Fiske Kimball Culmination and Legacy

Thomas Jefferson Memorial Commission and the Colonial Williamsburg Foundation

Considered an expert on the life history of Thomas Jefferson, Kimball was appointed to and served on the Architectural Advisory Board to the Thomas Jefferson Memorial Commission as early as 1935 until the monument's completion in 1943. Kimball, clearly enamoured with the idea of a memorial to Jefferson writes: "You know that I deeply admire creative movements in art, and that I am very sympathetic with the effort to end the 'pertrified forest' of columns in Washington, but I feel, in view of Jefferson's own strong feelings about the classic, that the Jefferson Memorial is not the place to begin." Kimball suceeded in his mission to maintain a classical order for the Thomas Jefferson Memorial.

Fiske Kimball served on the Architectural Advisory Board for the Colonial Williamsburg Foundation from 1928-1948. While on the Board Kimball expressed concerns that restored and reconstructed buildings receive certain distinction. Kimball believed reconstructed buildings should be left slightly unkempt as if, he thought, to fit in with the older architectural fabric.
Kimball is pictured here with other Advisory Board members on the steps of the George Wythe House: Front row, R. P. Bellows, A. Lawrence Kocher, Edmund S. Campbell, Marcellus E. Wright, Fiske Kimball. Second row: Susan H. Nash, W. Duncan Lee, Phillip Stern, Merrill C. Lee, Vernon M. Geddy. Standing: James L. Cogar, Arthur A. Shurcliff, William G. Perry, Andrew H. Hepburn, Thomas M. Shaw, A. E. Kendrew, Singleton P. Moorehead, Washington Reed, Jr.

	Colonial Williamsburg Foundation, Advisory Board members, Courtesy of Colonial Williamsburg Foundation, Williamsburg, Virginia.
	Courtesy of Special Collections, Alderman Library, University of Virginia.