T 2-6
Richard Mann is a leading international authority on El Greco (Domenikos Theotokopoulos, 1541-1614), and he has been particularly interested in ways that El Greco’s bold and innovative paintings intersect with diverse aspects of European cultural, spiritual, and political history. The revised edition of El Greco y sus patronos (Madrid, 2001) was described by the newspaper El Pais as “one of the most significant books ever published on a complex and tumultuous period of our national history.” This book was the first comprehensive study of El Greco’s interactions with his Spanish patrons. Mann’s work on El Greco was honored with the Delno C. West Award of the Rocky Mountain Medieval and Renaissance Association (2001).
He also has investigated Goya, Gaudí, and other Spanish artists. His publications include Spanish Paintings of the Fifteenth through Nineteenth Centuries, catalogue for National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC and European Paintings Outside Italy Before 1600, Catalogue of the Paintings Collection of the Art Institute of Chicago.
In the course of his research, Mann has become intrigued by the diverse ways in which El Greco has been constructed – ranging from religious mystic and madman to modernist icon. Therefore, he is currently writing a book that explores how and why El Greco’s works have been interpreted in so many different ways by viewers both in his lifetime and in the four centuries since his death. In this project, he is considering not only scholarly commentaries but also films and other popular sources. In to addition to explaining the enduring popularity of El Greco, Mann hopes that this book will contribute more generally to understanding of the construction and of artist’s biographies in the western world.
In addition, with the collaboration of conservators and curators at numerous museums, Mann is working on a new comprehensive catalogue of El Greco. This catalogue will include many new attributions and will explain how his bold visual language synthesized Greek Byzantine and western European Renaissance artistic conventions.
Education
- Ph.D., Institute of Fine Arts, NYU
- M.A., University of Minnesota, Minneapolis
