Martin Kemp (art historian) explained

Martin Kemp
Birth Name:Martin John Kemp
Birth Date:1942 3, df=yes
Alma Mater:Downing College
Courtauld Institute of Art
Workplaces:Department of History of Art, University of Oxford
Discipline:Art history
Known For:Leonardo da Vinci scholarship;
Images in art and science

Martin John Kemp (born 5 March 1942) is a British art historian and exhibition curator who is one of the world's leading authorities on the life and works of Leonardo da Vinci.[1] [2] The author of many books on Leonardo, Kemp has also written about visualisation in art and science, particularly anatomy, natural sciences and optics. Instrumental in the controversial authentication of Salvator Mundi to Leonardo, Kemp has been vocal on attributions to Leonardo, including support of La Bella Principessa and opposition to the Isleworth Mona Lisa.

From 1995 to 2008 he was professor of art history at the University of Oxford and has continued since then as an emeritus professor. He previously held posts at University of St Andrews (1981–1995) and University of Glasgow (1966–1981). He holds honorary fellowships of both Trinity College, Oxford, and Downing College, Cambridge, and is a fellow of the British Academy.

Early life

In his youth, Kemp attended Windsor Grammar School.[3] From 1960 to 1963, he studied natural sciences and art history at Downing College, Cambridge, and the history of Western Art at the Courtauld Institute of Art, University of London, from 1963 to 1965.[4] [5] [6]

Career

For more than 25 years Kemp was based in Scotland where from 1966 to 1981 he was a lecturer at University of Glasgow and professor of Fine Arts from 1981 to 1990 and professor of the History and Theory of Art from 1990 to 1995 at University of St Andrews.[7] [8] He was professor of Art History at the University of Oxford from 1995 to 2008, during which he helped create the Centre for Visual Studies, which opened in 1999.[9] Notably, Edgar Wind had held this post from 1955 to 1967 and subsequently Francis Haskell from 1967 to 1995.[5] Since 2008 he has been emeritus professor of the art history there.[7] He has held visiting professorship posts at Princeton University, the University of Cambridge, the University of Chicago and Harvard University.[7] [5] He received the prestigious British Academy Wolfson Research Professorship—An award offered by the Wolfson Foundation.[10] —and from 1993 to 1998 and was elected a fellow of the British Academy in 1991.[8] With art historian Marina Wallace, Kemp launched the "Universal Leonardo" website.[5] In 2022, Kemp and author Waqas Ahmed created an online course entitled "The Da Vinci Masterclass" highlighting Leonardo's career. Menachem Wecker for ArtNet commented that the course "illuminated both Leonardo's and Kemp's ways of thinking".[11] The course was also presented in-person at the Royal Institution in 2023.[12]

Books

Kemp has written many books about Leonardo da Vinci, his first of which, Leonardo da Vinci. The Marvellous Works of Nature and Man in 1981, won the Mitchell Prize in art history for best first book.[13] He has published on imagery in the sciences of anatomy, natural history and optics, including The Science of Art: Optical Themes in Western Art from Brunelleschi to Seurat (Yale University Press). The art theorist and psychologist Rudolf Arnheim said that The Science of Art "may deserve to be called the definitive treatise on its topic" though its detail may make it difficult reading for non-specialists.[14]

Kemp has written a regular column called "Science in Culture" in the scientific journal Nature. Selections of these columns have been published as Visualisations (OUP, 2000) and Seen and Unseen (OUP, 2006): the latter exploring his concept of "structural intuitions". Reviewing Visualisations, the historian of ideas Scott L. Montgomery described Kemp as like a "master gardener" who "for nearly two decades, [...] has helped shape this new field in major ways, planting a wide array of topics, arranging the colors of their importance, surveying and reconstituting the efforts of others, all the while adding original species of insight and subject matter."[15] In 2011 he published Christ to Coke: How Image becomes Icon (OUP, 2011).[16] [17]

Salvator Mundi

The Salvator Mundi is a painted wooden panel depicting Christ. It was exhibited in 2011 as an original work by Leonardo da Vinci, but the attribution has been controversial, with some scholars describing da Vinci as a contributor but not the main artist.[18] Kemp's research supported its attribution to Leonardo.[19] [20] He said that as soon as he viewed the painting, he recognised the presence and "uncanny strangeness" of Leonardo's works.[21] The painting was sold in 2017, setting a new record for the most expensive painting ever sold at public auction.[22] In a 2019 book, Kemp identifies symbolism in the painting that is familiar from Leonardo's other religious paintings. He is interviewed in the 2021 documentary about the work, The Lost Leonardo.

