Kress-Beinecke Professors

In addition to pursuing independent research, the Kress-Beinecke Professor is the senior member of the Center and counsels predoctoral fellows.


The one-year Samuel H. Kress Professorship was established by the National Gallery, with the support of the Samuel H. Kress Foundation, in 1965. From 2018 this appointment, newly endowed by the Samuel H. Kress Foundation in response to a challenge grant from The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, became known as the Kress-Beinecke Professorship. 

2020s

2023–2024
Nancy J. Troy, Stanford University
Making History: Architectural Models and De Stijl

2022–2023
H. Perry Chapman, University of Delaware (emerita)
Rembrandt’s Art History

2021–2022
Lowery Stokes Sims, Museum of Arts and Design (emerita)
The Emergence of a New Black Art Canon

2020–2021
Dell Upton, University of California, Los Angeles
Graven Images: The Unsettled Lives of Public Monuments

2010s

2019–2020
Jeffrey F. Hamburger, Harvard University
Drawing Conclusions: Diagrams in the Middle Ages and Other Projects

2018–2019
Maryan W. Ainsworth, The Metropolitan Museum of Art
The Art of Discovery: Early Netherlandish Painting at the Metropolitan Museum of Art

2017–2018
Diane Favro, University of California, Los Angeles (emerita)
Constructing Victories: Arches as Celebrations of Roman Infrastructure

2016–2017
Dale Kinney, Bryn Mawr College (emerita)
Santa Maria in Trastevere: The Life of a Medieval Building in Early Modern Rome

2015–2016
Iain Boyd Whyte, University of Edinburgh
Survey and Anthology

2012–2013
Oskar Bätschmann, University of Bern (emeritus)
Last Works

2011–2012
Julian Gardner, University of Warwick (emeritus)
What's in a Name? Giotto di Bondone

2010–2011
Joseph J. Rishel, Philadelphia Museum of Art

2000s

2009–2010
Bert W. Meijer, Nederlands Interuniversitair Kunsthistorisch Instituut, Florence / Universiteit Utrecht (emeritus)

2008–2009
John House, Courtauld Institute of Art

2007–2008
Rudolf Preimesberger, Freie Universität Berlin (emeritus)

2006–2007
Wanda M. Corn, Stanford University

2005–2006
Annamaria Petrioli Tofani, Galleria degli Uffizi (emerita)

2004–2005
Jonathan J. G. Alexander, Institute of Fine Arts, New York University

2003–2004
Virginia Spate, University of Sydney

2002–2003
Wolf-Dieter Dube, formerly Staatliche Museen zu Berlin

2001–2002
Richard Ormond, formerly National Maritime Museum, Greenwich

2000–2001
Juergen Schulz, Brown University (emeritus)

1990s

1999–2000
Mina Gregori, Università di Firenze

1998–1999
Ilene H. Forsyth, University of Michigan (emerita)

1997–1998
Bezalel Narkiss, Hebrew University of Jerusalem

1996–1997
Hubert Damisch, École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales, Paris

1995–1996
David R. Coffin, Princeton University (emeritus)

1994–1995
Jean Sutherland Boggs, formerly Hebrew University of Jerusalem

1993–1994
Anthony Radcliffe, Victoria and Albert Museum (emeritus)

1992–1993
Anne Coffin Hanson, Yale University (emerita)

1991–1992
John Coolidge, Harvard University (emeritus)

1990–1991
Per Bjurström, Nationalmuseum, Stockholm

1980s

1989–1990
Milton W. Brown, City University of New York, Graduate School and University Center

1988–1989
Sylvie Béguin, Musée du Louvre

1987–1988
Craig Hugh Smyth, Harvard University (emeritus)

1986–1987
Lawrence Burnett Gowing, Royal Academy

1985–1986
George Alexander Kubler, Yale University, emeritus

1984–1985
Charles Mitchell, Bryn Mawr College (emeritus)

1983–1984
Philippe M. Verdier, Université de Montréal (emeritus)

1982–1983
Harold Edwin Wethey, University of Michigan–Ann Arbor (emeritus)

Spring 1982
Jean V. Bony, University of California, Berkeley (emeritus)

Fall 1981
Frank Edward Brown, formerly American Academy in Rome

1980–1981
Leopold David Ettlinger, University of California, Berkeley

Spring 1980
Otto Von Simson, Freie Universitiit, Berlin (emeritus)

1970s

Fall 1979
William Sebastian Heckscher, Duke University (emeritus)

1978–1979
George Heard Hamilton, Williams College (emeritus)

1977–1978
Agnes Mongan, Harvard University, Fogg Art Museum (emerita)

Spring 1977
Ludwig Heinrich Heydenreich, Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München

Fall 1976
Wolfgang Lotz, Bibliotheca Hertziana, Rome

1975–1976

Francis J. B. Watson, Wallace Collection

1974–1975

Ellis Kirkham Waterhouse, Paul Mellon Centre for Studies in British Art, London

1973–1974

Ary Bob De Vries, Mauritshuis, The Hague (emeritus)

1972–1973

Carl A. J. Nordenfalk, University of Cambridge

1971–1972

William Chapin Seitz, University of Virginia

1970–1971

Wolfgang Stechow, Cleveland Museum of Art

1960s

1969–1970

Rudolf Wittkower, Columbia University (emeritus)

1968–1969

Egbert Haverkamp-Begeman, Yale University

1967–1968

René Huyghe, College de France

1965–1967

Jakob Rosenberg, Harvard University (emeritus)

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