Winslow Ames Explained

Winslow Ames
Birth Name:Edward Winslow Ames Jr.
Birth Date:3 July 1907
Birth Place:Maullín, Chile
Death Place:Wakefield, Rhode Island, US
Nationality:American
Employer:University of Rhode Island
Springfield Art Museum
Gallery of Modern Art
Hollins College
Brown University
Connecticut College
Lyman Allyn Art Museum

Edward Winslow Ames Jr. (July 3, 1907 – October 3, 1990) was an American art historian, author, and museum director.[1] His academic research focused on Victorian art, but he "also had a deep interest in Modernism and the art of his own period".[2]

Early life

Ames was born in Maullín, Chile, where his father was a diplomat and later worked for Companier de Maderes del Ato Parana, a lumber company.[3] [4] His parents were Katherine Millicent (née Johnson) and Edward "Ted" Winslow Ames.[5] His grandfather was Azel Ames, a noted physician and author.[6] However, Ames recalled, "The Ames family was not rich. My mother was."

The family went back and forth between the United States and Latin America, but he was primarily raised in Staten Island, New York, and Boston, Massachusetts. In 1917, his father was the diplomat for Guatemala where Ames witnessed the impact of war and extreme poverty.

He attended Staten Island Academy and went to Phillips-Andover Academy in 1921. Although his father wanted him to attend Harvard, Ames wanted to go elsewhere because "there were too many people going to Harvard from Andover". He chose Columbia University, receiving a B.A. in 1929 after 3.5 years. While at Columbia, he took up rowing and joined the social and literary Fraternity of Delta Psi (St. Anthony Hall) which Ames says was crucial to stimulating his interest in the arts. He also attended exhibitions at the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

In 1932, he received an MA in art history from Harvard University where he studied with Paul J. Sachs and Edward W. Forbes. While at Harvard, he lived in the Delta Psi M.I.T. chapter house.

Career

With the assistance of Paul J. Sachs, Ames secured a position as founding director of the Lyman Allyn Art Museum in New London, Connecticut.[7] He began work in 1930 while the museum was still under construction and had no items in its collection. The New York Times noted, "Winslow Ames, the director, has mapped out an acquisition program that, as it develops, out to make the museum both distinctive and peculiarly valuable." He started collecting drawings and New London County or early furniture, and decided to focus on drawings, prints, and sculptures. He also created a library and collection of lantern slides for the museum. He did not collect modern art because the museum's trustees "weren't particularly keen on it." He worked at the Lyman Allyn Art Museum until 1942.

After World War II, he spent a year studying Prince Albert and Victorian art in England and Germany. This eventually led to a book, Prince Albert and Victorian Taste that was published by Viking in 1967.

He was the first paid director of the Springfield Art Museum in Springfield Missouri, from 1947 to 1950.[8] From 1957 to 1961, he was the first director of Huntington Hartford's Gallery of Modern Art at 2 Columbus Circle in Manhattan, working with the collection before the museum opened to the public.[9] [10]

He taught at several colleges and universities, including Connecticut College in the 1930s, Brown University in the 1940s, Hollins College from 1964 to 1965, and University of Rhode Island from 1966 to 1972 and 1973-1975.[11] He also did some appraisal work, especially with early furniture and drawings.

Prefab houses

See main article: Winslow Ames House. While at the Century of Progress world exhibition in Chicago in 1933, Ames saw General House's model home and met Howard T. Fisher, its chief architect. He believed these prefabricated houses were the future with their "stark International-style appearance". He had two of these structures built on the property of Lyman Allyn Art Museum where he was employed as the museum's director.

In November 1933, he commissioned General House to erect the House of Steel, a prefab house. He also commissioned American Homes, Inc. and architect Robert W. McLaughlin, Jr. to construct an International style prefabricated "Moto Home" now known as the Winslow Ames House.[12] The Ames used these houses as rental properties, although they lived in the Moto Home for a short time.

Both houses were sold to Connecticut College in 1949.[13] [14] The Winslow Ames House underwent extensive restoration in 1994, with funding from the Connecticut Historical Commission, and is on the National Register of Historic Places. The House of Steel survives, but was significantly modified.

Works

Ames' papers are held at the Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution.[15] Selected works include:

Books

Journals

Professional affiliations

Ames was a member of the Archives of American Art, the Author's Guild, the Drawing Society, the New England Appraisers Association, the Royal Society of Arts, the Victorian Society, and the Victorian Society in America. He was also a member of the Antiquarian & Landmarks Society of Connecticut, the Rhode Island Historical Society, and Society for the Preservation of New England Antiquities. In 1958, he was a member of the advisory council to Columbia University's department of art history and archaeology. He was also a member of the Society of Architectural Historians, serving on its board beginning in 1976.

