Francis M. Naumann (born April 25, 1948) is an American scholar, curator, and art dealer, specializing in the art of the Dada movement and the Surrealist periods. He has an MFA degree in painting from the Art Institute of Chicago (1973) and a PhD in art history from the Graduate Center of the City University of New York (1988).
He taught art history at Parsons School of Design from 1977 through 1990[1] and is author of numerous articles and exhibition catalogues, including New York Dada 1915-25 (Harry N. Abrams, 1994) and Marcel Duchamp: The Art of Making Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction (Harry N. Abrams, Inc. 1999).
In 1996, he organized "Making Mischief: Dada Invades New York" for the Whitney Museum of American Art, in 1997, "Beatrice Wood: A Centennial Tribute" for the American Craft Museum in New York, and, in 2003, he co-curated "Conversion to Modernism: The Early Work of Man Ray" for the Montclair Art Museum.[2]
For nineteen years—from 2001 to 2020—he operated the Francis Naumann Fine Art gallery in New York City which showed the work of artists Marcel Duchamp, Beatrice Wood and Man Ray.[3]
He has published Marcel Duchamp: The Art of Chess, in which the correlation between Duchamp's chess activities and his art is examined and, most recently, Naomi Savage: Stretching the Limits of Photography published by the Milton Art Bank in 2020.[4] His writings on Marcel Duchamp were published as The Recurrent, Haunting Ghost: Essays on the Art, Life and Legacy of Marcel Duchamp (New York: Readymade Press, 2012). In 2019, his autobiographical account of his relationship with art historians Leo Steinberg and John Rewald (among others) and the artist Beatrice Wood was published as MENTORS: The Making of an Art Historian (Doppelhouse Press).[5][6]
In 2019, ArtNet described him as "one of the world’s leading experts on Marcel Duchamp".[7]
See also
editReferences
edit- ^ Richetti, Arianna (2022-09-16). "Duchamp: The Art of the Possible - Interview with Francis M. Naumann". DailyArt Magazine. Retrieved 2024-03-11.
- ^ "Conversion to Modernism: The Early Work of Man Ray ; essays by Francis M. Naumann and Gail Stavitsky". tfaoi.org. Retrieved 2024-03-11.
- ^ Greenberger, Alex (2019-10-07). "Dada Expert Francis Naumann Will Close Gallery, Citing Financial Pressures, Market Changes". ARTnews.com. Retrieved 2024-03-11.
- ^ Naumann, Francis M. (2020). Naomi Savage: Stretching the Limits of Photography. Milton Art Bank. ISBN 978-1-7331840-3-8. Retrieved 2024-03-11.
- ^ Naumann, Francis M. (2018). Mentors: the making of an art historian. Los Angeles: DoppelHouse Press. ISBN 9780999754467.
- ^ Shane, Robert R. (5 February 2020). "Francis M. Naumann's Mentors: The Making of an Art Historian". The Brooklyn Rail. Retrieved 11 March 2024.
- ^ "Duchamp Scholar Francis Naumann Says He's Closing His New York Gallery Because Young People Find Modernism 'Passé'". Artnet News. 18 October 2019. Retrieved 11 March 2024.
External links
edit- Francis M. Naumann Fine Art Archived 2006-10-13 at the Wayback Machine