La Bella Principessa

In 2010 Kemp published a monograph with French engineer Pascal Cotte, recounting the story of how a team of experts—under his guidance—pieced together the evidence for the theory that the painting now named La Bella Principessa was by Leonardo. The book, entitled La Bella Principessa (2010), narrates the steps Kemp and Cotte took in researching the painting. The 2012 Italian edition, La bella principessa di Leonardo da Vinci[23] produces evidence about its origins.[6]

Exhibitions

Selected bibliography

As editor

Further reading

External links

Notes and References

  1. News: Vogel . Carol . 20 January 2003 . Renaissance Genius as Compulsive Draftsman; An Exhibition Explores Leonardo's Creative Process With a Wealth of Examples . . 16 August 2020 . limited .
  2. News: Charney . Noah . 6 November 2011 . The lost Leonardo . . 16 November 2017 . subscription.
  3. News: Lankford . Mike . 17 August 2018 . The Keeper of the Keys Tells His Tale . lareviewofbooks.org . Los Angeles Review of Books . 16 August 2020 .
  4. Web site: Martin J Kemp: Curriculum Vitae . martinjkemp . 16 August 2020 .
  5. News: Honigman . Ana Finel . Universal Leonardo . artnet . . 16 August 2020 .
  6. Web site: Professor Martin John Kemp . dow.cam.ac.uk . July 2016 . . 16 August 2020 .
  7. Web site: Martin Kemp, Emeritus Professor of the History of Art . ox.ac.uk . . 16 August 2020 . https://web.archive.org/web/20120326230736/http://www.ox.ac.uk/research/humanities/people/martin_kemp.html . 26 March 2012 .
  8. Web site: Professor Martin Kemp FBA . thebritishacademy.ac.uk . . 16 August 2020 .
  9. Web site: Professor Martin Kemp . hoa.ox.ac.uk . . 16 August 2020 .
  10. Web site: Wolfson Research Professorships . thebritishacademy.ac.uk . . 16 August 2020 .
  11. News: Wecker . Menachem. 25 November 2022. ArtNet. 5 Surprising Things We Learned About Leonardo da Vinci From Historian Martin Kemp's New Online Masterclass. 2023-03-22.
  12. Web site: The Da Vinci masterclass (short course) Royal Institution . 2023-03-22 . www.rigb.org . en.
  13. Simon Stevin and Pieter Saenredam: A Study of Mathematics and Vision in Dutch Science and Art . The Art Bulletin . 1986 . . 10.1080/00043079.1986.10788336 . 3 October 2020 . Kemp . Martin . 68 . 2 . 237–252 .
  14. Arnheim . Rudolf . 1991 . The Science of Art: Optical Themes in Western Art From Brunelleschi to Seurat by Martin Kemp (review) . Leonardo . 24 . 1 . 92–93 . 10.2307/1575491 . 1575491 . 191517909 . 1530-9282. subscription .
  15. Montgomery . Scott L. . June 2004 . Martin Kemp. Visualizations : The Nature Book of Art and Science. xvi + 202 pp., illus., bibl., index. Berkeley/Los Angeles: University of California Press, 2000. $35. . Isis . en . . 95 . 2 . 277–279 . 10.1086/426208 . 0021-1753.
  16. Web site: 3 October 2011 . What makes an image an icon? . blog.oup.com . . 3 October 2020 .
  17. News: York . Peter . Peter York . 9 December 2011 . Christ to Coke: How Image Becomes Icon, by Martin Kemp . . 3 October 2020 .
  18. Fagnart . Laure . February 2022 . Leonardo's Salvator Mundi and the Collecting of Leonardo in the Stuart Courts, by Margaret Dalivalle, Martin Kemp and Robert B. Simon (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2019; pp. 382) . English Historical Review . CXXXVII . 584 . 2268/266703 . 0013-8266.
  19. News: Kinsella . Eileen . 12 June 2019 . Debunking This Picture Became Fashionable': Leonardo da Vinci Scholar Martin Kemp on What the Public Doesn't Get About 'Salvator Mundi . artnet . . 16 August 2020 .
  20. Web site: Brown . Mark . 2018-10-11 . World's most expensive painting is authentic Leonardo, insists expert . 2022-07-13 . The Guardian . en.
  21. Web site: Goldstein . Andrew M. . 17 November 2011 . The Male "Mona Lisa"?: Art Historian Martin Kemp on Leonardo da Vinci's Mysterious "Salvator Mundi" . Blouin Artinfo.
  22. Web site: Au-Yeung . Angel . Nov 15, 2017 . At Auction, Billionaire Sells Da Vinci Painting For A New World Record Price . 2021-09-14 . Forbes . en.
  23. Kemp, Martin J., and Cotte, Pascal (2012). La bella principessa di Leonardo da Vinci. Ritratto di Bianca Sforza. Firenze: Mandragora.
  24. Maynard . Patrick . Winter 1996 . Perspective's Places . The Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism . 54 . 1 . 23–40 . 10.2307/431678 . 431678 . JSTOR.
  25. News: Conrad . Peter . Peter Conrad (academic) . 21 October 2000 . Spectacular Bodies . . 21 October 2020 .
  26. Baumgartner . Barbara . 2004-03-01 . Book Review: Spectacular Bodies: The Art and Science of the Human Body from Leonardo to Now, by Martin Kemp and Marina Wallace. Jointly published by the Hayward Gallery and the University of California Press, 2000. 232 pp. . Journal of Medical Humanities . en . 25 . 1 . 79–81 . 10.1023/B:JOMH.0000007536.30721.5c . 145615453 . 1573-3645.
  27. Web site: Leonardo da Vinci: Experience, Experiment, Design . vam.ac.uk . . 21 October 2020 .
  28. News: Riding . Alan . Alan Riding . 5 October 2006 . Leonardo: A master of lateral thinking – Arts & Leisure – International Herald Tribune . . 16 August 2020 . limited .
  29. News: Castle . Tim . 11 October 2007 . London show strips bare 2,500 years of erotic art . . 21 October 2020 .
  30. News: Christensen . Lauren . 27 July 2019 . A da Vinci for Any Budget . . 16 August 2020 . limited .

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