960–9, and was a member of various boards and committees in the art world. His major publication is A History of Modern Art (1969, 2nd edn., 1977, 3rd edn., revised by Daniel Wheeler, published posthumously in 1987; 4th edn., 1998). This deals with painting, sculpture, and architecture (the third edition added photography) from the mid-19th century to contemporary art, and it is the most comprehensive book of its type available in English, with well over a thousand illustrations. Arnason's other publications include monographs on Calder (1966), Lipchitz (1969), and Motherwell (1976), and he collaborated on Lipchitz's autobiography, My Life in Sculpture (1972).