Arthur Kingsley Porter employer Harvard University
Arthur Kingsley Porter (1883–1933) was an American archaeologist, art historian, and medievalist. He was chair of Harvard University’s art history department, and was the first American scholar of Romanesque architecture to achieve international recognition. Porter disappeared in 1933. His most significant scholarly contributions were his revolutionary studies and insights into the spread of Romanesque sculpture. His study of Lombard architecture also remains the first in its class. He left his Cambridge mansion, Elmwood, to Harvard University, where it has served as the official residence of Harvard's president since 1970.Yale and Harvard professorships
Porter taught as a lecturer at Yale University in 1915, and was named Assistant Professor in the History of Art in 1917. In January 1916, he proposed giving the University $500,000 ($12 million in 2017 dollars) in order to establish a department of art history. Porter laid out the very specific purposes for which the money was to be used
[t]o provide salaries for professors or instructors in the history of art in the academic department, as might be required. To provide for the running and overhead expenses of such a department, the purchases of equipment, slides, photographs, books, etc. Any residue to be used for the purchase of additional works of art to add to the collection of the Art School, and for the proper maintenance and housing of the same.
The University declined the offer, which could only be used for the purposes he set out.
Porter became frustrated at Yale's lack of openness to having a full department dedicated to the study of the history of art and architecture. In 1918 he left Yale to lead architectural preservation efforts by the French government caused by war damage and was the only American invited to join said commission.Porter began teaching at Harvard University in 1921. He and his wife bought Cambridge mansion Elmwood that same year. He was appointed to the newly established William Dorr Boardman Memorial Professorship of Fine Arts in January 1925. In 1923 and 1924 he taught as an exchange professor in France and visiting professor Spain. Porter taught at Harvard until his disappearance in 1933.
Porter left Elmwood to Harvard University in his will, as well as a trust for its maintenance. His widow, Lucy, left the University an additional $1,000,000 in her will ($9 million in 2017 dollars) to endow a chair to be called the A Kingsley Porter Chair Professorship. The medievalist Ernst Kitzinger was appointed in 1967 as the chair's first professor.
boss supervisor manager chief director