author
Harry B. (Harry Brandeis) Wehle
1887–1969
Best known for bringing paintings and portrait miniatures to life for general readers, this American museum curator wrote with the eye of a scholar and the clarity of a guide. His books opened doors into the collections of the Metropolitan Museum of Art and helped shape how many readers first met European and American art.
1 Audiobook
Handbook of the Minneapolis Institute of Arts With 143 Illustrations
by Joseph Breck, Harry B. (Harry Brandeis) Wehle
About the author
Born in Louisville, Kentucky, on November 6, 1887, Harry Brandeis Wehle became an American art historian and museum curator whose career was closely tied to the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. Reliable reference sources identify him as a curator of European painting there, and archival records describe him as a curator in the museum's Department of Paintings.
Wehle wrote and edited a number of art books and catalogues, including American Miniatures, 1730–1850, a widely noted study of early American portrait miniatures. He also worked on catalogues of paintings in the Met's collection and published writing on artists such as Francisco Goya and Samuel F. B. Morse, combining careful research with an accessible style.
His surviving papers in the Archives of American Art show him corresponding with curators, museum directors, and other figures in the art world, which gives a sense of how active he was in museum scholarship. Wehle died in New York in December 1969, leaving behind a body of writing that still appears in library catalogues and museum references.