Earl A. Powell III

Born 24 October 1943, Spartanburg, South Carolina

Married Nancy Landry Powell, three children

Ph.D. Harvard University, 1974

Field of expertise includes 19th- and 20th-century European and American Art

A.M. Fogg Art Museum, Harvard University, 1970

A.B. Williams College, 1966 with honors, double major in Art History and European History

Military

U.S. Navy, 1966-69

Navy Officer Candidate School, 1966

Navigation, Legal, Personnel Officer

Commander, U.S. Naval Reserve, 1976-80

Director, National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., September 1992-

Director, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Los Angeles, California, 1980-92

Executive Curator, National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., 1979-80

Museum Curator, Senior Staff Assistant to the Assistant Director and Chief Curator, National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., 1976-78

Curator of the Michener Collection and Assistant Professor of Art History, The University of Texas at Austin, 1974-76

Teaching Fellow in Fine Arts, Harvard University, 1970-74

Trustee

American Federation of Arts

Federal City Council

Georgia O’Keeffe Foundation

National Trust for Historic Preservation

White House Historical Association

Member

Association of Art Museum Directors

Committee for the Preservation of the White House

Federal Council on the Arts and Humanities

Fine Arts Advisory Panel, Federal Reserve Board

Fine Arts Committee, Friends of Art and Preservation in Embassies

Fogg Fellows Council, Harvard University Art Museums

Harvard Overseers’ Committee to Visit the Art Museums

National Council on the Arts

National Portrait Gallery Commission

Newport Art Museum Advisory Committee

O’Keeffe Museum National Advisory Board

President’s Committee on the Arts & Humanities

The Walpole Society

Honorary Degrees and Awards

Harvard University Travelling Fellowship, 1973-74

Honorary Doctorate of Fine Arts, Otis Parsons Institute, 1987

Honorary Doctorate of Fine Arts, Williams College, 1993

King Olav Medal, awarded by King Olav V of Norway, 1978, for Edvard Munch: Symbols and Images, National Gallery of Art

Chevalier of Arts and Letters, awarded by the Minister of Culture of France, 1985, for A Day in the Country: Impressionism and the French Landscape, Los Angeles County Museum of Art

John Harvard Award for Community Service, Harvard-Radcliffe Society of Southern California, 1991

Grand Official Order of the Infante D. Henrique medal, awarded by the Government of Portugal,

1995, for The Age of the Baroque in Portugal, National Gallery of Art

Williams College Bicentennial Medal, 1995

Mexican Cultural Institute Award, 1996

Commendatore dell’Ordine al Merito della Republica Italiana, awarded by the Government of Italy, 1998

Chevalier of the Legion of Honor, awarded by the French Government, 2000

Dissertation

English Influences in the Art of Thomas Cole (1801-1848), Harvard University, 1974

Publications

American Art at Harvard, 1973. A catalogue of a major retrospective of the Harvard University holdings in American art (co-author).

Selections from the James Michener Collection, 1975. Translated into Portuguese. University of Texas at Austin.

Abstract Expressionists and Imagists: A Retrospective View, 1976. Exhibition catalogue. University of Texas at Austin.

Milton Avery, 1976. Exhibition catalogue. University of Texas at Austin.

"Maniere Dawson’s Woman in Brown," Arts Magazine (May 1977), 122-123.

"Morton Schamberg: The Machine as Icon," Arts Magazine (May 1977), 113-115.

"Thomas Cole and the American Landscape Tradition: The Naturalist Controversy," Arts Magazine (February 1978), 114-124.

"Thomas Cole and the American Landscape Tradition: Associationism," Arts Magazine (April 1978), 113-117.

"John Griefen," Arts Magazine (May 1978), 5.

Introduction to Winslow Homer Portfolio, National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., 1978.

The James A. Michener Collection: Twentieth-Century American Painting, catalogue raisonné (Austin, Texas), 1978.

"Luminism and the American Sublime," catalogue essay for American Light: The Luminist Movement, National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., 1980.

"The Boston Harbor Pictures," catalogue essay for Paintings by Fitz Hugh Lane, National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., 1980.

"The American View: Landscape Paintings and Drawings," catalogue essay for An American

Perspective: Nineteenth-Century Art from the Collection of Jo Ann and Julian Ganz, Jr., National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., 1981.

"Thirty-nine paintings for the price of . . . Samuel F .B. Morse’s Gallery of the Louvre," Smithsonian (October 1982), 144-147.

Thomas Cole, monograph, Abrams, New York, 1990.

August 2002

General Information

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