T. S. R. Boase Explained

Thomas Sherrer Ross Boase (31 August 1898 – 14 April 1974)^[1] was a British art historian, university teacher, and Vice-Chancellor of Oxford University.^{[2] [3]}

Early life and education

Thomas Boase was born in Dundee, Scotland, to Charles Millet Boase (d. 1921), operator of a bleaching mill at Claverhouse, outside Dundee, of which the Boase family were part-owners,^[4] and his wife Anne.^[5] Boase was educated at a day preparatory school and then at Rugby School in England (1912–17).

Oxford

He won a scholarship to Oxford for an essay on Lorenzo de' Medici.^[6] Boase studied Modern History at Magdalen College, Oxford, from 1919 to 1921. At Oxford he studied under the historian Francis Fortescue Urquhart (1868–1934).^[7] Boase was a Fellow and Tutor at Hertford College from 1922 to 1937.

Involvement in World War I and II

World War I

He fought on the Western Front during World War I in the Oxford and Buckinghamshire Light Infantry (1917–19) and was awarded the Military Cross.

World War II

During World War II, he worked in the Government Code and Cipher School at Bletchley Park, followed by the RAF in Cairo, Egypt, from 1939 to 1941. He was then in charge of British Council activities in the Middle East, also based in Cairo, from 1943 to 1945.

Career

Courtauld Institute of Art

From 1937 to 1947, Boase was Director of the Courtauld Institute of Art in London.^[8] While at the Courtauld he contributed photographs that are now held in the Conway Library of art and architecture.^[9] During this period, he was also Professor of History of Art at the University of London.^[10]

Later life

From 1947 to 1968, Boase was President of Magdalen College. In 1948, he contributed to the Samuel Courtauld Memorial Exhibition at Tate Britain.^[11] He was a Trustee of the National Gallery (1947–53) and the British Museum (1950–69). Boase was involved in a 'scandal' while Chairman of the Trustees of the National Gallery in 1952.^[12] He served as Vice-Chancellor of Oxford University from 1958 to 1960. Boase became a Fellow of the British Academy in 1961. He was Slade Professor of Fine Art at Oxford for 1963–64.^[13] In 1967, he was elected a member of the American Philosophical Society.^[14] He was also a member of the Advisory Council of the Victoria and Albert Museum (1947–70).

Death

His obituary for The British Academy was written by J.J.G.Alexander, another Conway Library photographer.

Partial Bibliography

• Boniface VIII, Series: Makers of the Middle Ages, Constable, 1933.
• St. Francis of Assisi, Series: Great Lives (74), Duckworth, 1936.
• English Romanesque Illuminations, Oxford University Press, 1951.
• The Oxford History of English Art : Vol III. English Art, 1100–1216, Oxford University Press, 1953.^[15]
• English Illumination of the Thirteenth and Fourteenth Centuries, Bodleian Library, Oxford, 1954.
• The York Psalter in the Library of the Hunterian Museum, Glasgow, Faber & Faber Ltd, 1962.
• Macklin and Bowyer, Warburg Institute, 1963.
• Castles and Churches of the Crusading Kingdom, Oxford University Press, 1967.
• St Francis of Assisi, Thames & Hudson, 1968.
• Kingdoms and Strongholds of the Crusaders, Thames and Hudson, 1971.
• Death in the Middle Ages: Mortality, Judgment and Remembrance, Thames and Hudson, 1972.
• Nebuchadnezzar: 34 paintings and 18 drawings, (with Arthur Boyd), Thames and Hudson, 1972.

External links

• BOASE, Thomas Sherrer Ross (1898–1974) archive, Courtauld Institute of Art. (Includes a biography.)
• Books by Thomas Sherrer Ross Boase from Alibris.

