Ingalls Library & Museum Archives

Hailed by Christies as the world’s most valuable private art collection to be sold at auction, the collection of the late couture fashion designer Yves Saint Laurent and his partner Pierre Bergé is spectacular.  Browsing the pages is like a walk in a museum hung with paintings immediately recognizable and iconic, yet completely new to your eyes.  The highlights of the paintings catalogs read like a dictionary of art, works by Picasso, Matisse, Cezanné, Hals, Gericault, Warhol, and others.  The decorative objects mix highlights of several centuries in a single room.  And a collection of sculpture and objects that are as various as they are beautiful.  The catalog is five volumes, and is highlighted with thorough research as well as photographs of the gentlemen at home with their collection.  In the words of Laurent, the catalog is ravishing.

Newly added to the Library’s electronic resources list is the Dictionary of Art Historians.  This source serves as a starting point for researching major figures in art history, both active and inactive.  As explained in the information page, it is a work in progress.  But for its part, it provides ample background into the academic training and methodology of the entries, for example here is a selection from the the entry on Panofsky, “Though Panofsky is considered the “ur-iconologist,” his methodology was diverse and is difficult to summarize.  Primarily a scholar of medieval and northern Renaissance art, he is most frequently associated with the concept of iconography, matching the subject-matter of works of art to a symbolic syntax of meaning drawn from literature and other art works.”  Each entry includes relevant dates and locations, as well as extensive bibliography where applicable.