Evelyn Sandberg-Vavalà

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Evelyn Sandberg-Vavalà
Born
Evelyn May Graham Sandberg

1888
Died1961
Other namesEvelyn Kendrew
Occupationart historian
Known forstudying iconography of the Italian renaissance
ChildrenJohn Kendrew nobel prize winner for chemistry

Evelyn Sandberg-Vavalà (1888 -1961) also known as Evelyn May Graham Sandberg or Evelyn Kendrew was an art historian[1] who studied iconography in the Italian Renaissance.[1][2] She published a book on Italian Painted Crucifixes and the Iconography of the Passion in 1929,[3] and curated her 25,000 image photographic archive of gothic and renaissance Italian paintings, now in Fondazione Giorgio Cini, Venice.[4]

Education and career[]

Uffizi Gallery, Florence

Sandberg-Vavalà studied geography at Oxford and taught in a girls' grammar school and at a university college before moving to Florence in 1921, where she studied art history under Bernard Berenson.[5]

In 1926, she published her first book in Italian on the Veronese primitive art of the 14th and 15th centuries.[6] Her Italian language book on Italian Painted Crucifixes and the Iconography of the Passion was published in 1929,[3] and another on the iconography of the virgin and child in the 13th century in 1934. Later works included Uffizi Studies: The Development of the Florentine School of Painting (1948),[7] Sienese studies: the development of the school of painting of Siena (1953)[8] and Studies in Florentine Churches (1959).[9]

Sandberg-Vavalà also wrote articles for Burlington Magazine[10] and the Art Bulletin.[11][12][13] She acted as a guide and tutor to students of art in the Uffizzi Gallery and in her home and accompanied them on visits throughout Italy. Although never financially secure, she had collected an archive of images of art works that she shared with her students.[14] She returned to England during World War II and worked for the Oxford University Gramophone Society,[14] which provided a lending library (10,000 classical records per annum). She briefly tutored Henry Clifford, and Marvin Eisenberg, who dedicated a 14th or 15th century choir book page donated to the Michigan Museum of Art in her memory. Her knowledge and teaching were recognised in her obituary in the Burlington Magazine by John Pope-Hennessy[15] and in the London Times by Hugh Honour,[14] and her analysis is still occasionally referenced in the 21st century by art galleries[16] or auctioneers.[17]

Personal life[]

Evelyn May Graham Sandberg was born in Compton district, Wantage, England in 1888. Her father Reverend George Alfred Sandberg (1848-1910) was born in Benares, India, was vicar of St. Mary and St. Nicholas Church, Westhide Parish, and her mother Annie (1858-1894) died when she was six years old, then she and her father moved to Bournemouth.[14] She went to Oxford University, in the Society of Oxford Home Students (later became St. Anne's College), studying geography and geomorphology.[14] She became a geography teacher at Bradford Girls' Grammar School in 1912.[14]

Two years later she married Wilfrid Kendrew and moved to teaching geography at University College, Reading for a male lecturer who was on war service from 1915 to 1916.[14] Her son John Kendrew, later a Nobel prizewinner for chemistry, was born on 24 March 1917.[5] She tried to leave the country with her son, when he was four, but was prevented from doing so by her husband, who formally divorced her in 1921. She moved to Florence, and lived there for 35 years, taking the nom de plume Evelyn Sandberg-Vavalà, apart from a few years during World War II.[14] She reconnected with her son when he was at boarding school and they developed a relationship later in her life, when he visited her in Italy and supported her financially.[5] Sandberg-Vavalà converted to Catholicism and was cared for in her last illness by nuns, dying of lung disease on 8 September 1961. She is buried in the cemetery of Moggiona, Commune di Poppi, Tuscany.[14]

Legacy[]

Fondazioni Giorgio Cini is on San Giorgio Maggiori (image from 1900)

One major Sandberg-Vavalà bequest is an archive of 25,000 of her photographs and other materials which she had personally curated and catalogued, aiming to cover all known gothic and renaissance paintings in Italy. She wrote in July 1961,[18] before she died, proposing to sell this to what became the Fondazioni Giorgio Cini, located on the island of San Giorgio Maggiore, Venice.[4] Professor Ulrich Middledorf dealt with her archive, legal and financial matters to establish this, on Sandberg-Vavalà's death. A section of her collection was also added to Frederico Zeri's photography archive in Bologna, Zeri managed the materials so as to integrate it into his own catalogue, and materials also went to the Kunsthistorisches Institut in Florence.[19]

Selected publications[]

  • Evelyn, Sandberg-Vavalà, (1926). La pittura veronese del trecento e del primo quattrocento. OCLC 860574931[6]
  • Vavalà, Evelyn Sandberg (1929). La croce dipinta italiana e l'iconografia della passione (in Italian). Verona: Casa editrice Apollo. OCLC 988246477[3]
  • "Giovanni di Paolo By John Pope-Hennessey" [1] Evelyn Sandberg Vavalà, [2] Allen Weller, Art Bulletin[11]
  • "L'arte Di Agnolo Gaddi.By Robert Salvini", Evelyn Sandberg Vavalà Art Bulletin[12]
  • "Giovanni Bellini.By Luitpold Düssler", Evelyn Sandberg Vavalà Art Bulletin[13]
  • SANDBERG VAVALÀ, Evelyn (1948). Uffizi Studies. The development of the Florentine school of painting. [With illustrations. Pp. xvi. 304. Leo S. Olschki: Florence. OCLC 504664455.[7]

