Meyer Schapiro

Schapiro spent his entire working career at Columbia. In 1928, he began teaching as a lecturer, before completing his dissertation. In 1936, he became assistant professor. In 1946, he became associate professor. In 1952, he became a full professor. In 1965, he was named University Professor. He became University Professor Emeritus in 1973. His final, weekly class at Columbia was "Theory and Methods of Investigation in Art."[2]

He lectured at New York University (1932-1936), the New School for Social Research (1936-1952), Harvard University as the Charles Norton Lecturer (1966-1967), and Oxford University as Slade Professor of Art (1968). He was a visiting lecturer at the College de France in Paris in May 1974.[2]

Schapiro partook in the First American Artists' Congress Against War and Fascism in 1935, which produced a petition signed by more than 300 artists including co-founders Stuart Davis, Adolph Dehn, William Gropper, Hugo Gellert, Saul Schary, and Moses Soyer as well as fellow artists Milton Avery, Ilya Bolotowsky, Alexander Calder, Adolph Gottlieb, Jack Kufeld, Yasuo Kuniyoshi, J. B. Neumann, Isamu Noguchi, Ben Shahn, Raphael Soyer, James Johnson Sweeney, Max Weber, George Biddle, Paul Cadmus, Philip Evergood, Lorser Feitelson, and Lewis Mumford. Schapiro and Gottlieb publicly resigned within the month when the congress failed to condemn the Soviet invasion of Finland.[8] Schapiro and other dissenters including Mark Rothko, Gottlieb, Harris, and Bolotowsky condemned dictatorships in Germany, Russia, Italy, Spain and Japan and founded a Cultural Committee which became the Federation of Modern Painters and Sculptors.[9]

Schapiro was a proponent of modern art, and published books on Van Gogh and Cézanne and various essays on modern art. He was a founder of Dissent, along with Irving Howe and Michael Harrington. From 1966–1967 Schapiro was the Norton professor at Harvard University.

Schapiro's discourse on style is often considered his greatest contribution to the study of art history. According to Schapiro, style refers to the formal qualities and visual characteristics of a piece of art. Schapiro demonstrated that style could be used not only as an identifier of a particular period but also as a diagnostic tool. Style is indicative of the artist and the culture at large. It reflects the economic and social circumstances in which an artist works and breathes and reveals underlying cultural assumptions and normative values. On the other hand, our own descriptions of form and style indicate our period, our concerns, and our biases; the way art historians of a particular age talk about style is also indicative of their cultural context.

In the 1940s, when the Museum of Modern Art looked at purchasing Jackson Pollock's The She-Wolf (1943), Schapiro, as an acquisitions committee member, supported its acquisition.[10]

In the 1950s, Schapiro urged Willem de Kooning to finish painting Woman I (1950-1952).[10]

Schapiro was, at points in his career, criticized for his approach to style because of its politically radical connotations. Schapiro himself wrote scholarly articles for a variety of socialist publications and endeavored to apply a novel Marxist method to the study of art history. In his most famous essay on Medieval Spanish art, "From Mozarabic to Romanesque in Silos,"[11] Schapiro demonstrated how the concurrent existence of two historical styles in one monastery was indicative of economic upheaval and class conflict.

Schapiro's students include:

• Sigmund Abeles
• Jonathan Crary
• Helen Frankenthaler
• Peter Golfinopoulos
• Michael Hafftka
• Carroll Janis
• Allan Kaprow
• Hilton Kramer
• Robert Motherwell
• Dorothy Miner
• David Rosand
• William Rubin
• Lucas Samaras
• Virginia Wright
• Barbara Rose

Alice Neel painted his portrait in 1947[12] and 1983.[13] (Schapiro portrayed himself many times, including this young image.[14])

• Vincent van Gogh. New York: Harry N. Abrams, 1950 and reprints.
• Paul Cézanne. New York: Harry N. Abrams, 1952 and reprints.
• The Parma Ildefonsus: A Romanesque Illuminated Manuscript from Cluny, and Related Works. New York: College Art Association of America, 1964.
• Words and Pictures. On the Literal and the Symbolic in the Illustration of a Text. Approaches to Semiotics series 11, ed. Thomas A Sebeok. The Hague and Paris: Mouton, 1973.
• Selected Papers I: Romanesque Art. New York: George Braziller, 1977.
  • Translations:
    • Italian, Romanica (Turin: Giulio Einaudi, 1982).
    • Spanish, Estudios sobre el Romanica (Madrid: Aliana Editorial, 1984).
    • German, Romanische Kunst Ausgewahlte Schriften (Cologne: Dumont Verlag, 1987).
• Selected Papers II: Modern Art: 19th and 20th Centuries. New York: George Braziller, 1978, 1982.
  • Translations:
    • Swedish, Modern Konst-1800-talet och 1900-talet - Valda Studier, 1981
    • German, Moderne Kunst-19.und 20. Jahrhundert-Ausgewahlte Aufsatze (Cologne: DuMont Buchverlag, 1982).
    • Italian, L'Arte Moderna (Turin: Giulio Einaudi Editore, n.d.).
    • Spanish, El Arte Moderno (Madrid: Alianza Editorial, S.A., 1988).
• Selected Papers III: Late Antique, Early Christian, and Medieval Art. New York: George Braziller, 1979.
  • Translations:
    • Spanish, Estudios sobre el arte de la Antiguedad Tardia, el Cristianismo Primitivo y la Edad Media (Madrid: Aliana Editorial, 1987).
• Style, Artiste et Societe, trans. Blaise Allan et. a. Paris: Editions Gallimard, 1982.
• The Romanesque Sculpture of Moissac. New York: George Braziller, 1985.(Reprint of Schapiro's dissertation originally published in Art Bulletin. Includes photographs by David Finn)
• Selected Papers IV: Theory and Philosophy of Art: Style, Artist, and Society. George Brailler, 1994.
• Mondrian: On the Humanity of Abstract Painting. New York; George Braziller, 1995.
• Meyer Schapiro : the bibliography / compiled by Lillian Milgram Schapiro. New York : G. Braziller, 1995.
• Words, Script, and Pictures: The Semiotics of Visual Language. New York: George Braziller, 1996.
• Impressionism: Reflections and Perceptions. New York George Braziller, 1997.
• A kind of rapture / Robert Bergman; introduction by Toni Morrison; afterword by Meyer Schapiro. New York: Pantheon Books, 1998.
• Worldview in Painting—Art and Society: Selected Papers, Vol. 5. New York: George Braziller, 1999.
• The Unity of Picasso's Art. New York: George Braziller, 2000.
• Meyer Schapiro : his painting, drawing, and sculpture. New York : Harry N. Abrams, Publishers, 2000.
• Language of Forms: Lectures on Insular Manuscript Art. New York: Pierpont Morgan Library, 2005.
• Romanesque architectural sculpture: The Charles Eliot Norton lectures. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2006.
• Meyer Schapiro abroad : letters to Lillian and travel notebooks. Los Angeles, Calif. : Getty Research Institute, c2009.

Schapiro wrote some articles under assumed names.[17]

• "The Nerve of Sidney Hook" (as "David Merian") Partisan Review (1943)[18]

Romanesque architectural sculpture

• Sauerländer, Willibald (June 28, 2007). "The artist historian". The New York Review of Books. 54 (11): 55–57, 61–62.