Notes and References

1. Alexander, Jonathan J. G., ‘Thomas Sherrer Ross Boase, 1898–1974’. Proceedings of the British Academy, 101:353–364 (1999), . .
2. Stoye, John, ‘Boase, Thomas Sherrer Ross (1898–1974)’, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, September 2004. .
3. Alexander, Jonathan J. G., ‘Thomas Sherrer Ross Boase, 1898–1974’. Proceedings of the British Academy, 101:353–364 (1999), . .
4. Web site: Boase & Co LTD, Claverhouse Bleachfield, Dundee – Archives Hub.
5. Alexander, Jonathan J. G., ‘Thomas Sherrer Ross Boase, 1898–1974’. Proceedings of the British Academy, 101:353–364 (1999), . .
6. Web site: admin. 2018-02-21. Boase, T. S. R.. 2020-11-16. Bazin, Germain. Histoire de l'histoire de l'art: de Vasari à nos jours. Paris: Albin Michel, 1986, p. 510; Stoye, John. Dictionary of National Biography; Alexander, Jonathan J. G. "Thomas Sherrer Ross Boase, 1898–1974." Proceedings of the British Academy 101 (1998): 353–362; Boase, Thomas S. R. [unpublished memoir], Magdalen College, Oxford University archives; Folda, Jaroslav "Introduction." Art of the Crusaders in the Holy Land. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995, pp. 12–14; Carter, Miranda. Anthony Blunt: His Lives. New York: Farrar, Straus, Giroux, 2001, pp. 216, 219–220; Zarnecki, George. "T. S. R. Boase." Burlington Magazine 117, no. 873 (December 1975): 809; "Dr. T. S. R. Boase, Former President of Magdalen College, Oxford." The Times (London) 15 April 1974, p. 8; [a particularly warm addendum] Blunt, Anthony. "Dr. T. S. R. Boase." The Times (London) 20 April 1974, p. 14.. en.
7. Web site: admin. 2018-02-21. Boase, T. S. R.. 2020-11-16. Bazin, Germain. Histoire de l'histoire de l'art: de Vasari à nos jours. Paris: Albin Michel, 1986, p. 510; Stoye, John. Dictionary of National Biography; Alexander, Jonathan J. G. "Thomas Sherrer Ross Boase, 1898–1974." Proceedings of the British Academy 101 (1998): 353–362; Boase, Thomas S. R. [unpublished memoir], Magdalen College, Oxford University archives; Folda, Jaroslav "Introduction." Art of the Crusaders in the Holy Land. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995, pp. 12–14; Carter, Miranda. Anthony Blunt: His Lives. New York: Farrar, Straus, Giroux, 2001, pp. 216, 219–220; Zarnecki, George. "T. S. R. Boase." Burlington Magazine 117, no. 873 (December 1975): 809; "Dr. T. S. R. Boase, Former President of Magdalen College, Oxford." The Times (London) 15 April 1974, p. 8; [a particularly warm addendum] Blunt, Anthony. "Dr. T. S. R. Boase." The Times (London) 20 April 1974, p. 14.. en.
8. Web site: History. 2020-11-16. The Courtauld Institute of Art. en-US.
9. Web site: 2020-06-30. Who made the Conway Library?. 2020-11-16. Digital Media.
10. http://courtauld.ac.uk/about/history History of the Courtauld
11. Web site: Tate. Samuel Courtauld Memorial Exhibition – Exhibition at Tate Britain. 2020-11-16. Tate. en-GB.
12. Web site: Sir Philip Hendy Directors National Gallery, London. 2020-11-16. nationalgallery.org.uk.
13. Web site: 2012. Oxford Slade Professors, 1870–present. dead. https://web.archive.org/web/20150213123228/http://www.hoa.ox.ac.uk/fileadmin/hoa/documents/pdf/Oxford_Slade_Professors.pdf. 13 February 2015. 27 January 2015. University of Oxford.
14. Web site: APS Member History . 2022-09-20 . search.amphilsoc.org.
15. Web site: English Art, 1100–1216 by T. S. R. Boase, 1953 . 25 September 2020 . https://web.archive.org/web/20200925082625/https://www.questia.com/library/423948/english-art-1100-1216 . dead .