Fiske (Sidney) Kimball (1888 – 1955) was an American architect, architectural historian and museum director.
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Kimball was born in Newton, Massachusetts on December 8, 1888.
He was educated at Harvard University, where he took both his Bachelors and Masters degrees in Architecture. He had teaching posts at the Universities of Illinois and Michigan, before being appointed to head the Department of Art and Architecture at the University of Virginia in 1919.
In 1923, he established the Institute of Fine Arts at New York University In 1925, he was appointed as Director of the Philadelphia Museum of Art where he served until his retirement in January, 1955.
Kimball was a pioneer in the field of architectural preservation in the United States. As an architect, he played a leading part in the restoration of Monticello and Stratford Hall Plantation in Virginia. Kimball also designed his own home, Shack Mountain, in Albemarle County, Virginia, not from far Monticello.[1]
Kimball used Jefferson's architectural principles as the basis of his design of Shack Mountain, short for Shackelford Mountain, the surname of a branch of Jefferson's descendants. Built in 1935-1936, Shack Mountain is a Jefferson-style pavilion, like Monticello, that is considered Kimball's masterpiece.[2][3] Kimball advised on the restoration of Colonial Williamsburg as well. Shack Mountain was designated a National Historic Landmark in 1992.[4]
Kimball's wife Marie Goebel Kimball (1889–1955), the winner of two Guggenheim Fellowships, served as Monticello's first curator. She also wrote a three-volume biography of Jefferson.[5]
Fiske Kimball died in Munich, Germany on August 14, 1955. He is buried, along with his wife, at Monticello Memorial Gardens on Monticello Mountain, about a mile from Jefferson's Monticello.
He is commemorated by the Fiske Kimball Fine Arts Library at the University of Virginia.