Personal

Ames married Anna Rebecca Gerhard, the sister of his Delta Psi fraternity brother, William George Gerhard, on June 27, 1931, at St. Peter's Episcopal Church in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. They had five daughters.

He was a pacifist. During World War II, he registered as a conscientious objector. In 1943, he was assigned to a Civilian Public Service Camp in Virginia that worked in timber stand improvement and soil conservation. He was then assigned to be the assistant director, later director, of a camp in Ohio. After the war, he was a member of the American Friends Service Committee, working out of Paris, France, to help transport dislocated people back to their farms and to relocate people who had lost their homes. Ames became the first director of what was called the European Transport Unit, working in both Brittany and Southern France.

In the 1950s, the Ames family moved to Saunderstown, Rhode Island, where they lived in a house designed by Rockwell King DuMoulin, a Delta Psi fraternity brother.

In 1959, Ames was a guest layman, giving a sermon on the "ministry of reconciliation" at the Protestant Episcopal Church of the Epiphany in New York City.[40] He said, "We are called not to intensify differences, not to quash objections, not to make artificial, neat barriers, but to acknowledge and reconcile differences and find rewards in them." During the Vietnam War, Ames became a sponsor of the War Tax Resistance project, which practiced and advocated tax resistance as a form of protest against the war.[41]

He was a member of the Order of Colonial Lords of Manors in America. He was treasurer of the Episcopal Peace Fellowship from 1948 to 1968. He was also a member of the North Kingston School Building and Planning Committee from 1966 to 1967, and the Rhode Island Historical Preservation Commission in 1968.

In 1990, he died after a heart attack at Wakefield Hospital in Rhode Island at the age of 83.

