Thomas B. Hess

Thomas Baer Hess (* 1920 in Rye , † 1978 in New York City ) was an American art historian and editor-in-chief of the art magazine Artnews .

Life

Hess was born in 1920 to the lawyer Gabriel Lorie Hess and his wife Helen Baer. Hess attended boarding school in Switzerland and then studied French art and literature at Yale University until 1942 . After graduating, Hess worked briefly at the New York Museum of Modern Art before volunteering with the US Air Force and serving as a fighter pilot during World War II . Hess returned to New York in 1944 and became an editorial assistant for Artnews the following year. Its editor-in-chief Alfred Frankfurter soon recognized Hess' talent and promoted him to managing editor in 1949. As a result, he became an important patron of the Abstract Expressionists . After Frankfurter's death, Hess also became editor of Artnews. In the 1970s, Hess also began writing for New York magazine. During this time he also organized exhibitions on Abstract Expressionism. So he became chair of the Scientific Advisory Board of the Department of 20th Century Art at the Metropolitan Museum of Art . Only a few months later, Hess died of a heart attack.

Works

• Abstract Painting: Background and American Phase . Viking Press, New York 1951
• Willem de Kooning . G. Braziller, New York, 1959
• The Academy: Five Centuries of Grandeur and Misery, from the Carracci to Mao Tse-Tung . Macmillan, New York, 1967
• Barnett Newman . Museum of Modern Art / New York Graphic Society, New York, 1971

Movies

• Painters Painting: The New York Art Scene, 1940–1970 . 1973

Web links

• Hess in the Dictionary of Art Historians
• Hess at The Art Story