William H. Gerdts

William Henry Gerdts (born January 18, 1929 in Jersey City , New Jersey , † April 14, 2020 in New York City ) was an American art historian and art collector .

Gerdts studied since 1945 at Amherst College , where Charles H. Morgan aroused his interest in art history, and graduated in 1949 with a BA. He studied art history at Harvard University and received his MA in 1950. From 1953 to 1954 he worked as a curator at the Norfolk Museum of Art and Sciences , from 1954 to 1966 at the Newark Museum in Newark (New Jersey) . After receiving his doctorate from Harvard in 1966, he worked as a university professor, first as an associate professor at the University of Maryland (1966–1969), then at Brooklyn College (1971–1985). From 1985 until his retirement in 1992 he taught as a professor of American painting and sculpture of the 18th and 19th centuries at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York .

He was visiting professor at Johns Hopkins University, Rutgers University and Washington University; he received a Guggenheim Fellowship and was a member of the American Philosophical Society . In 1992 he received an honorary doctorate from Amherst College and in 1996 from Syracuse University .

WorldCat lists the number of publications on Gerdts as 420 works in 955 publications and in three languages.

William Gerdts amassed an extensive collection of American still life paintings of the 19th century, which is promised as a foundation of the National Gallery of Art in Washington.

He died in April 2020 at the age of 91 as a result of SARS-CoV-2 infection during the COVID-19 pandemic in New York City .

Publications (selection)

American Neo-Classic Sculpture: The Marble Resurrection. Viking Press, 1973.
Masters of the Humble Truth: Masterpieces of American Still Life, 1801-1930. University of Missouri Press, 1981.
American impressionism. Abbeville Press, 1984.
The Art of Henry Inman. National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution, 1987.
Art Across America. Two Centuries of Regional Painting: 1710–1920, 3 volumes, Abbeville Press, 1990.
The Color of Modernism: The American Fauves. Hollis Taggert Gallery, 1997.

personal data
SURNAME	Gerdts, William H.
ALTERNATIVE NAMES	Gerdts, William; Gerdts, William Henry
BRIEF DESCRIPTION	American art historian
DATE OF BIRTH	January 18, 1929
PLACE OF BIRTH	Jersey City , New Jersey
DATE OF DEATH	April 14, 2020
Place of death	New York City