See also[]

References[]

  1. ^ a b Hofrichter, Frima Fox; Sherman, Claire Richter; Holcomb, Adele M. (1981). "Women as Interpreters of the Visual Arts, 1820-1979". Woman's Art Journal. 2 (2): 37. doi:10.2307/1357985. ISSN 0270-7993. JSTOR 1357985.
  2. ^ "Vavalà, Evelyn Sandberg". Ladis, Andrew. "The Unmaking of a Connoisseur." in, Offner, Richard. A Discerning Eye: Essays on Early Italian Painting. University Park, PA: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1998, p,19, note 1. 21 February 2018. Retrieved 26 November 2021.
  3. ^ a b c Vavalà, Evelyn Sandberg (1929). La croce dipinta italiana e l'iconografia della passione (in Italian). Verona: Casa editrice Apollo. OCLC 988246477.
  4. ^ a b "FONDI FOTOGRAFICI - Evelyn Sandberg Vavalà (1888-1961)" (PDF). FONDAZIONE GIORGIO CINI (in Italian). Retrieved 26 November 2021.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link)
  5. ^ a b c Holmes, K.c. (1 November 2001). "Sir John Cowdery Kendrew. 24 March 1917 – 23 August 1997". Biographical Memoirs of Fellows of the Royal Society. 47: 311–332. doi:10.1098/rsbm.2001.0018. PMID 15124647. S2CID 45061325.
  6. ^ a b Evelyn, Sandberg-Vavalà (1926). La pittura veronese del trecento e del primo quattrocento. OCLC 860574931.
  7. ^ a b SANDBERG VAVALÀ, Evelyn (1948). Uffizi Studies. The development of the Florentine school of painting. [With illustrations. Pp. xvi. 304. Leo S. Olschki: Florence. OCLC 504664455.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location (link)
  8. ^ Sandberg - Valvanà, Evelyn (1953). Sienese Studies: The Development of the School of Painting of Siena.
  9. ^ Vavala, Evelyn Sandberg- (1959). Studies in the Florentine Churches : Part 1. Pre-Renaissance period. Florence: [publisher not identified]. ISBN 88-222-2033-1. OCLC 500277129.
  10. ^ Vavala, Evelyn Sandberg (1938). "Giotto's Workshop". The Burlington Magazine for Connoisseurs. 73 (427): 151–154. ISSN 0951-0788. JSTOR 867488.
  11. ^ a b Vavalà, Evelyn Sandberg; Weller, Allen (March 1938). "Giovanni di Paolo By John Pope-Hennessey: XIV + 208 pp.; 32 Pls. New York, Oxford University Press, 1938". The Art Bulletin. 20 (1): 124–126. doi:10.1080/00043079.1938.11408672. ISSN 0004-3079.
  12. ^ a b Vavalà, Evelyn Sandberg (September 1936). "L'arte Di Agnolo Gaddi. By Robert Salvini: 179 pp.; 40 Illustrations. Florence, 1936". The Art Bulletin. 18 (3): 420–423. doi:10.1080/00043079.1936.11408846. ISSN 0004-3079.
  13. ^ a b Vavalà, Evelyn Sandberg (June 1935). "Giovanni Bellini. By Luitpold Düssler: 160 pp.; 471 ills. Frankfurt-on-Main, 1935". The Art Bulletin. 17 (2): 236–238. doi:10.1080/00043079.1935.11409234. ISSN 0004-3079.
  14. ^ a b c d e f g h i Wassarman, Paul M. (2020). A place in history : the biography of John C. Kendrew. New York, NY. ISBN 978-0-19-973204-3. OCLC 1135937369.
  15. ^ Pope-Hennessy, John (1961). "Mrs Evelyn Sandberg-Vavala". The Burlington Magazine. 103 (704): 466–469. ISSN 0007-6287. JSTOR 873483.
  16. ^ "Master of the Franciscan Crucifixes". National Gallery of Art. 21 March 2016. Retrieved 26 November 2021.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link)
  17. ^ "The Master of San Torpé* (14th Century)". www.christies.com. Retrieved 26 November 2021.
  18. ^ "Fondo Sandberg Vavalà - Institute of Art History - Archivio digitale della Fondazione Giorgio Cini Onlus". archivi.cini.it. Retrieved 30 November 2021.
  19. ^ Marano, Valentina (2012). "The Evelyn Sandberg Vavalà Fund - Fondazione Zeri". fondazionezeri.unibo.it (in Italian). Retrieved 30 November 2021.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link)

External links[]

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