Norbert Lynton: Art historian and critic who directed the Hayward Gallery in its heyday and later taught at Sussex (Obit.)
Norbert Casper Loewenstein (Norbert Lynton); art historian and arts administrator: born Berlin 22 September 1927; Lecturer in History of Art and Architecture, Leeds College of Art 1950-61; Senior Lecturer, then Head of Department of Art History and General Studies, Chelsea School of Art 1961-70; London Correspondent, Art International 1961-66; Art Critic, The Guardian 1965-70; Director of Exhibitions, Arts Council of Great Britain 1970-75; Professor of the History of Art, Sussex University 1975-89 (Emeritus); Trustee, National Portrait Gallery 1985-99; Chairman, Charleston Trust 1998-2006; OBE 2006; married 1949 Janet Irving (died 2004; two sons; marriage dissolved 1968), 1969 Sylvia Towning (two sons); died Brighton 30 October 2007.
In an unpublished interview in 1998, the art historian Norbert Lynton remarked that "to learn about art from living artists, and to watch them, hear them discussing their work and watch them working, trying to understand why the painting they did yesterday annoys them so much today . . . was so refreshing".
Although he had studied for two BAs, the first at Birkbeck, where he was taught by Niklaus Pevsner on whose Buildings of England series he subsequently worked, and the second at the Courtauld Institute, it was equally from artists that Norbert Lynton learned how to look at art. His was a practical, empirical formation as much as an academic one, that laid the foundations for a career as art critic, Director of Exhibitions at the Arts Council and finally Professor of the History of Art at Sussex University.
Lynton began in the early 1950s teaching the history of architecture at the School of Architecture in Leeds, moving across to the School of Art as soon as he could in 1955. There, under the direction of Harry Thubron, whose classes Lynton had previously attended, his eyes were opened to modern art....
Read entire article at Independent (UK)
In an unpublished interview in 1998, the art historian Norbert Lynton remarked that "to learn about art from living artists, and to watch them, hear them discussing their work and watch them working, trying to understand why the painting they did yesterday annoys them so much today . . . was so refreshing".
Although he had studied for two BAs, the first at Birkbeck, where he was taught by Niklaus Pevsner on whose Buildings of England series he subsequently worked, and the second at the Courtauld Institute, it was equally from artists that Norbert Lynton learned how to look at art. His was a practical, empirical formation as much as an academic one, that laid the foundations for a career as art critic, Director of Exhibitions at the Arts Council and finally Professor of the History of Art at Sussex University.
Lynton began in the early 1950s teaching the history of architecture at the School of Architecture in Leeds, moving across to the School of Art as soon as he could in 1955. There, under the direction of Harry Thubron, whose classes Lynton had previously attended, his eyes were opened to modern art....