William B. Jordan

William B. Jordan (born 1940 in Nashville ; † January 22, 2018 in Dallas ) was an American art historian who was considered an expert on Spanish painting of the first half of the 17th century. The focus of his work was the still life and the work of Juan van der Hamen y León .

Jordan studied art history at the Institute of Fine Arts at New York University , where he received his doctorate in 1967. Here José López-Rey brought him closer to Spanish painting. In 1965, Jordan was the founding director of the Meadows Museum at Southern Methodist University in Dallas, whose collection he expanded into one of the most important collections of Spanish art in the US. From 1981 to 1990 he was the assistant director of the Kimbell Art Museum in Fort Worth . He was a member of the Board of Directors of the Chinati Foundation . He was also a member of the Board of Trustees at the Nasher Sculpture Center in Dallas.

Since the 1960s, William B. Jordan dealt with Juan van der Hamen y León. With his two-volume dissertation from 1967 he presented an early monograph on this painter. However, this is only available in a few large art libraries. In this publication he expanded his knowledge of Juan van der Hamen and named his three-tier composition type for the first time. For his dissertation, he evaluated new archive sources that enabled him to offer a comprehensive biography of van der Hamen for the first time. As a result, William B. Jordan made several stays in Spain to publish another, more extensive monograph on Juan van der Hamen y León. However, this project could not be completed. However, he curated several exhibitions on him and was able to update his knowledge of van der Hamen in the associated publications. Jordan organized the show " Spanish Style Life in the Golden Age 1600-1650 " at the Kimbell Art Museum in Fort Worth in 1985 and was on the catalog for " Spanish Still Life from Velázquez to Goya " at the National Gallery in London in 1995 involved. Jordan curated “ Juan van der Hamen y León and the Court of Madrid ”, which was shown in Madrid and Dallas in 2005 and 2006, the first monographic exhibition on this artist. For the first time he showed van der Hamen y León's work as a history painter and portraitist on an equal footing with the still lifes and discussed some of the works that he attributes to van der Hamen. The catalog he wrote on the occasion of this exhibition is the latest monograph on Juan van der Hamen y León. William B. Jordan continues to pursue the project of a catalog raisonné.

William B. Jordan also dealt with other Spanish artists of the first half of the 17th century. He was co-organizer of the exhibition " El Greco of Toledo ", which was shown in 1982 in the National Gallery of Art in Washington, DC and other museums. He was also called in as an expert, for example on the acquisition of an El Greco and a Sánchez Cotán by the San Diego Museum of Art in 1990.

Publications

• Juan van der Hamen y León, a Madrillenian still-life painter. 2 volumes, Dissertation New York University 1967, University Microfilm International, Ann Arbor.
• Spanish Still Life Painting in the Golden Age, 1600-1650 . Kimbell Art Museum, Fort Worth 1985. ISBN 978-0-912804-19-4 .
• The imitación de la naturaleza: los bodegones de Sánchez Cotán . Museo del Prado, Madrid 1992. ISBN 978-84-87317-20-0 .
• together with Peter Cherry : Spanish Still-Life from Velázquez to Goya . National Gallery, London 1995. ISBN 978-1-85709-064-2 .
• An Eye on Nature: Spanish Still-Life Paintings from Sánchez Cotán to Goya . Matthiesen Fine Art, London 1997. ISBN 978-88-422-0758-0 .
• La aparacion de la Inmaculada a San Francisco de Juan van der Hamen del Convento de Santa Isabel de los Reyes de Toledo . Area de Comunicación e Imagen BBVA, Toledo 2004.
• Juan van der Hamen y León & The Court of Madrid . Yale University Press, New Haven 2005. ISBN 0-300-11318-8 .

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Farewell to Bill Jordan , obituary on the Edith O'Donnell Institute of Art History homepage, UT Dallas, February 1, 2018, accessed May 23, 2019
2. ↑ SMU and the Meadows Community Mourn the Passing of an Icon , obituary on the homepage of SMU / Meadows School of the Arts, undated, accessed on May 23, 2019
3. ↑ Information on nashersculpturecenter.org, accessed on March 5, 2012. ( Memento of the original from November 27, 2010 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link has been inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. 
4. ↑ Information on chianti.org, accessed on March 5, 2012. ( Memento of the original from February 6, 2012 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. 
5. ↑ ^{a b} Ira Oppermann: The Spanish still life in the 17th century. From the windowless room to the light-flooded landscape . Reimer, Berlin 2007. ISBN 978-3-496-01368-6 . P. 15.
6. ↑ Felix Scheffler: The Spanish still life of the 17th century: Theory, genesis and development of a new pictorial genre . Vervuert, Frankfurt am Main 2000. ISBN 978-3-89354-515-5 . P. 261.
7. ^ William B. Jordan: Juan van der Hamen y León & The Court of Madrid . Yale University Press, New Haven 2005. ISBN 0-300-11318-8 . P. 17.
8. ↑ Susan Freudenheim: "Museum Buys Early Painting by El Greco: San Diego Museum of Art also acquires piece by 17th-Century Spanish still-life painter Juan Sanchez Cotan." In the LA Times on November 30, 1990, accessed March 5 2012.