Elizabeth Gilmore Holt

Elizabeth Gilmore Holt (July 5, 1905 – January 26, 1987) was an American art historian.

Early life and education

Elizabeth Basye Gilmore was born in San Francisco, California in 1905, and raised in Madison, Wisconsin; her father Eugene Allen Gilmore was a diplomat and university president.^[1] She grew up living at the Eugene A. Gilmore House, which was designed by Frank Lloyd Wright in 1908.^[2]

Elizabeth Gilmore was one of the first graduates from the International School Manila, while her father was serving as American vice-governor of the Philippine Islands.^[3] She attended the University of Wisconsin as an undergraduate (class of 1929), earned a masters degree at Radcliffe College in 1932, and her doctoral degree, with an art history thesis written in German, at the University of Munich in 1934.^[4]

Career

Holt began her teaching career at Duke University.^[5] While in North Carolina, she opened a community arts center in Raleigh, under the auspices of the Works Projects Administration.^[6] After World War II, she went to Berlin to establish the Office of Women's Affairs for the US Office of Military Government, and was given a small replica of the Freedom Bell for her efforts on behalf of the city's women.^[7]

Holt's main work was a documentary history of art, edited compilations of selected and translated works in the development of art.^[8] In 1947 her Literary Sources of Art History was published by Princeton University Press, and became the basis of the multi-volume series edited by Holt, titled A Documentary History of Art, first published in the 1950s and 1960s. They have since been reprinted in various editions, including paperbacks for student use.^[9] In 1955, Holt was appointed an associate of the American Association of University Women, focusing on the status of women.^[10]

In 1979, Elizabeth Gilmore Holt was named a Guggenheim Fellow;^[11] she also received a Women's Caucus for Art Lifetime Achievement Award, in 1982.^[12]

Personal life and legacy

Elizabeth Gilmore married career diplomat John Bradshaw Holt in 1936; they had three children together. Elizabeth Gilmore Holt died in early 1987, age 81, in Washington, D.C.^[13] Her papers are in the Smithsonian Archives of American Art.^[14][15]

Her documentary histories of art remain widely-used standards today in the field. There is an Elizabeth Gilmore Holt Prize for Best Graduate Paper in Art History, awarded annually at Syracuse University.^[16] At the University of Iowa, there is an Elizabeth Gilmore Holt Scholarship given primarily to married women doctoral students in art and art history.^[17]

Notable works

• Elizabeth Gilmore Holt, The Expanding World of Art, 1874-1902 (Yale University Press 1988).^[18]
• Elizabeth Gilmore Holt, The Art of All Nations, 1850-1873: The Emerging Role of Exhibitions and Critics (Princeton University Press 1981).^[19]
• Elizabeth Gilmore Holt, ed. The Triumph of Art for the Public, 1785-1848 (Princeton University Press 1983).^[20]
• Elizabeth Gilmore Holt, ed. From the Classicists to the Impressionists: Art and Architecture in the Nineteenth Century (Yale University Press 1986).^[21]
• Elizabeth Gilmore Holt, ed. A Documentary History of Art, Volume 2: Michelangelo and the Mannerists, the Baroque and the Eighteenth Century (Princeton University Press 1982).^[22]
• Elizabeth Gilmore Holt, ed., A Documentary History of Art, Volume 1: The Middle Ages and the Renaissance (Doubleday 1957).^[23]

References

1. Blanche Basye Gilmore Papers, Iowa Women's Archive, The University of Iowa Libraries, Iowa City, IA.
2. Narciso G. Menocal, ed., Taliesin, 1911-1914 (Southern Illinois University Press 1992): 83. ISBN 0809316250
3. International School of Manila: History.
4. "Holt, Elizabeth [Basye] Gilmore," Dictionary of Art Historians.
5. Robert Franklin Durden, The Launching of Duke University, 1924-1949 (Duke University Press 1993): 267. ISBN 0822313022
6. Ola Maie Foushee, "North Carolina's Community Art Centers," in John Franklin White, ed., Art in Action: American Art Centers and the New Deal (Scarecrow Press 1987): 159. ISBN 0810820072
7. Dorothy McCardle, "Many a Dulles Had a Hand in Berlin Hall," Washington Post and Times Herald (September 22, 1957): F7.
8. Gabriel P. Weisberg and Laurinda S. Dixon, "The Legacy of Elizabeth Gilmore Holt," in Gabriel P. Weisberg and Laurinda S. Dixon, eds., The Documentary Image: Visions in Art History (Syracuse University Press 1987): xvii. ISBN 0815624107
9. Alicia Faxon, "Elizabeth Gilmore Holt: Art Historian and Maverick," Women's Art Journal 2(1)(Spring-Summer 1981): 45-48.
10. "Elizabeth Gilmore Holt Given AAUW Post," Iowa City Press-Citizen (April 20, 1955): 6. via Newspapers.com
11. John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation, Fellows Finder.
12. Thalia Gourma-Peterson, ed. "Women's Caucus for Art Honor Awards," catalog for a 1982 exhibition in San Francisco CA.
13. "Elizabeth G. Holt, 81, Peripatetic Art Expert," New York Times (January 28, 1987).
14. "Elizabeth Basye Gilmore Holt Papers, 1931-1987," Smithsonian Archives of American Art.
15. "John Bradshaw Holt, Former Diplomat, 84," New York Times (September 14, 1994): A17.
16. "Award Winners Named," Syracuse University Department of Art and Music Histories Newsletter (2014).
17. University of Iowa, School of Art and Art History, Art History Division Scholarships for Graduate Students.
18. Elizabeth Gilmore Holt, The Expanding World of Art, 1874-1902 (Yale University Press 1988). ISBN 9780300038255
19. Elizabeth Gilmore Holt, The Art of All Nations, 1850-1873: The Emerging Role of Exhibitions and Critics (Princeton University Press 1982). ISBN 9780691039961
20. Elizabeth Gilmore Holt, ed. The Triumph of Art for the Public, 1785-1848 (Princeton University Press 1983).
21. Elizabeth Gilmore Holt, ed. From the Classicists to the Impressionists: Art and Architecture in the Nineteenth Century (Yale University Press 1986).
22. Elizabeth Gilmore Holt, ed. A Documentary History of Art, Volume 2: Michelangelo and the Mannerists, the Baroque and the Eighteenth Century (Princeton University Press 1982).
23. Elizabeth Gilmore Holt, ed., A Documentary History of Art, Volume 1: The Middle Ages and the Renaissance (Doubleday 1957).