David Talbot Rice

David Talbot Rice (born July 11, 1903 in Rugby , Warwickshire , † March 12, 1972 in Cheltenham ) was a British art historian and Byzantinist .

Life

Talbot Rice grew up in Gloucestershire (his father Henry Charles Talbot-Rice (1862-1931) had an estate there), went to school in Eton and studied archeology and anthropology at Oxford University (Christ Church College). He belonged to Evelyn Waugh's circle (shown in his Brideshead Revisited ) and met his future wife Tamara there. In 1925 he took part in the excavations of the Oxford Field Museum in Kiš in Iraq . In the 1920s he continued his studies in Paris with Gabriel Millet at the Collège de France and traveled to Greece, the Balkans, Bulgaria and Turkey to do excavations. In 1927 he was involved in the excavations of the British Academy in the Grand Palace and Hippodrome in Istanbul. In 1932 he became a lecturer at the newly established Courtauld Institute of Art at the University of London . In 1934 he became a professor at Edinburgh University (Watson Gordon Chair of Fine Art), where he stayed until his death.

During World War II, he headed the Middle East Department in Military Intelligence (MI3b), which was also responsible for the Balkans (but not the Soviet Union). In 1943 he moved to the Intelligence Corps and was most recently a major.

From 1957 to 1962 he was involved in the uncovering and restoration of the wall frescoes in Hagia Sophia (Trebizond) , about which he wrote a book. He first attended the church in 1928.

In Edinburgh he endeavored to combine art history and visual arts and introduced a joint course of study. The Talbot Rice Gallery at the university is named after him, but was not established until after his death.

Talbot Rice was Commander of the Order of the British Empire .

Since 1927 he was married to Tamara Talbot Rice (1904–1993), originally from Russia , who worked with him in the field of art history.

Fonts

• with Robert Byron The Birth of Western Painting: a History of Color, Form, and Iconography Illustrated from the Paintings of Mistra and Mount Athos, of Giotto and Duccio, and of El Greco . London, Routledge, 1930.
• Byzantine Art . Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1935, Penguin 1968
• with Gabriel Millet Byzantine Painting at Trebizond . London, Allen & Unwin, 1936.
• The church of Hagia Sophia at Trebizond , Edinburgh University Press 1968
• Russian icons . London, Penguin Books, 1947.
• English Art, 871-1100 . Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1952.
• The Beginnings of Christian Art . London, Hodder and Stoughton, 1957.
• The Art of Byzantium . London, Thames and Hudson, 1959.
• Byzantine icons . London, Faber and Faber, 1959.
• Constantinople: Byzantium - Istanbul . London: Elek Books, 1965.
• Dark Ages: the Making of European Civilization . London, Thames and Hudson, 1965.
• The Dawn of European Civilization: The Dark Ages , New York: McGraw Hill 1966
• Byzantine Painting: the Last Phase . New York, Dial Press, 1968.
• with Tamara Talbot Rice The Icons of Cyprus , Allen and Unwin 1937
• with Tamara Talbot Rice Icons and their Dating: a Comprehensive Study of their Chronology and Provenance , London: Thames and Hudson, 1974
• with TamaraTalbot Rice Icons and their History , Woodstock (New York): Overlook Press 1974
• with Tamara Talbot Rice: Icons: the Natasha Allen Collection . Dublin: National Gallery of Ireland, 1968
• with Tamara Talbot Rice, Tancred Borenius Russian Art , London 1935 (exhibition catalog)
• Yugoslavia: Mediaeval Frescoes , Greenwich (Connecticut): New York Graphic Society, 1955

He and his wife were in 1932 Caravan Cities of Michael Rostovtzeff out and he edited the second edition of William R. Lethaby Medieval Art, from the Peace of the Church to the Eve of the Renaissance, 312-1350 (New York: Nelson, 1949 )

Web links

• Rice, David Talbot .  Publications in the bibliographic database of the Regesta Imperii .
• Dictionary of Art Historians (Engl.)