Background
James Joseph Rorimer was born in Cleveland, Ohio, the son of Louis Rorimer, an interior designer and decorator, and Edith Joseph. He absorbed his father's interest in the fine arts early.
curator museum director collector scholars
James Joseph Rorimer was born in Cleveland, Ohio, the son of Louis Rorimer, an interior designer and decorator, and Edith Joseph. He absorbed his father's interest in the fine arts early.
"I was a woodcarver before I was a Boy Scout, " he told a reporter, and at age nine, he enrolled in a course on medieval armor. With his father's encouragement, Rorimer learned the rudiments of architectural design and drawing. Rorimer received most of his basic education at Cleveland's University School. In 1921 he went to Europe with his parents for a two-year stay. He attended the Ecole Gory in Paris and toured historic buildings and museums.
The fourteenth-century Apocalypse tapestries at the Chateau d'Angers inspired him to make the study of medieval art his vocation. He also became a knowledgeable collector of candlesticks. Rorimer returned to the United States in 1922 to resume courses at the University School. From 1923 to 1927 he attended Harvard University, from which he graduated cum laude.
In the summer of 1927, he joined the staff of New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art as an assistant in its Decorative Arts Department. With a well-trained eye and dedication to his work, Rorimer became a central figure in planning the Cloisters, a facility to house a large portion of the Metropolitan's medieval collections. Working closely with that project's benefactor, John D. Rockefeller, Jr. , he eventually revised the original conception of this building and undertook the daily supervision of its construction. Completed in 1938, the Cloisters owed its authentically medieval architectural character to Rorimer. Rorimer also explored the application of ultraviolet light to the problems of art authentication and conservation. His Ultraviolet Rays and Their Use in the Examination of Works of Art (1931) was for many years a definitive reference on the subject. Rorimer was promoted to the position of full curator in the Department of Medieval Art in 1934. An adept fund-raiser and a discerning and aggressive collector, he caused the medieval collections to make enormous strides in quality and quantity, and the Cloisters became one of the most distinguished museums of its kind in the world. Numbered among Rorimer's greatest acquisitions were the Unicorn and Nine Heroes tapestries, a monastery chapter house, and a Romanesque chapel. In the early 1950's, Rorimer also influenced John D. Rockefeller, Jr. , to endow the Cloisters with a $10 million fund. In 1943, Rorimer enlisted in the army as a private. He was soon detailed to a division in Europe charged with protecting art treasures and archives from the ravages of World War II. By 1945, he had risen to captain's rank and was serving as chief of the American Seventh Army's Monuments, Fine Arts, and Archives Section, which uncovered art that had been confiscated by the Germans. His memoir Survival: The Salvage and Protection of Art in War (1950) relates his efforts to track down lost masterpieces. In 1946, Rorimer resumed his duties at the Metropolitan, where in 1949 he became director of the Cloisters while still retaining his position as chief curator of medieval collections. In 1955 he succeeded Francis Henry Taylor in the Metropolitan's directorship. Physical facilities underwent extensive renovation and expansion, exhibitions felt the impact of Rorimer's flair for highlighting objects and his eye for detail, endowments grew substantially, and major acquisitions became frequent. Among the most notable additions to the Metropolitan's collections during Rorimer's directorship were Raphael's Madonna of the Meadows, Robert Campin's Annunciation altarpiece, and Rembrandt's Aristotle Contemplating the Bust of Homer. By the time he died in New York City, Rorimer had nearly doubled the Metropolitan's annual visitorship and increased its exhibition space by 40 percent.
(THE METROPOLITAN MUSEUM OF ART; A PICTURE BOOK)
(Gorgeous color plates)
(PB book)
Quotations: "I was a woodcarver before I was a Boy Scout, " he told a reporter
A showman who relished the spotlight, a dogged collector, and a perfectionist, he influenced all phases of the Metropolitan's endeavors.
On November 26, 1942, he married Katherine Serrell; they had two children.