Biographical Sketch
| Fiske
Kimball Biographical Sketch |
A year after masterminding the "Jubilee
Celebration," of the Philadelphia Museum of Art's 75th anniversary
in1950, Fiske Kimball was presented
with the city of Philadelphia's prestigious Bok Award.
Carl Zigrosser, who joined the Museum staff as curator of prints and
drawings in 1941
and remained there until after Fiske Kimball's retirement, wrote the
following portrait of Kimball in a World of Art and Museums
(1975): "Fiske Kimball
had a
commanding, almost formidable, physical presence, a height of over six
feet, with
ample girth, created, as he used to say, by his wife's Marie's good
cooking.
There was a touch of gaucherie in the movement of his bulk; he often
reminded one
of a bull in a china shop. His most formidable feature, however, was his
cannonball head with its roundness emphasized by the shortness of his
haircut.
From it emanated persuasive ideas and an undeviating purpose. He was a
titan of
directed energy. The direction came from his sense of dedication to the
Museum."
Portrait
of
Fiske Kimball, ca. 1951, courtesy of the
Philadelphia Museum
of Art.
