Helen Gardner graduated from the University of Chicago in 1901 with an AB degree with honors in Lati
Helen Gardner graduated from the University of Chicago in 1901 with an AB degree with honors in Latin and Greek, and went on to earn a Masters Degree in art history at the University in 1917.In 1919 Helen was appointed head of the photograph and lantern slide department at the Ryerson Library of the Art Institute of Chicago. The following year she was invited to teach the first art history survey course at the School of the Art Institute, where she remained an immensely popular professor until 1942.In her first book, Art through the Ages, (1926) Gardner aimed to teach the readers/students to analyze the universal design elements inherent in each work, offering a key with which to open up an understanding and appreciation of art from all cultures and historic periods.Gardner’s aesthetic theory gained popular support both inside and outside the classroom. Her aesthetic theory, which validated modern and non-Western Art, influenced the entire field of art history. Frequently revised, Art Through the Ages remains a standard textbook at American schools and universities. In 1943 Helen Gardner took an extended leave in order to write the 2nd edition of Art through the Ages. Illness prevented her return to the classrooms of the Art Institute but she remained involved in an advisory capacity. Helen Gardner died of breast and spinal cancer, in 1946, at age 68. When the reading room was restored in 1993, Helen Gardner’s name was added to the names of sixteen writers in the fields of art and architecture that appear below the skylight. Her desk sits in the west alcove of the reading room.Here you see Gardner’s photograph from the 1925 edition of The Bronze Lion, the yearbook of the School of the Art Institute; Gardner’s name in the reading room; the imprint page from the 1926 first edition of Art Through the Ages; the current edition of this work from our reference stacks; and Helen Gardner’s desk. -- source link
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