James S. Ackerman
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James Sloss Ackerman (born 1919) is a prominent American architectural historian, a major scholar of Michelangelo's architecture, of Palladio and of Italian Renaissance architectural theory.
He was born in San Francisco to a wealthy family of German-Jewish descent who traveled in Europe. At Yale, 1938-41, he came under the charismatic influence of Henri Focillon. His graduate work at the Institute of Fine Arts, New York University (MA 1947, PhD 1952), was interrupted by his World War II service in the US Army in Italy, which, however, gave him an opportuniuty to increase his on-site understanding of Italian Renaissance architecture, his specialty. He was assigned to retrieve the archives secured at the Certosa di Pavia. He was a Fellow at the american Academy in Rome (1949-52). He taught at Berkeley and at Harvard as Arthur Kingsley Porter Professor of Fine Arts until his retirement in 1990. He was the editor of The Art Bulletin (1956-60) and Annali d'architettura; Ackerman is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and a corresponding member of the British Academy, the Accademia Olimpica, Vicenza, the Ateneo Veneto, the Accademia di San Luca in Rome and the Royal Academy of Uppsala. He gave the Slade Lectures at Cambridge in 1969-70. He has received five honorary doctorates and is a Grand Officer of the Order of Merit of the Italian Republic.
His rigorous method sets architecture in the broader contexts of cultural and intellectual history. He was awarded the International Balzan Prize 2001 for achievement in architectural history and urbanism and the Paul Kristeller citation 2001 of the Renaissance Society of America for lifetime achievement.
Ackerman conceived and narrated the films Looking for Renaissance Rome (1975, with Kathleen Weil-Garris Brandt) and Palladio the Architet and His Influence in America (1980).
[edit] Selected publication
Aside from numerous articles, Ackerman has written
- The Cortile del Belvedere (1954) This was the result of his PhD dissertation.
- The Architecture of Michelangelo (1961; 1986) Ackerman covers the examples, followedc by Michelangelo's architectural drawings, and his theory and practice, followed by an exhaustive catalogue of Michelangelo's works in architecture. The work received the Hitchcock Award of the Society of Architectural Historians.
- Palladio (series "Architect and Society") Pelican Books (1966; 1977) An introductory chapter "Palladio and his times" is followed by chapters discussing the examples of Palladio's forms, the villa, and civic and domestic architecture, ecclesiastical architecture, and principoles of Palladio's design and practice.
- Palladio's Villas (1967)
- The Villa: Form and Ideology of Country Houses (1990)
- James Ackerman Art Historian, 1992, book length interview for the Getty Foundation and U.C.L.A.
- Distance Points: Studies in Theory and Renaissance Art and Architecture MIT Press (1991) Seven essays divided between the theory of criticism and the relation of architecture and science in the Renaissance, with individual studies of Leon Battista Alberti and Leonardo.
- Origins, Imitation, Conventions: Representation in the Visual Arts MIT Press (2002) Twelve essays.
