Reframing S.F. Kimball

SAH Virtual Conference 2024

September 21st 2024
12:00PM - 1:50 pm Chicago Time (GMT-5)
Online

Throughout his life, Sydney Fiske Kimball liked to present himself as “a student of problems.” A prolific historian, curator, designer, educator, and institution-builder, Kimball faced and overcame a number of obstacles in his long and multifaceted career. The financial and socio-political ramifications of the Great Depression and the Second World War, the often explosive, interpersonal dynamics of donors, dealers and governance bodies in early twentieth-century Philadelphia, and the amusing riddles presented by disorganized archives on both sides of the Atlantic, are only some of the hurdles traced by the growing scholarship on his life and work.

Seventy years after his death, this session aspires to further interest in Kimball’s legacy, paying attention not only to unexplored frictions and accomplishments of his career, but also to the historiographical and ideological complications that arise when these problems converge with the limitations of biography as a genre. Bringing together for the first time perspectives from different aspects of Kimball’s career, this panel situates his work within larger institutional and disciplinary frameworks, casting light on the ways in which individual agency interacts with collective knowledge production in the archive, and beyond.

Marie Frank (UMass Lowell), currently working on the first monograph on Kimball, delves into the interplay between his personal life and professional persona, offering new insights into the construction of his authorial voice and legacy. Charles L. Davis II (UT Austin) investigates Kimball's engagement with anthropological societies and ethnographic frameworks, revealing how these interdisciplinary connections shaped his approach to American architecture. Maarten Delbeke (gta/ETH) reassesses Kimball's work on French decorative arts, problematizing its postwar reception and the role of national identity in shaping architectural discourse. Finally, Jean-François Bédard (Syracuse) sheds light on Kimball’s curatorial and acquisition practices as a director at the Philadelphia Museum of Arts.

Session Chair:

Demetra Vogiatzaki, ETH Zurich, Switzerland

Papers and Presenters:

• Fiske Kimball: Biography and Autobiography, Marie Frank, University of Massachusetts Lowell, USA
• Sydney Fiske Kimball and the Settler Colonial Imaginary, Charles L. Davis II, University of Texas at Austin, USA
• Le baroque et les bons allemands. The Frenchness of Rococo after WWII, Maarten Delbeke, ETH Zurich, Switzerland
• Fiske Kimball and the Aesthetics of the Period Room, Jean-François Bédard, Syracuse University, USA