Osborne, Carol M.
Abstract/Contents
- Abstract
- In this oral history from 2016, Carol M. Osborne, former Assistant Director of the Iris and B. Gerald Cantor Center for Visual Arts (previously the Stanford Museum of Art), discusses her research on several significant publications about the history of the Museum and its key collections, as well as recounting the personal connections that fed her early interest in art. Raised in Great Neck, New York, Osborne attributes her earliest memories of art to her mother and their visits to museums in New York City. While studying at Barnard College, she recalls meeting Albert E. Elsen, who later became a professor of art history at Stanford, and describes his influence on her: taking her to New York galleries and to his class with Meyer Shapiro, a noted art historian, at Columbia University. Leaving Barnard to marry in her sophomore year, Osborne recalls becoming good friends with artist Mark Rothko and his wife when their babies played together in Central Park. She talks about following her husband to California when he got a faculty appointment at Pomona College and, after their divorce, commuting to UC Riverside, where she earned a bachelor and a master degrees in art history. She describes her work there with Professor Richard C. Carrott, who often invited students to his home in France and showed them nearby landmarks. Arriving at Stanford in 1975 to pursue a doctorate in art history, Osborne recalls being impressed by the department chair, Lorenz Eitner, who was also director of the Stanford Museum. She remarks on the clarity and enthusiasm of his seminars about the Museum’s drawings. Osborne also notes the helpfulness of staff at the Bibliotheque National in Paris, where she worked on her dissertation, Pierre Didot the Elder and French Book Illustration, 1789-1822. Eitner acquired Didot’s Virgil for the Museum’s collection, she says, and hired her as the Museum’s assistant director as soon as she completed her doctorate in 1979. Osborne describes how she began her research on Leland and Jane Stanford and the Museum’s history in the 1980s, culminating in Museum Builders in the West: The Stanfords as Collectors and Patrons of Art, 1870-1906. Osborne also discusses preparing a catalog of Mrs. Stanford’s collection of Murano glass, Venetian Glass of the 1890s: Salviati at Stanford University. Both publications are still in print. Osborne describes several other exhibitions and catalogs she helped to organize, including one on the drawing collection. While the 1906 earthquake had devastated the original Museum, leaving it in ruins for many years, Osborne remembers the day of the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake, which closed the Museum for a decade. Osborne concludes by describing a gift to the Museum from M. J. and A. E. van Loben Sels, a major collection of drawings by American landscape architect William Trost Richards, which had been kept in a shack behind their house. She recalls preparing an exhibition and catalog of those works, with the support of new Museum director, Thomas K. Seligman, and she contrasts his leadership with that of Eitner.
Description
| Type of resource | mixed material |
|---|---|
| Date created | December 8, 2016 |
Creators/Contributors
| Author | Osborne, Carol M. | |
|---|---|---|
| Contributing author | Fryberger, Betsy G. | |
| Publisher | Stanford Historical Society |
Subjects
| Subject | Carol Osborne |
|---|---|
| Subject | Stanford Historical Society |
| Subject | oral histories |
| Subject | interviews |
| Subject | higher education |
| Subject | universities and colleges > administration > art administration |
Bibliographic information
| Related item |
|
|---|---|
| Location | https://purl.stanford.edu/jd886sb3543 |
Access conditions
- Use and reproduction
- The materials are open for research use and may be used freely for non-commercial purposes with an attribution. For commercial permission requests, please contact the Stanford University Archives (universityarchives@stanford.edu).
- Copyright
- Copyright © The Board of Trustees of the Leland Stanford Junior University. All rights reserved.
Preferred citation
- Preferred Citation
Osborne, Carol M. (2016).
Oral History. Stanford Historical Society Oral History Program Interviews (SC0932).
Department of Special Collections & University Archives, Stanford University Libraries,
Stanford, Calif. Available at: https://purl.stanford.edu/jd886sb3543.
Collection
Stanford Historical Society Oral History Program interviews, 1999-2022
View other items in this collection in SearchWorksContact information
- Contact
- universityarchives@stanford.edu
Also listed in
Loading usage metrics...