Richard Martin

Background

Richard Martin was born on December 4, 1946, in Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania, United States. He was a son of Frank Harrison and Margaret Dever Martin.

Education

Richard Martin studied at Swarthmore College where he received a Bachelor of Arts degree in 1967. He also attended Columbia University where he received a Master of Arts degree in 1969 and a Master of Philosophy degree in 1971.

Career

Richard Martin started his career as an instructor at William Paterson University in 1972. In 1973, he left this post and became a professor at Fashion Institute of Technology where he worked until 1991. He also worked as a professor of art history at the School of Visual Arts from 1975 to 1980. Martin was an editor of such magazines as Arts Magazine and Dress. He also was a curator of costumes for the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City. As a curator, he was known for organizing fashion exhibitions, such as The East Village, Fashion and Surrealism, Undercover Story, and Three Women: Madeleine Vionnet, Claire McCardell, Rei Kawakubo.

Richard Martin published his first book, American Ingenuity: Sportswear, 1930S-1970s, in 1985. He also wrote such books as Fashion & Surrealism, Jocks & Nerds: Men's Style in the Twentieth Century, The Fashion Book and co-authored others. He authored numerous papers on artistry in fashion and wrote over 100 scholarly papers on a wide range of subjects, such as Art History and the Assimilation of Images by Contemporary Artist.

Achievements

• Richard Martin was an American educator, editor, writer, and curator who was famous for his books about fashion. His most popular books are Fashion & Surrealism, The Fashion Book, American Ingenuity: Sportswear.
  
  Richard Martin was a curator of the Costume Institute at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. The exhibitions that Richard Martin organized were given a special award from the Council of Fashion Designers of America. In 1996, he received the CFDA Fashion Award.

Works

More photos

• book

  • American Ingenuity: Sportswear, 1930S-1970s

    (Written by the curator of the accompanying April-August 1...)

    1985
  • Orientalism: Visions of the East in Western Dress

    (Orientalism: Visions of the East in Western Dress is ther...)

    1994
  • Jocks & Nerds: Men's Style in the Twentieth Century

    (Offers a visual history of the way men have dressed in th...)

    1989
  • Fashion & Surrealism

    (Shows surrealistic paintings, photographs, clothing, and ...)

    1987
  • Splash! A History of Swimwear

    (Traces the history of bathing suits through the use of co...)

    1990
  • The Fashion Book

    (Presents brief descriptions of the contributions to fashi...)

    1998
  • Our New Clothes: Acquisitions of the 1990s

    (Photographs display important costumes and accessories of...)

    1999
  • The historical mode: Fashion and art in the 1980s

    (Fashion history from the 1980s.)

    1989
  • Giorgio Armani 1990
  • Versace 1997

Connections

Father:

Frank Harrison Martin

Mother:

Margaret Dever Martin