Name Philip Conisbee | ||
Died January 16, 2008, Washington, United States Books Painting in eighteenth-century France, In the light of Italy People also search for Gary Tinterow, Sjraar Heugten, Sarah Faunce, Colin Bailey, Mary Levkoff, Richard Rand, William Kloss | ||
Philip Conisbee (January 3, 1946 – January 16, 2008) was a British-American curator for the American National Gallery of Art.
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Life
Philip was born in Belfast, the son of Paul Conisbee, but raised in London, being educated at St Dunstan's College in Catford before earning a BA in European Art at the Courtauld Institute in 1968.
Continuing in academia he received a doctorate for his thesis on the French landscape artist Claude Joseph Vernet in 1971. From 1971 to 1986 he lectured at Leicester University. He then moved to America to act as Curator of French Art at the Museum of Fine Art in Boston.
He befriended Earl Powell III and moved to California to work with him at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art in 1988. Powell moved to Washington in 1992 and asked Conisbee to join him the following year.
He became a US citizen in 1994.
He rose to be Curator of the National Gallery of Art in Washington D.C. In 1998 he organised one of the country's most successful exhibitions:Van Gogh's Van Gogh.
In 2003 the French government awarded him Chevalier de la Legion d'Honneur.
He died of lung cancer in Georgetown, near Washington D.C. but is buried in Highgate Cemetery in north London.
Family
Conisbee first married Susan Baer, with whom he had two children. Following divorce he married Faya Causey, who survived him.
Selected publications
see