New York University. Institute of Fine Arts Search this
Extent:
0.6 Linear feet
Type:
Collection descriptions
Archival materials
Date:
circa 1942-2011
Scope and Contents:
Teaching material, correspondence, writings, and photographs.
Teaching material includes lecture notes, lecture outlines, and writings from Ackerman's graduate student years at the New York University Institute of Fine Arts, ca. 1942-1950. Included are notes from courses given by Henry Russell Hitchcock, R. Krautheimer, Erwin Panofsky, Meyer Shapiro, Dimitri Tselos, and Martin Weinberger, mimeographed lecture outlines of various courses, and a 1 p. Christmas skit by graduates of the Institute.
Correspondence is with friends and includes emails. Writings include a notebook of commentary on works of art and architecture kept by Ackerman while he traveled in France and Italy in 1948, other travel notes and excerpts from diaries. Also included is a copy of "Shooting Palladio," Ackerman's account of the filming of "Palladio: the Architect and his Influence in America," based on a diary kept from 1977-1980, and a list created by Ackerman of drawings by Andrew Jackson Davis at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Photographs are of works of art and one photograph is of Ackerman with others.
Biographical / Historical:
James S. Ackerman (1919- 2016) was an architectural historian in Cambridge, Mass. Ackerman was born in San Francisco and received his undergraduate training at Yale, and his M.A. (1947) and Ph.D. (1952) at NYU's Institute of Fine Arts. His studies were interrupted by his Army service in Italy during WWII, where he volunteered for the Monuments and Fine Arts service recovering the archives of the palace of Milan, which led to his Ph.D. study of Milanese Renaissance architecture. He taught at the University of California, Berkeley, 1952-1960, and at Harvard from 1961.
Related Materials:
Papers of James S. Ackerman, 1963-1975, are also located at Harvard University Archives.
Provenance:
Donated 1990, 1996 and 2011 by James Ackerman.
Restrictions:
Use of original papers requires an appointment and is limited to the Archives' Washington, D.C., Research Center. Contact Reference Services for more information.