Notes and References

  1. News: 1990-10-08 . Winslow Ames, Writer And Museum Head, 83 . D10 (56) . The New York Times . 2016-07-09 . 0362-4331.
  2. News: March 17, 1991 . 'Small but Very Liveable' Landmark Is Restored in New London . 132 . The New York Times . March 23, 2022.
  3. Book: International Authors and Writers Who's Who . 1976 . Melrose Press . 0-900332-34-4 . Kay . Ernest . 7th . Cambridge, England . 13 . 2126989.
  4. https://www.aaa.si.edu/download_pdf_transcript/ajax?record_id=edanmdm-AAADCD_oh_212300 Oral history Interview with Winslow Ames
  5. "Winslow Ames." In Gale Literature: Contemporary Authors. Farmington Hills, MI: Gale, December 15, 2000. Gale In Context: Biography (accessed March 23, 2022).via Gale. Accessed March 23, 2022
  6. Book: White . Almira Larkin . Genealogy of the Descendants of John White of Wenham and Lancaster, Massachusetts, 1574-1909 . 1909 . Chase Brothers . Haverhill, Mass . 71–72.
  7. News: Jewell . Edward Aldin . August 12, 1934 . The Lyman Allyn Museum . 134 . The New York Times . March 23, 2022.
  8. Web site: Holman . Gregory J. . February 20, 2019 . A Springfield Art Museum timeline . 2022-03-24 . Springfield News-Leader . en-US.
  9. Web site: Winslow Ames . The House of Steel . . https://web.archive.org/web/20120426005330/http://oak.conncoll.edu/~steelhouse/ames.html . April 26, 2012.
  10. News: August 28, 1963 . Hartford Names His Gallery Head . 56 . The New York Times . March 23, 2022.
  11. News: O'Doherty . Brian . April 7, 1968 . A Man Who'd Rather Have Been Missed Than Noticed . 117 . The New York Times . March 23, 2022.
  12. News: Battista . Carolyn . April 10, 1994 . A House for the Future Finally Lives Up to Its Billing . 105 . The New York Times . March 23, 2022.
  13. Web site: Clouette . Bruce . Cronin . Maura . September 23, 1994 . Winslow Ames House: National Register of Historic Places Registration Form . March 23, 2022 . National Park Service Gallery.
  14. Web site: Connecticut College's steel house by Winslow Ames getting chance to shine again. Stephanie . Reitz. March 12, 2016. Associated Press. artdaily.com. https://web.archive.org/web/20160312153356/http://www.artdaily.com/index.asp?int_sec=2&int_new=50695. March 12, 2016.
  15. Web site: Archives of American Art . Summary of the Winslow Ames papers, 1787-1989, (bulk 1960-1979) - Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution . si.edu.
  16. Ames, Winslow. “Sebastien Leclerc and Antoine Coypel for the ‘Petite Academie.’” Master Drawings 21, no. 1 (1983): 3–89. Via JSTOR, accessed March 23, 2022.
  17. Ames, Winslow. “Bouchardon and Company.” Master Drawings 13, no. 4 (1975): 379–447. via JSTOR. Accessed March 23, 2022
  18. Ames, Winslow et al. “Abstracts of Papers Presented at the Twenty-Fourth Annual Meeting of the Society of Architectural Historians.” Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians 30, no. 3 (1971): 247. .
  19. Ames, Winslow. “The Transformation of Château-Sur-Mer.” Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians 29, no. 4 (1970): 291–306. JSTOR, accessed March 23, 2022. .
  20. Ames, Winslow. “A Bust of a Woman by Bellange.” Master Drawings 4, no. 4 (1966): 434–99. via JSTOR, accessed March 23, 2022
  21. Ames, Winslow. “New York Brownstone through German Eyes, 1851.” Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians 25, no. 1 (1966): 63–64. via JSTOR, accessed March 23, 2022. .
  22. Ames, Winslow. “The Vermont State House.” Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians 23, no. 4 (1964): 193–99. Via. JSTOR, accessed March 23, 2022. .
  23. Ames, Winslow. “The ‘Villa Dal Timpano Arcuato’ by Francesco Guardi.” Master Drawings 1, no. 3 (1963): 37–81. via JSTOR, accessed March 23, 2022.
  24. Ames, Winslow. Review of Inside Victorian Walls, by E. A. Entwisle et al. Victorian Studies 5, no. 2 (1961): 151–62. via JSTOR, accessed March 23, 2022.
  25. Ames, Winslow. 1959. “Spectatorship of F. Ambrose Clark and a Well-Made Book.” Connoisseur 144 (December): 200–205. via EBSCO, accessed March 23, 2022.
  26. Ames, Winslow. 1955. “Two Drawings by Palma Giovine: With French Tr.” Gazette des Beaux-Arts, March, 171–95. via EBSCO, accessed March 23, 2022.
  27. Ames, Winslow. 1954. “Rembrandt Composition Remodeled.” Art Quarterly 17 (1): 60–62. via EBSCO, accessed March 23, 2022.
  28. Ames, Winslow. 1954. “Some Physical Types Favored by Western Artists; with French Translation.” Gazette des Beaux-Arts, September, 91–139. via EBSCO, accessed March 23, 2022
  29. Ames, Winslow. 1953. “Drawings by Contemporaries and by Old Masters.” Magazine of Art 46 (March): 123–30. via EBSCO accessed March 23, 2022.
  30. Ames, Winslow. 1949. “Some Woodcuts by Hendrick Goltzius and Their Program; with French Tr.” Gazette des Beaux-Arts, June, 425–65. via EBSCO, accessed March 23, 2022
  31. Ames, Winslow. 1944. “Drawing by Hans Baldung Grün at the Pierpont Morgan Library.” Gazette des Beaux-Arts, June, 371–75. via JSTOR, accessed March 23, 2022.
  32. Ames, Winslow. 1944. “Sketches for an Assumption of the Virgin by Fra Bartolommeo.” Gazette des Beaux-Arts, April, 215–20. via EBSCO, accessed March 23, 2022.
  33. Web site: Ames . Winslow . Six Head Studies . 2022-03-23 . Harvard Art Museum . en.
  34. Ames, Winslow. “Contemporary American Artists: Richmond Barthé.” Parnassus 12, no. 3 (1940): 10–17. via JSTOR, accessed March 23, 2022. .
  35. Ames, Winslow. 1939. “William Blake as Artist.” Magazine of Art (Washington, D.C.) 32 (February): 68–73. via EBSCO, accessed March 23, 2022.
  36. Ames, Winslow. “A Drawing by the Monogrammist C. B.” Bulletin of the Fogg Art Museum 8, no. 1 (1938): 36–40. via JSTOR, accessed March 23, 2022.
  37. Ames, Winslow. “Chiaroscuro Woodcuts.” Parnassus 9, no. 2 (1937): 5–8. via JSTOR, accessed March 23, 2022. .
  38. Ames, Winslow. 1937. “Portrait of American Industry; City Interior by Charles Sheeler.” Worcester Art Museum Annual 2 (January): 96–98. via EBSCO, accessed March 23, 2022.
  39. Ames, Winslow. “Gaston Lachaise 1882-1935.” Parnassus 8, no. 3 (1936): 5–31. via JSTOR, accessed march 23, 2022. .
  40. News: October 20, 1958 . Medication Called the Duty of Laymen: Museum Curator, in a Guest Sermon, Urges Man to See Value in Dissent . 32 . The New York Times . March 23, 2022.
  41. "A Call to War Tax Resistance" The Cycle 14 May 1970, p. 7

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