Location
Age
Area of FocusAbout Kirk's Work
Kirk Varnedoe was an art historian and a curator who specialized in nineteenth- and twentieth-century art.
As an art historian, Varnedoe attempted to understand the conditions within which a work of art was created, and to recognize it as a product of multiple forces. One of his major aims was to reconsider the technological and exotic influences on the formation of modern art. His curatorial contributions included the Museum of Modern Art’s exhibitions: “Vienna 1900: Art, Architecture, and Design,” “Cy Twombly: A Retrospective,” “Primitivism in Twentieth-Century Art: Affinity of the Tribal and the Modern,” which he prepared with William Rubin, and “High and Low: Modern Art and Popular Culture,” which he co-directed with Adam Gopnik. He is the author of A Fine Disregard: What Makes Modern Art Modern(1990) and of numerous other books and articles.
Biography
Varnedoe was a professor of the history of art at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, New Jersey (2001-03). Previously, he was the chief curator of the Department of Painting and Sculpture at the Museum of Modern Art (1988-2001). He was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1993.
Varnedoe received a B.A. (1967) from Williams College, and an M.A. (1970) and Ph.D. (1972) from Stanford University.
Last updated January 1, 2005.
Published on November 1, 1984
