Seymour Slive


Seymour Slive was an American art historian, who served as director of the Harvard Art Museums from 1975 to 1984. Slive was a scholar of Dutch art, specifically of the artists Rembrandt, Frans Hals, and Jacob van Ruisdael.

Early life and education

A Chicago native and the son of Russian-Jewish immigrants Daniel and Sophia Rapoport, Slive received his bachelor's degree in 1943 and DPhil in 1952, both from the University of Chicago. He served in the United States Navy Reserve during World War II, starting in his junior year of college, and was on active duty in the Pacific Theater from 1942 to 1946.

Career

Slive was appointed to his first teaching position at Oberlin College in 1950, but soon moved on to Pomona College, where he became an assistant professor of art and chair of department from 1952 to 1954. While there, he published his first book, Rembrandt and His Critics, 1630–1730. In 1954, he joined Harvard University, where he became a full professor in 1961. In 1960, was the first American professor to lecture in Russia under a Cold War exchange agreement. He was appointed chair of the Department of Fine Arts in 1968, remaining in the post until 1971. In 1973, Slive was appointed Gleason Professor of Fine Arts and later concurrently became Director of the University's Harvard Art Museums in 1975. He was the founding director during the creation and expansion of the Arthur M. Sackler Museum. He retired from Harvard in 1991 as emeritus professor and as the Elizabeth and John Moore Cabot Founding Director of the Harvard University Art Museums. A Festschrift containing 69 essays by his students was compiled and presented in his honor on his seventy-fifth birthday in 1995.

Awards and honors