Charles S. Moffett

Charles Simonton Moffett Jr. (born September 19, 1945 in Washington, DC ; died December 10, 2015 in Fishers Island, New York ) was an American art historian .

Life

Charles Simonton Moffett Jr. was born in Washington DC in 1945 to William A. Moffett, Jr. and his wife Faith Locke Phelps. His father was an admiral and his grandfather, William A. Moffett , was a rear admiral in the United States Navy . He first attended St. George's School in Middletown (Rhode Island) and then Middlebury College in the US state of Vermont , from which he graduated in 1967 with a bachelor's degree in English . He then studied art history at the Institute of Fine Arts at New York University and completed his master's degree in 1971 .

With a scholarship from the Ford Foundation , a first professional activity followed at the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art in Kansas City (Missouri) . He then worked as an expert on 19th century paintings for the auction house Sotheby-Parke Bernet and for the private H. Shickman Gallery in New York City. Moffett then became an assistant to John Walsh , the curator of Dutch and Flemish painting at the Metropolitan Museum of Art . He curated his first exhibition, Van Gogh as Critic and Self-Critic , also at the Metropolitan Museum. The 1974 exhibition Centenaire de l'Impressionnisme / Impressionism a centenary exhibition , which was shown in Paris and New York on the occasion of the centenary of the first Impressionist exhibition and was one of the curatorial team of Moffett, attracted a lot of attention . In the years that followed, Moffet established himself as an expert in Impressionist painting. He participated in the 1978 exhibition Monet's Years at Giverny: Beyond Impressionism at the Metropolitan Museum and was instrumental in the Manet retrospective in 1983 in Paris and New York. In the same year he went to the Fine Arts Museum of San Francisco as a curator , where he organized the 1986 exhibition The New Painting: Impressionism 1874-1886 , which was also shown at the National Gallery of Art in Washington DC. In 1987 he moved to the National Gallery of Art as a curator, where he curated exhibitions on Paul Gauguin and Paul Cézanne in the following years . From 1992 to 1998 he was director of the Phillips Collection in Washington DC, where he organized exhibitions on impressionism such as The Impressionists in Winter: Effets de Neige and Impressionists on the Seine: A Celebration of Renoir's Luncheon of the Boating Party . From 1998 he started working for the auction house Sotheby's as vice chairman and was responsible for impressionistic, modern and contemporary art.

Charles Moffett died in 2015. He was married to Lucinda Herrick for the third time. There are two children from his second marriage.

Works (selection)

• Van Gogh as critic and self-critic , Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York 1973
• Centenaire de l'Impressionnisme , Galeries Nationales d'Exposition du Grand Palais, Éd. des Musées Nationaux, Paris 1974 and Impressionism a centenary exhibition , Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York 1975, ISBN 0-87099-097-7 . (Editor together with Anne Dayez, Michel Hoog)
• Manet 1832 - 1883 , Galeries nationales du Grand Palais, Paris and Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, Abrams 1983, ISBN 0-87099-359-3 (with Françoise Cachin , Juliet Wilson Bareau)
• Impressionist and post-impressionist paintings in the Metropolitan Museum of Art , Abrams, New York 1985, ISBN 0-87099-317-8 .
• The new painting, impressionism 1874 - 1886 , National Gallery of Art, Washington and Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, Phaidon, Oxford 1986, ISBN 0-7148-2430-5 .
• Impressionists in winter, effets de neige , Phillips Collection, Washington, DC, Wilson London 1998, ISBN 0-85667-495-8 .

Web links

• Paul Richard: New Phillips Director in Wings , Washington Post article, May 6, 1992
• William Grimes: Charles S. Moffett, Curator Who Focused on Impressionists, Dies at 70 , obituary in the New York Times, December 11, 2015