author
Frank Jewett Mather
1868–1953
A pioneering American art critic and teacher, he helped bring a more modern outlook to the study of art in the United States. His writing and teaching connected scholarly art history with the wider public at a moment when museums, criticism, and universities were all changing fast.
3 Audiobooks
The Collectors: Being Cases mostly under the Ninth and Tenth Commandments
by Frank Jewett Mather
A history of Italian painting
by Frank Jewett Mather
The Mentor: Two Early German Painters, Dürer and Holbein, Vol. 1, Num. 48, Serial No. 48
by Frank Jewett Mather
About the author
Born in Deep River, Connecticut, in 1868, Frank Jewett Mather Jr. became one of the best-known American voices in art criticism and art history of his time. He studied at Williams College and earned a Ph.D. from Johns Hopkins, then continued his training in Europe before beginning an academic career.
Mather taught at Williams College and later joined Princeton University, where he became a professor of art and archaeology and is remembered as the department's first modernist-minded professor. He also played an important role in Princeton's museum life, serving as the first director of the Museum of Historic Art, now the Princeton University Art Museum.
Alongside his university work, he wrote extensively as an art critic and editor, helping introduce broader audiences to serious discussion of painting and visual culture. His career joined scholarship, teaching, and public criticism in a way that made him an important bridge between the classroom, the museum, and the newspaper page.